Burt: Canonical's New Plan for Banshee [LWN.net]

Gabriel Burt has posted an update on his blog regarding the default music store for Banshee on Ubuntu. The new plan is as follows:

Banshee's Amazon store will remain enabled, with Canonical taking a 75% cut of all affiliate revenue; 25% on Ubuntu will now go to the GNOME Foundation.
The Ubuntu One store for Banshee will remain enabled by default, but now Canonical will donate 25% of its revenue to GNOME. They will now do the same for Rhythmbox.

Based on the wording in the blog post, this would seem to be a unilateral decision by Canonical/Ubuntu and one that, perhaps, the Banshee developers are not completely happy with. (Thanks to Jeff Schroeder.)

to post comments

Burt: Canonical's New Plan for Banshee

Posted Feb 24, 2011 21:31 UTC (Thu) by AlexHudson (guest, #41828) [Link] (6 responses)

How very odd. Whether or not you agree with Canonical's original offer to the Banshee developers, I really don't understand why going back on that offer makes any sense at all. It's not going to please any people who thought the original offer(s) were bogus, and I don't see it's going to make Banshee/GNOME any happier to give them the option they declined.

Ob.Quote: "I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further."

Burt: Canonical's New Plan for Banshee

Posted Feb 24, 2011 22:11 UTC (Thu) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (5 responses)

this sounds like the original offer, plus GNOME gets 25% of the revenue from sales through the ubuntu one store.

so this is more money to GNOME than what they originally proposed.

note that there is no way that this could be a unilateral decision by Canonical, as this involves changing the amazon afilliate relationship between GNOME and Amazon

Burt: Canonical's New Plan for Banshee

Posted Feb 24, 2011 22:19 UTC (Thu) by jake (editor, #205) [Link] (4 responses)

> note that there is no way that this could be a unilateral decision by
> Canonical, as this involves changing the amazon afilliate relationship
> between GNOME and Amazon

I don't think so. Ubuntu can just change the Amazon MP3 Store plugin to use its referral code (rather than Banshee's). Then Canonical can just cut a check for the 25% and send it to the GNOME Foundation periodically (which is, I think, what Banshee did, only they sent 100%).

I'm not saying that it *was* a unilateral decision (I don't know), but it certainly sounds like it was, and there's no technical barrier I don't think.

jake

Burt: Canonical's New Plan for Banshee

Posted Feb 24, 2011 22:37 UTC (Thu) by SEJeff (guest, #51588) [Link]

>> note that there is no way that this could be a unilateral decision by
>> Canonical, as this involves changing the amazon afilliate relationship
>> between GNOME and Amazon
>I don't think so. Ubuntu can just change the Amazon MP3 Store plugin to use its referral code (rather than Banshee's). Then Canonical can just cut a check for the 25% and send it to the GNOME Foundation periodically (which is, I think, what Banshee did, only they sent 100%).
>I'm not saying that it *was* a unilateral decision (I don't know), but it certainly sounds like it was, and there's no technical barrier I don't think.
>jake

Close :)

The GNOME Foundation gave Gabriel the Amazon Affiliate code that they control. That id was then put in banshee's amazon store plugin. They never had to send a check to the foundation as the foundation controlled that account already.

Burt: Canonical's New Plan for Banshee

Posted Feb 24, 2011 22:44 UTC (Thu) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (2 responses)

is there anyone who _was_ on the phone call who can say if this was a unilateral decision opposed by the developers, or if this is a proposal that the developers seem to accept?

the blog post was from before the phone call happened, so presenting this as a unilateral decision opposed by the developers seems to be premature.

remember that the last article on this found that the developers had opted to not accept the proposal by Canonical, but were not upset about it (which is hard to tell among all the flames being posed by uninvolved people)

this could be more premature assumptions

Burt: Canonical's New Plan for Banshee

Posted Feb 25, 2011 8:17 UTC (Fri) by AlexHudson (guest, #41828) [Link] (1 responses)

On Gabriel Burt's blog he said in the comments:

"1) We never called anybody a bully. I think our posts have been factual and noninflammatory.

2) Actually, Canonical offered us two proposals, we picked one, and then they withdrew their options, going with their own plan."

I think it's clear that there are people in the community much more annoyed about this than the Banshee developers themselves. But it seems equally clear that Canonical simply acting unilaterally.

Personally I think the Banshee devs have bent over backwards to be friendly to Canonical, and at the end of the day what Canonical have done is within their rights.

