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The Ubuntu One music store and free software for profit
One of the features expected with the upcoming Ubuntu 10.04 release is the Ubuntu One Music Store (UOMS). The UOMS is a mechanism by which Ubuntu users can purchase songs in the MP3 format, with some of the revenue going to support Canonical. These songs are evidently compressed at a relatively high bit rate and lack any sort of DRM or watermarks. Support for the UOMS has been integrated into the Rhythmbox music player, with support for other players expected in the future. Discussion of this new feature has been relatively subdued thus far, but developers elsewhere are beginning to take notice and ask some questions about the extent to which the UOMS should be supported.Recently, Amarok hacker Jeff Mitchell went to the openSUSE community to ask them how they felt about the UOMS. In particular, he would like to know how openSUSE might react if Canonical were to push its Rhythmbox changes back upstream - which has not yet happened, as of this writing. Would openSUSE be willing to ship a Rhythmbox plugin which existed for the purpose of funding another distributor? How, asked Jeff, do we feel about free software which is designed to make money for others?
To an extent, this question has been answered for years: both Rhythmbox and Amarok include support for Magnatune's music store, and distributors have shipped that support. This plugin generates income - a significant amount, evidently - for Magnatune, which kicks a portion back to Rhythmbox and Amarok. So simply operating a for-profit music store is not, itself, reason for concern or for exclusion from free music player applications. The Ubuntu music store appears to be looked at differently, though, for a couple of reasons, one of which may hold more water than the other.
Jeff described the rules which music stores like Magnatune must meet for inclusion in Amarok:
It is not clear what sort of preview capability will be included in the UOMS. It would appear, from Ubuntu's documentation, that tracks can be downloaded up to three times, so redownloads are indeed possible "at any time," but up to a limit. Where things will really fall down, though, is the requirement for free formats; the Ubuntu store looks to be MP3-only (the occasional track in Windows media format is unlikely to make anybody feel any better). So the simple act of playing tracks from the UOMS on an Ubuntu system will require the installation of codecs which have potential patent problems or which are not free software.
That requirement is not, needless to say, encouraging the wider use of free audio formats. Perhaps this is a place where Canonical could have tried to push things in the right direction by insisting on the right to sell tracks in free (and preferably lossless) formats. Perhaps Canonical did try and failed; if so, that's not something which has been communicated to the rest of the world.
The other complaint, again as expressed by Jeff, is this:
In other words, does it make sense for one distribution to ship code which exists for the purpose of earning money for somebody else?
Again, the precedent is fairly clear: the Firefox browser has been an reliable money-making tool for the Mozilla project, and Mozilla Corporation is a for-profit entity (though the Mozilla Foundation is not). Many drivers contributed to the kernel are put there by for-profit corporations which clearly hope to see that code spur sales of their products. Gstreamer has an array of commercial offerings designed to plug into it. And so on. Free software may be free-as-in-beer, but the profit motive is often not that far away.
It is tempting to say that the real complaint here is that, if this support were to be shipped outside of Ubuntu, the beneficiary would be Canonical in particular. The truth of the matter, though, is that a music store designed to benefit any other distribution-owning corporation would likely raise eyebrows as well. But it is not clear that this is right; there is nothing inherently wrong with generating money for companies which are making free software.
Free software licenses are not allowed to discriminate between different fields of use. Freedom means that users can use the code to do something its developers might find unpleasant - or worse. That does not mean, though, that distributors have to ship software aimed at any purpose. In the past, programs like hot babe and gnaughty have run into opposition at distributors. So, if distributors were to decide that selling MP3 files to users violates their standards of decency, there would be precedents for keeping the code out.
On the other hand, explicitly patching out a music player plugin to prevent users from spending money with another distributor might be seen as petty, at best.
So far, the situation is hypothetical; Canonical has not yet tried to push this code upstream, and nobody is expecting other distributors to fish this patch out of the Ubuntu source packages. It would not be surprising if this kind if situation were to arise at some point, though; indeed, it would be surprising if it doesn't. So it makes sense to have this discussion now; that way, the people involved may have some idea of what they want to do when a real decision must be made.
