6 ms·

Canonical to take 75% of Banshee Amazon Sales

39 points by Newky 16y ago

cookiecaper 16y ago
I don't have a problem with this. They're lucky that Canonical is giving them anything. As with anything else in free software, an individual is free to get in there and change the Amazon affiliate code and redistribute the modified software, and there's no obligation to give any part of that revenue to any other party, including the original author of the software. Canonical would be losing a significant stream of revenue by switching to Banshee as the default music player in Ubuntu without doing something to recuperate the revenue they've heretofore derived from their stores in Rhythmbox. Banshee is going to end up making more out of this anyway as Ubuntu's new default player, and if you don't like the cash going to Canonical, you can download a build elsewhere or patch the source yourself so that the original affiliate code is restored. People have to have money to function, even in free software.
- smtf 16y ago
  Agreed. This seems like win win all around. If you want Banshee to take more of the cake, patch in their affiliate code or throw your own affiliate code in there if you want ... actually, that doesn't sound like a bad idea ...
- joe_the_user 16y ago
  I agree Canonical's behavior doesn't seem out-of-line. The difference between this and Apple's App store policy is that anyone create an alternative and anyone can load an alternative once they get distribution. The comment section certainly gave me pause - it seems someone has a lot of bad feelings towards Ubuntu. As I understand, Red Hat is larger, profitable business that has paid for a lot Gnome development (Wikipedia say Red Hat: 87.25 million net income, 3,200 employees, Canonical: $30 million net income, 350+ employees, pretty exactly one tenth the side of Red Hat). Great but somehow the integration effort put into Canonical's distribution creates a considerably more usable system that has a good deal more traction. If, hypothetically, Canonical is "leaching", then it should really, really easy to put together a superior distribution to Ubuntu. Somehow no one has done that.
  - darklajid 16y ago
    The packaging for most mono based packages are community driven. I bet that they didn't pay a dime to get a readily packaged software. There's no integration effort (except for maybe their 'branding' efforts, see their tries to differentiate in some places of the desktop, e.g. the notification area). None at all. Comparing Apple (asking for a share of the profit! people make on their platform) with a company picking a product that donates to a non-profit foundation and changing the rules (for that product, btw. We're talking about a single decision, for a single product. No 'It's always been part of the terms of use' discussion, no 'It's the same for everyone' treatment) is kinda sad. There's no AppStore(tm) here. Apple's not even remotely connected to this change.
- darklajid 16y ago
  As I commented in the other thread: We're talking about significant sums for Gnome maybe, not really for Canonical imo [1]. Ignoring that: 1) They back down on their own previous decision. 2) They add nothing of value and change the affiliate code that gives money to a non-profit. It's not like they needed to spend _any_ kind of effort providing banshee.. Sorry, I know business is about making money. I doubt that this is in any way necessary though businesswise (yes, this is completely arbitrary and not backed except for the numbers given in the link). I find it very bad from an ethical point of view. This lack of income might be directly affecting things like 'hire a gnome administrator', 'sponsor awesome developers to join a conference/hackfest'. 1: http://gburt.blogspot.com/2010/12/amazon-affiliate-revenue.html http://gburt.blogspot.com/2010/12/amazon-affiliate-revenue.h...
  - cookiecaper 16y ago
    This is part of the way free software works. If you don't want people to change your affiliate code, make the Amazon Store module proprietary and say no one can use it if they change the affiliate code. I think it's a bit presumptuous to assume that Canonical doesn't need the revenue from the music sales. I'm certainly not going to fault them for attempting to retain it after switching to a new default music player, they give a lot of stuff out for free and people have to make money somehow. End users don't buy many extra support contracts like BigCorp does, and Ubuntu targets end users much more than BigCorp. The 25% cut could easily equal old revenue numbers as Ubuntu has a big installed base and would be trotting Banshee out in front of all of its users by default, which is lots more users and exposure. Canonical's code is almost all open-source and the money supports them as well. I don't think the GNOME Foundation is a more worthy recipient. Canonical is one of the only vendors that takes desktop Linux seriously and I am happy to see them get some money to help out in those endeavors.
    - darklajid 16y ago