But good grief, within their massed ranks of hundreds of staff, do Canonical have any PR people at all? Do they realise what squabbling over what's probably a couple thousand dollars a year makes them look like? It's petty and unseemly, and now they're demonstrating how little their word is worth going back on what they'd said previously.

Burt: Canonical's New Plan for Banshee

Posted Feb 25, 2011 15:19 UTC (Fri) by jengelh (subscriber, #33263) [Link]

>do Canonical have any PR people at all?

Canonical is all about PR.

Burt: Canonical's New Plan for Banshee

Posted Feb 25, 2011 8:15 UTC (Fri) by nhippi (subscriber, #34640) [Link] (11 responses)

I can see how affiliate revenue and open source projects are a tricky combination. Canonical is taking money from the code banshee developers created. But Canonical is also granting a much larger user base to get affiliate revenue from.

In a corporate world, reasonable cut would be agreed together by beancounters of both sides counting how much more revenue new distribution channel will bring. But as long as code is OSS, there is nothing requiring the distributor to even *ask* the authot for a cut - distributor can take it all if they want.

The only counter would have been banshee/gnome foundation agreeing on a exclusivity deal with amazon. Which, amazon might not have granted.

Burt: Canonical's New Plan for Banshee

Posted Feb 25, 2011 9:14 UTC (Fri) by NAR (subscriber, #1313) [Link] (1 responses)

The only counter would have been banshee/gnome foundation agreeing on a exclusivity deal with amazon.

Wouldn't that go against the GPL? If the exclusivity deal is enforced by code, then the code can't be changed...

Burt: Canonical's New Plan for Banshee

Posted Feb 25, 2011 9:53 UTC (Fri) by nhippi (subscriber, #34640) [Link]

> Wouldn't that go against the GPL? If the exclusivity deal is enforced by code, then the code can't be change

You don't need to enforce it in code. Banshee would still be GPL, and you can put whatever you want to the affiliate code string in the banshee codebase.

But with exclusive deal with banshee & amazon, amazon would only pay if the affiliate code is banshee's original.

Burt: Canonical's New Plan for Banshee

Posted Feb 25, 2011 13:15 UTC (Fri) by pebolle (guest, #35204) [Link] (8 responses)

> Canonical is taking money from the code banshee developers created.

That statement is ambiguous. It could be that you mean:

"Canonical is making money with the code banshee developers created."

In that case all I would have to say is that that is one of the core freedoms of free software. I fail to see how using that freedom should be frowned upon.

It could also mean something like:

"Canonical is taking revenue that (somehow) belongs to the banshee developers."

(In a previous discussion on this matter people actually wrote about Canonical "stealing" and about Canonical's "hand in the cookie jar".) In that case I'd like to state that I can see no way in which the banshee developers are entitled to any revenue (somehow) related to the code they wrote.

Or should I read that statement differently?

Burt: Canonical's New Plan for Banshee

Posted Feb 25, 2011 15:18 UTC (Fri) by pboddie (guest, #50784) [Link] (7 responses)

(In a previous discussion on this matter people actually wrote about Canonical "stealing" and about Canonical's "hand in the cookie jar".)

I mentioned that it was like the tips in the tip jar going to the restaurant owner rather than the waiters, but I don't remember mentioning a cookie jar.

Nothing is technically wrong with Canonical populating these applications' shopping-related settings with whatever they want, but it just seems cheap when a for-profit organisation erases a purchasing option which would benefit a non-profit organisation. Compare "I thought the non-profit got the cut of the transaction, not the corporation" to "I thought the waiters got to share the tips, not that the boss got to keep them for himself".

Had LWN covered "Dodgy Bob's Banshee Music Player" sold on eBay by some guy who has replaced various affiliate codes with his own in the software, people would just utter remarks about how the guy is a "bottom feeder". Despite the spin, Canonical just look like they're rubbing shoulders with that guy.

Burt: Canonical's New Plan for Banshee

Posted Feb 25, 2011 16:26 UTC (Fri) by ean5533 (guest, #69480) [Link] (3 responses)

That's really not a good analogy, because Canonical isn't selling a music player. Let's try a different analogy:

In Widget World, there is a widget factory which gives away free unlimited widgets to anyone who asks. There are tons of different widgets (all made by different volunteer widget makers) which fulfill different tasks, but are generally useless by themselves; they have to be assembled together and tweaked to provide a useful tool.

In Widget World there are also several widget assemblers who will pick widgets for you and assemble them all up into a neat little tool, and give you this pre-built tool for free, saving you the time to research the widgets and assemble them.

