Songbird Discontinues Linux Support

Published on April 3, 2010 in Apps by Rami Taibah

Songbird, the popular open source media player has announced that it will halt its support for Linux. Currently the Songbird team is working fervently to meet their next release, NOFX, release date scheduled April 26th. It seems that Songbird’s small team has too much on its plate and came to this disheartening decision:

After careful consideration, we’ve come to the painful conclusion that we should discontinue support for the Linux version of Songbird. Some of you may wonder how a company with deep roots in Open Source could drop Linux and we want you to know it isn’t without heartache. We have a small engineering team here at Songbird, and, more than ever, must stay very focused on a narrow set of priorities. Trying to deliver a raft of new features around all media types, and across a growing list of devices, we had to make some tough choices

While I don’t really use Songbird, I know that its a solid product that many users have come to depend on. My initial knee jerk reaction was anger, but soon realized that Songbird has supported Linux for 4 years (since day one.) They wouldn’t give up on Linux unless they were really stretched out too thin.

The more important question here is: how can we fix this? Would an influx of volunteering coders bring Songbird back to life on our favorite OS? Would liberating the development team to allow more willing coders to contribute do the trick? How about forking it?

The Songbird team has put so much effort over the years, and I am sure it was a very hard decision. I would very much like to hear from them on how the community at large could help.

Via [leftyb]

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About

Rami Taibah the founder of The Linuxologist and a self proclaimed geek and Linux aficionado. This fall, he will be pursuing an MIMS degree at UC Berkeley, California. You can follow him on Twitter @rtaibah.

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  • Markus_hzgfcvbkj

    Instead of calling for a fork you should read the whole announcement:
    “We remain loyal to Linux and the ideology it represents, so we will maintain a version of the software for use by our Songbird engineers who develop on the Linux platform. We’ll make that version available to the community. We will keep Linux build bots and host the Linux builds on the developer wiki.”

    The Linux version will still be available. Its corporate support will just end. It's comparable to Ubuntu's PowerPC support.

  • http://linuxologist.com Rami Taibah

    Indeed, I have read the whole thing. I was just throwing ideas out there, I wasn't holding the figurative pitchfork here.

  • http://twitter.casidiablo.net/?p=1021 Mis tweets | casidiablo.net » Songbird Discontinues Linux Su…

    [...] — Tags: tweets — admin @ 1:21 am April 3, 2010 Songbird Discontinues Linux Support http://linuxologist.com/apps/songbird-discontinues-linux-support/ Comments [...]

  • rolandixor

    maybe you misunderstood… it's going to fall behind, in other words, they aren't going to give proper support to linux, but rather shaft us with half-baked software, like so many companies before them. It's what makes linux seem to suck in the eyes of windows users especially, and some mac users too.

    It's about time we users stop sitting back and taking it. Stick it to these big companies. Get a little rude if you have to. Make them provide support to the OS that DESERVES it.

  • http://twitter.casidiablo.net/?p=1025 Mis tweets | casidiablo.net » Tweets hechos en 2010-04-03
  • callmetwan

    That DESERVES it? Seriously? Did you not read the part about not having enough people to maintain Linux support? Why don't you go donate to those poor folks. In fact, have you EVER donated to ANY open source initiative? You don't even qualify for an opinion, much less a *right*, if you haven't contributed SIGNIFICANTLY in some way.

    Those guys work so hard for what the produce, and you're going to demand something from them!? Shame on you!

  • rolandixor

    what? do you know me? nice to know I have a friend I've never met =)

  • rolandixor

    what? do you know me? nice to know I have a friend I've never met =)

  • http://twitter.casidiablo.net/?p=1026 Mis tweets | casidiablo.net » Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-04-04
  • http://96.0.156.226/Article/923/ Songbird einstellt Linux-Unterstützung

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