      I partly agree. Free software works that way, that is: It allows this. And that's good. It's the reason why I care about it and I guess lots of other people feel the same way. That you _can_ do things doesn't mean that it's nice or morally okay. Looking at the numbers: Yes, I don't know what Canonical needs or not. If it makes a dent. I hope that I clearly marked this parts of my opinion as nothing but guesswork. Looking at the numbers the banshee project made public I still stand to my claim though and feel that this - so far - is not money you need to tap into as a company. Regarding the switch: You seem to imply that this is kind of a nice thing. As if Canonical was 'allowing' banshee to be the default player. You indicate that this is a kind of 'benefit'. I'd say that the users just wanted that music player and Canonical (or, the Ubuntu project) listened [1], [2], [3]. Providing a music player of their users' choice is not a nice gesture where they help out a weird, unknown & tiny project, they are choosing a product that was available (although optionally) on their platform for a long time as a new default to suit their business needs already. Again: In my world, they are already profiting from the banshee project, ignoring Amazon sales. Integrating Ubuntu One sales was a (fine, great, understandable) business decision. Implying that they can change a 'buy here and you make Amazon donate to Gnome' (yes, the wording is obviously not neutral) plugin, because they are nice enough to distribute the banshee product as a default media player in Ubuntu is outragous in my world. Edit: Just stumbled upon this part of your answer: 'I think it's a bit presumptuous to assume that Canonical doesn't need the revenue from the music sales.' This is mightily misleading and misrepresenting my post. I'm not sure if you don't know or if that is a mistake, but Ubuntu/Canonical DO (potentially) already get money from banshee users. Their own store is integrated in banshee as well [4] and the decision that they backed off from [5] was in fact that they wanted to ship only their own plugin. Which would've been fine. With that decision users by default would've been forced to a) buy using Ubuntu One (100% to Canonical) or b) buy elsewhere, possibly using the disabled by default Amazon extension, which might donate to the Gnome Foundation. They changed their route and I have a hard time understanding it (mind you, again, not from a business perspective. If you like to tack the Greed Badge on your shirt, and probably you need to as a company, this is fine. If you want to have code monkeys working for you for free however, this might be the wrong way to take). 1: http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/item/2073/ http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/item/2073/ 2: http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/item/9761/ http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/item/9761/ 3: http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/11731/ http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/11731/ 4: http://packages.ubuntu.com/de/lucid/banshee-extension-ubuntuonemusicstore http://packages.ubuntu.com/de/lucid/banshee-extension-ubuntu... 5: http://gburt.blogspot.com/2011/02/banshee-supporting-gnome-on-ubuntu.html http://gburt.blogspot.com/2011/02/banshee-supporting-gnome-o...
rmc 16y ago
Canonical don't get 75% of the sale, they get 75% of the affiliate bonus. I don't know how much it is, but I guess its low (anyone know?)
- dmaz 16y ago
  Looks like 10%[1], so Canonical gets 7.5% of the sale. For comparison Apple takes $0.29 per $0.99 song. [1] https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/associates/join/compensation.html https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/associates/join/comp...
  - whatusername 16y ago
    Apple processes the Credit Card and provides the distribution. So not quite a fair comparison.
- Newky 16y ago
  Apologies for incorrect wording. Am I able to edit the title?
- darklajid 16y ago
  Low? Nice term. We're discussing a foundation (no means of income except sponsorship and a high level version of begging) versus a company run by a billionaire (forgive spelling errors and missing out details on MS's financial situation). Amounts are published regularly, see for example [1] on the very same blog. 1: http://gburt.blogspot.com/2010/12/amazon-affiliate-revenue.html http://gburt.blogspot.com/2010/12/amazon-affiliate-revenue.h...
motters 16y ago
Canonical should leave the Amazon store alone, and give users the freedom to decide whether to buy their music using UbuntuOne (donating to Canonical) or Amazon (Donating to Gnome). Even better, under System/Preferences make the donation preferences configurable (I'd like to see a donation control panel allowing you to allocate a donation to different FOSS projects based upon your usage of them, or according to some user defined ratios).
- tedreed 16y ago
  I already have an Amazon account. Why would I go out of my way to get a different account just so a few pennies of my purchase can go somewhere different? I don't think the "leave it to the users" option really works here. A lot of people will choose the least-work path.
ssp 16y ago
Banshee might want to consider getting a trademark on their name, and then only allow other people to use it if they keep the affiliate code that goes to the GNOME Foundation.
- natrius 16y ago
  It would probably be a net negative for the Banshee project. Ubuntu wants Banshee to be the default player because of the quality of the software, not the name. I don't think they'd mind being forced to rename it UbuntuTunes.
- rmc 16y ago
  Theres an easy way around that, just compile the software and use a different name, like what debian do with Firefox, its called IceWeasel in debian.