One well-known widget assembler is named Canonical. In their latest pre-built widget tool they have modified the default settings on the music player widget. Instead of sending 100% of its revenue to the GNOME widget maker, the music player will send 75% of its revenue to Canonical and 25% to GNOME.

People are currently upset at Canonical because they've modified a widget's default settings to route income to themselves, rather than one of the volunteer widget makers. The upset people believe that Canonical, though well within its rights, is making a morally poor decision by routing income from GNOME to themselves.

End of analogy -- here is where my opinion comes in. I do not agree that Canonical is making a morally poor decision. All they are doing is changing a default setting in their widget tool (their distro) so that income will go to themselves instead of GNOME. Everyone seems to think that Canonical is stealing money from the volunteer widget maker, but that's not happening. In Canonical's old products, the volunteer widget maker was not getting ANY revenue from Canonical via the music player. In this new product, the volunteer widget maker will 25% of Canonical's revenue via the music player. 25% of something is more than nothing.

What people are really upset about is that they believe Canonical isn't giving enough money to the volunteer widget maker. Meanwhile, no one seems to address several very important facts:

In Canonical's (popular) new product, the volunteer widget maker will be getting more revenue than before.
Canonical already donates money to the volunteer widget maker anyway.
Canonical's motivation for doing all this is so that they can fund their continued widget assembling.

And again, remember: all that was changed was a default setting. This setting can easily be changed by people who are unhappy. If that's not good enough, then people can also just visit a different widget assembler whose default settings more match their liking. If that's still not good enough, then they can assemble their own widget tool.

Burt: Canonical's New Plan for Banshee

Posted Feb 25, 2011 17:41 UTC (Fri) by pboddie (guest, #50784) [Link] (2 responses)

That's really not a good analogy, because Canonical isn't selling a music player. Let's try a different analogy:

Well, why not just say that someone is giving away media with the music player on it, rather than spend eight sentences soaring in the "abstraction stratosphere" trying to describe how a distribution works and how the distributor can change the software they repackage? The opportunism aspect of the distributor's behaviour still stands.

As I noted on the previous article, the original developers are arguably being opportunistic themselves in tilting the purchasing facility in their favour, and as I noted in this thread, there's nothing legally wrong with erasing the defaults and putting something else in there instead. However, by retaining the beneficiary of the transactions, the message would be a positive one: "Let's see these people get more exposure and maybe a bit more cash to fund development." But by switching out the beneficiary and taking credit for that exposure, whether that should be relevant or not, the message is not so positive: "Thanks to us, those developers get more exposure, and maybe they'll get more cash as a result, but we deserve most of the credit."

Even if the developers get more money after the 75% cut or whatever it will eventually be, the negative aspects of the deal and the contentious issue of opportunism remain.

Burt: Canonical's New Plan for Banshee

Posted Feb 25, 2011 18:12 UTC (Fri) by ean5533 (guest, #69480) [Link] (1 responses)

Because I was trying to explain a point as clearly as possible -- a point which you seem to have either missed or ignored, possibly because you spent too much time counting my sentences and coming up with clever little euphemisms like "abstraction stratosphere", rather than actually reading what I wrote.

Actually, I think the real reason we disagree is because we have different fundamental values. You appear to be more concerned with who deserves "credit". However, I personally couldn't care less who gets credit. What matters to me is whether or not Linux continues to evolve. You've already stated that even if GNOME gets more money at the end of the day than it used to get, the deal is still negative. To me, that's just naive and silly. If GNOME devs get paid more and Canonical revenue goes up, then development can continue and we, the end users, win. Who gives a shit what "percentage of credit" Canonical gets?

Burt: Canonical's New Plan for Banshee

Posted Feb 26, 2011 16:44 UTC (Sat) by pboddie (guest, #50784) [Link]

Because I was trying to explain a point as clearly as possible -- a point which you seem to have either missed or ignored, possibly because you spent too much time counting my sentences and coming up with clever little euphemisms like "abstraction stratosphere", rather than actually reading what I wrote.

An analogy should engage the audience's sense of familiarity with a subject and take every opportunity to be concise.

Actually, I think the real reason we disagree is because we have different fundamental values. You appear to be more concerned with who deserves "credit".

No, it's a matter of reputation.

However, I personally couldn't care less who gets credit. What matters to me is whether or not Linux continues to evolve. You've already stated that even if GNOME gets more money at the end of the day than it used to get, the deal is still negative.

Yes, because the question that lingers here is this: what if Canonical just let the developers offer their purchasing option as is, offering their own option alongside it without redirecting the revenue stream? I thought having a choice was one of the things people chose an open platform for.

