Linux Mint Diverting Banshee Revenue 178
LinuxScribe writes "According Linux Mint founder Clement Lefebvre, the popular Linux Mint distribution has changed the Amazon.com affiliate code for the Banshee music player so that Mint, not Canonical or the GNOME Foundation, will receive the revenue from MP3 sales through Banshee. Though a trivial amount of money ($3.41 in November 2011), Linux Mint's actions still raise the question: how should revenue be shared between upstream and downstream FLOSS projects?"
Re:Let the users choose... (Score:5, Interesting)
If I had mod points...
"Thanks for running Banshee... From time to time online transactions generate a small amount of commission.
Where would you like any proceeds to go to:
[ ] Canonical
[ ] Mint
[X] Cancer Research Charity
[ ] A.N Other Charity
"
Nothing really (Score:5, Interesting)
Okay, lets simplify this for all that don't want to read the articles.
Banshee's own link is dead so Canonical replaced it with their own in Ubuntu.
When Linux MINT saw this in the changelogs while repackaging, they did the same thing replacing it with their own.
I'm sure both would change this back if Banshee upstream started accepting donations again.
Re:Let the users choose... (Score:3, Interesting)
Exactly. The only sane way to resolve conflicts like this is to let the users choose (and provide smart defaults).
By "smart" I mean something that doesn't disadvantage any of the choices.... off the top of my head, an interface something like the Humble Bundle, perhaps equal or random distribution of money to start and randomize the order of choices. Then record (anonymously) the choices of anyone who adjusts the defaults and start setting the defaults according to general community preference once enough samples are taken. That can be gamed, but it seems like too much work for *way* too little gain. :)
Revenue and Open Source... (Score:0, Interesting)
They are mutually exclusive!! You nerds need to understand that. You wrote something and released it for free, it implies $0 in revenues.
I know Nerds don't necessarily understand business but that's the reality geeks!
Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Interesting)
More importantly, who cares about Banshee? Okay I know a lot do since it's popular but I can't seriously understand why would you want a media player running on mono with the slugginess that such implies, with silly album galleries that hardly match the way we listen to music today and that pointlessly tries to also manage video file without actually making the commitment to being a media center.
The album galleries drive me crazy, this is almost as bad as the physical bookshelf in the iPad. Music players these days are search based *because* it was realised that music can be grouped into more categories than what physical disc they were published in. The files don't need to be in an specific hierarchy nor in the same computer any more.
Yet that doesn't make for pretty thumbnails, and because everything must be thumbnails banshee presents music in little graphical boxes with a thumbnail of a CD case that you probably don't have, successfully reproducing the experience of browsing a physical music library from 1995 in 2011!
I have my complains about Rhythmbox but exactly what has Banshee (or Exaile) that Rhythmbox doesn't?