New Releases
Community Fedora Remix 12.3
Valent Turkovic has announced the release of Community Fedora Remix 12.3, available on live DVD/USB.LFS-6.6 is released
Linux From Scratch 6.6 has been released. "This release includes numerous changes to LFS-6.5 (including updates to Linux-2.6.32.8, GCC-4.4.3, Glibc-2.11.1) and security fixes. It also includes editorial work on the explanatory material throughout the book, improving both the clarity and accuracy of the text."
SystemRescueCd 1.4 released (The H)
The H takes a look at the 1.4.0 release of SystemRescueCD. "The latest release uses the 2.6.32.9 Linux kernel and features the new options to boot from NFS or NBD, which lets users boot SystemRescueCd from a network if, for example, a computer doesn't have a CD drive. The developers note that although previous versions of the SystemRescueCd could also boot from a network, version 1.4.0 mounts the root file system through the network instead of copying the whole root file system image to the local system's memory. This allows computers with only 256 MB of memory to boot the 400 MB+ image from the network."
Lucid Alpha 3 released
The alpha 3 release of Ubuntu's Lucid Lynx has been released. "Pre-releases of Lucid are *not* encouraged for anyone needing a stable system or anyone who is not comfortable running into occasional, even frequent breakage. They are, however, recommended for Ubuntu developers and those who want to help in testing, reporting, and fixing bugs. Alpha 3 is the third in a series of milestone CD images that will be released throughout the Lucid development cycle. The Alpha images are known to be reasonably free of showstopper CD build or installer bugs, while representing a very recent snapshot of Lucid."
Fixstars Releases Yellow Dog Enterprise Linux for CUDA
Fixstars has released Yellow Dog Enterprise Linux for CUDA, "the first enterprise Linux OS optimized for GPU computing. YDEL for CUDA offers end users, developers and integrators a faster, more reliable, and less complex GPU computing experience."
Distribution News
Fedora
Fedora 13 Alpha slip by one week
Fedora slipped the release of F13 Alpha by one week. Further milestone dates are expected to remain the same however.Fedora Board Meeting Recap 2010-02-25
Click below for a recap of the February 25, 2010 meeting of the Fedora Advisory Board. Topics include using Fedora Talk for board meetings, Improved metrics, Strategic Working Group outputs, and board member removal policy.Board SWG Meeting 2010-03-01 Recap
Click below for a recap of the March 1, 2010 meeting of the Advisory Board Strategic Working Group. Topics include spins and the default offering.
Mandriva Linux
Mandriva Joins ARM Connected Community
Mandriva has announced that it is a new member in the ARM Connected Community, "The ARM Connected Community is a global network of companies aligned to provide a complete solution, from design to manufacture and end use, for products based on the ARM architecture. ARM offers a variety of resources to Community members, including promotional programs and peer-networking opportunities that enable a variety of ARM Partners to come together to provide end-to-end customer solutions. Visitors to the ARM Connected Community have the ability to contact members directly through the website."
Noteworthy Mandriva Cooker changes 15 February - 28 February 2010
Frederik Himpe summarizes some changes in Mandriva Cooker. "The kernel is now updated to 2.6.33 final. As usual, KernelNewbies has a complete overview of the changes in this new kernel. Some noteworthy changes include: the new Nouveau driver for NVidia graphics cards is now included in the kernel and is now used by default on Mandriva instead of the NV driver."
Ubuntu family
Minutes from the Ubuntu Technical Board meeting
Click below for the minutes from the February 23, 2010 meeting of the Ubuntu Technical Board. Topics include security of package-sets, package set for CLI/Mono packages, and Ubuntu IRC Council Access level.
Other distributions
OpenSolaris future assured by Oracle (The H)
The H reports that Oracle will continue to support OpenSolaris. "At the OpenSolaris Annual Meeting, held on IRC, Oracle executive Dan Roberts has assured the community about the future of the open source version of Solaris. The statements, available as a log of the meeting, have led Peter Tribble, who had expressed concerns on the lack of communication, to conclude "rumours of its [OpenSolaris] death have been greatly exaggerated"."
North Korea develops Red Star OS based on Linux
North Korea has developed its own Linux variant, Red Star OS. "It's hard to substantiate most claims made about North Korea's IT industry, but details of the new operating system were made public by a Russian blogger (http://ashen-rus.livejournal.com/4300.html), who was able to buy a copy of the program off the street."