To me, that's just naive and silly. If GNOME devs get paid more and Canonical revenue goes up, then development can continue and we, the end users, win. Who gives a shit what "percentage of credit" Canonical gets?

This is a lot like the argument I hear when a charity uses an unscrupulous provider of donation-generating services who takes 75% or more of the donated amount for themselves and passes on the remainder to the charity. I've heard representatives say, "Oh, well we make more money anyway because we reach more people and so more money filters down to us." What escapes them is that this is an admission that they don't care about where most of the donors' money goes, don't care about improving their strategy of reaching more people (the example I have in mind is a charity that most of the planet will be aware of), and whether the donors get the intended effect for their money (instead of paying for some rich guy's new house/car/boat/cabin), especially when there are other means of getting 95% or more of that money to its intended recipient.

So the argument about the developers still making more money isn't entirely positive, either. And it isn't exactly flattering to Canonical if this is how they see themselves turning a profit in the future. In fact, it puts them in pretty bad company, really.

Burt: Canonical's New Plan for Banshee

Posted Feb 25, 2011 17:04 UTC (Fri) by pebolle (guest, #35204) [Link] (2 responses)

> I don't remember mentioning a cookie jar.

That was actually zonker in http://lwn.net/Articles/428406/ .

> Had LWN covered "Dodgy Bob's Banshee Music Player" sold on eBay by some guy who has replaced various affiliate codes with his own in the software, people would just utter remarks about how the guy is a "bottom feeder".

As long as Dodgy Bob makes no false claims about authorship and respects the freedoms that need to be respected, Dodgy Bob is just redistributing free software (for a fee, but that's not relevant). That's what free software is all about. See http://diveintomark.org/archives/2009/10/19/the-point for a, much better formulated, explanation.

Burt: Canonical's New Plan for Banshee

Posted Feb 25, 2011 17:27 UTC (Fri) by pboddie (guest, #50784) [Link] (1 responses)

As long as Dodgy Bob makes no false claims about authorship and respects the freedoms that need to be respected, Dodgy Bob is just redistributing free software (for a fee, but that's not relevant). That's what free software is all about. See http://diveintomark.org/archives/2009/10/19/the-point for a, much better formulated, explanation.

Sure, I know what Free Software is all about. But it wouldn't stop people thinking that the guy isn't really a great member of the community, if one considers him a member of the community at all. Even if he were giving his repackaging of the software away for free, I'm sure people would think it as cynical opportunism that he would point some revenue-generating feature to benefit his own account, especially if the switch were not prominently advertised.

This kind of thing is all about the reputation of the people doing it, not whether it's legally possible.

Burt: Canonical's New Plan for Banshee

Posted Feb 25, 2011 18:17 UTC (Fri) by pebolle (guest, #35204) [Link]

Well, I feel that pointing "some revenue-generating feature to benefit his own account" is just fine, even more so if this is done openly. But Dodgy Bob shouldn't expect others to also choose to benefit him.

It all looks to me like just a single example of someone acting according to the core values of free software: do what you fancy with free software, as long as you keep treating it as free software. Anybody doing that is, as far as I'm concerned, part of the community.

As an aside, "community" is used so much, especially by people (apparently) employed by Canonical, that it has almost lost all meaning. I find it hard to care about arguments that focus on "community". See, in this discussion, some people seem to use it to as a way to obscure the fact that what Canonical is doing here is just trying to earn money with free software. If Canonical should not be allowed to do that in this specific way, neither should the GNOME foundation (or the banshee developers).

Burt: Canonical's New Plan for Banshee

Posted Feb 25, 2011 11:34 UTC (Fri) by AlexHudson (guest, #41828) [Link]

Aaron Bockover's post is very interesting and worth a read:

http://abock.org/2011/02/24/an-open-proposal-to-canonical

The technical considerations of what Canonical is trying to do is explored - it's not as simple as just replacing a referral code, it seems - so who knows whether or not the user experience on the Canonical version will be as smooth as on the upstream version. But all that technical stuff aside, I thought this comment spoke volumes:

"Finally, I am excited about the new potential Banshee has in the near future to generate truly significant referral revenue for the GNOME Foundation as we near Banshee 2.0 and its availability on Windows and Mac OS X, where we will fully control its distribution as an upstream."

It will be a sad, sad day if third party developers decide to concentrate more on Windows and OS X because that's where they can generate most revenue. To a large extent, we've already seen this - Firefox is pretty heavily Windows-oriented, and who can blame them - but developers must be able to generate proportionate revenue on the free desktop.