Distribution Newsletters
CentOS Pulse #1001
The CentOS Pulse newsletter for March 2, 2010 is out. "In this issue we have a very interesting interview on the usage of CentOS at University College London, a report on FOSDEM 2010 (where nearly all of the main CentOS personnel showed up) and, of course, the usual categories like community, jokes and updates."
DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 343
The DistroWatch Weekly for March 1, 2010 is out. "For many users, the combination of Slackware Linux and the Xfce desktop is the perfect blend of stability and speed, whatever the age of their hardware. But if Slackware itself is too much hard work, why not try one of its derivatives with a friendlier approach to the desktop and with out-of-the-box support for popular hardware and multimedia codecs? Bernard Hoffmann, an experienced Slackware user, has taken three Slackware-based Xfce distributions (Zenwalk Linux, Salix OS and GoblinX) for a test drive to see which one would be a best fit for a blazing fast and powerful home desktop. In the news section, Oracle confirms the continued development of OpenSolaris, Fedora delays the upcoming alpha release of version 13, Mandriva switches to nouveau with the latest kernel update in "Cooker", and Linux Mint prepares for an imminent release of its LXDE edition. Also in this issue, a link to a good summary of bleeding-edge repositories for Kubuntu and a brief talk about zombie processes. Finally, we are pleased to announce that the recipient of the February 2010 DistroWatch.com donation is the Squid project. Happy reading!"
Fedora Weekly News 215
The Fedora Weekly News for February 28, 2010 is out. "This issue kicks off with an announcement last week of one week slippage for Fedora 13 Alpha, as well as a call for Fedora 13 slogan suggestions, which will be finalized on 3/2. In news from the Fedora Planet, a report from the GNOME London UX Hackfest, a summary of the Fedora 13 Talking Points, and the return of Chromium to Fedora 12. In a new beat, "Fedora in the News", a recent article from LinuxPlanet on recent positive changes to Rawhide, Fedora's development version. In Quality Assurance team news, coverage of the recent Test Day on language pack plugin for yum, details on this week's Test Day, detailed coverage of the QA weekly meetings, and an update on Fedora 13 Alpha validation testing and delay. In Translation team news, fixes to Hivex and kf translations submission issues, announcement of an upcoming release of Transifex v 0.8 rc1, and new members for the Fedora Localization Project for Russian, Spanish, Italian, and Bengali! The Art/Design team brings us news of a couple Fedora 13 website banner designs, work on a LiveCD icon, and a call for help with testing the Fedora 13 Alpha backgrounds. This issue finishes off with a quiet week of security patches for Fedora 11, 12 and 13. Enjoy!"
openSUSE Weekly News/112
This issues of the openSUSE Weekly News covers Honoring openSUSE Wiki Reviewing Contributions, * Michal Hrusecky: Public openSUSE 11.3 virtual machine, * Jared Ottley: Alfresco PDF Toolkit, * How to make Monitor refresh 120htz, and * Guillaume DE BURE (gdebure): A call for testers KMyMoney.Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter #182
The Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter for February 27, 2010 is out. "In this issue we cover: Lucid Alpha 3 Released, Rocking The Opportunistic Desktop, Can you hear the Music, New Ubuntu Members: Americas Board Meeting, Ubuntu Libya LoCo at the Technology & Science Fair, Help localization testing with the ISO tracker, Translating software descriptions with Nightmonkey, Attention Encrypted Home Users, Server Bug Zapping - Call for Participation, Ubuntu Women has a new IRC Channel, Full Circle Magazine #34, and much, much more!"
Interviews
Matt Asay answers your questions (Slashdot)
Slashdot has posted a lengthy interview with Matt Asay regarding his new role at Canonical. "I like to think of our guiding principle as 'make money because of the Ubuntu community, not from it.' At the scale where we operate, all sorts of financial opportunities become possible, opportunities that don't require us to hold back Ubuntu bits to goad people into purchasing. As we roll new services out, I hope you'll let us know how we're doing, and ensure we never sacrifice usability for financial gain." (Thanks to Paul Wise).
Page editor: Rebecca Sobol
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