39 points by Newky 16y ago

I don't have a problem with this. They're lucky that Canonical is giving them anything. As with anything else in free software, an individual is free to get in there and change the Amazon affiliate code and redistribute the modified software, and there's no obligation to give any part of that revenue to any other party, including the original author of the software. Canonical would be losing a significant stream of revenue by switching to Banshee as the default music player in Ubuntu without doing something to recuperate the revenue they've heretofore derived from their stores in Rhythmbox. Banshee is going to end up making more out of this anyway as Ubuntu's new default player, and if you don't like the cash going to Canonical, you can download a build elsewhere or patch the source yourself so that the original affiliate code is restored. People have to have money to function, even in free software.

smtf 16y ago
Agreed. This seems like win win all around. If you want Banshee to take more of the cake, patch in their affiliate code or throw your own affiliate code in there if you want ... actually, that doesn't sound like a bad idea ...
joe_the_user 16y ago
I agree Canonical's behavior doesn't seem out-of-line. The difference between this and Apple's App store policy is that anyone create an alternative and anyone can load an alternative once they get distribution. The comment section certainly gave me pause - it seems someone has a lot of bad feelings towards Ubuntu. As I understand, Red Hat is larger, profitable business that has paid for a lot Gnome development (Wikipedia say Red Hat: 87.25 million net income, 3,200 employees, Canonical: $30 million net income, 350+ employees, pretty exactly one tenth the side of Red Hat). Great but somehow the integration effort put into Canonical's distribution creates a considerably more usable system that has a good deal more traction. If, hypothetically, Canonical is "leaching", then it should really, really easy to put together a superior distribution to Ubuntu. Somehow no one has done that.
- darklajid 16y ago
  The packaging for most mono based packages are community driven. I bet that they didn't pay a dime to get a readily packaged software. There's no integration effort (except for maybe their 'branding' efforts, see their tries to differentiate in some places of the desktop, e.g. the notification area). None at all. Comparing Apple (asking for a share of the profit! people make on their platform) with a company picking a product that donates to a non-profit foundation and changing the rules (for that product, btw. We're talking about a single decision, for a single product. No 'It's always been part of the terms of use' discussion, no 'It's the same for everyone' treatment) is kinda sad. There's no AppStore(tm) here. Apple's not even remotely connected to this change.
darklajid 16y ago
As I commented in the other thread: We're talking about significant sums for Gnome maybe, not really for Canonical imo [1]. Ignoring that: 1) They back down on their own previous decision. 2) They add nothing of value and change the affiliate code that gives money to a non-profit. It's not like they needed to spend _any_ kind of effort providing banshee.. Sorry, I know business is about making money. I doubt that this is in any way necessary though businesswise (yes, this is completely arbitrary and not backed except for the numbers given in the link). I find it very bad from an ethical point of view. This lack of income might be directly affecting things like 'hire a gnome administrator', 'sponsor awesome developers to join a conference/hackfest'. 1: http://gburt.blogspot.com/2010/12/amazon-affiliate-revenue.html http://gburt.blogspot.com/2010/12/amazon-affiliate-revenue.h...
- cookiecaper 16y ago
  This is part of the way free software works. If you don't want people to change your affiliate code, make the Amazon Store module proprietary and say no one can use it if they change the affiliate code. I think it's a bit presumptuous to assume that Canonical doesn't need the revenue from the music sales. I'm certainly not going to fault them for attempting to retain it after switching to a new default music player, they give a lot of stuff out for free and people have to make money somehow. End users don't buy many extra support contracts like BigCorp does, and Ubuntu targets end users much more than BigCorp. The 25% cut could easily equal old revenue numbers as Ubuntu has a big installed base and would be trotting Banshee out in front of all of its users by default, which is lots more users and exposure. Canonical's code is almost all open-source and the money supports them as well. I don't think the GNOME Foundation is a more worthy recipient. Canonical is one of the only vendors that takes desktop Linux seriously and I am happy to see them get some money to help out in those endeavors.
  - darklajid 16y ago
    I partly agree. Free software works that way, that is: It allows this. And that's good. It's the reason why I care about it and I guess lots of other people feel the same way. That you _can_ do things doesn't mean that it's nice or morally okay. Looking at the numbers: Yes, I don't know what Canonical needs or not. If it makes a dent. I hope that I clearly marked this parts of my opinion as nothing but guesswork. Looking at the numbers the banshee project made public I still stand to my claim though and feel that this - so far - is not money you need to tap into as a company. Regarding the switch: You seem to imply that this is kind of a nice thing. As if Canonical was 'allowing' banshee to be the default player. You indicate that this is a kind of 'benefit'. I'd say that the users just wanted that music player and Canonical (or, the Ubuntu project) listened [1], [2], [3]. Providing a music player of their users' choice is not a nice gesture where they help out a weird, unknown & tiny project, they are choosing a product that was available (although optionally) on their platform for a long time as a new default to suit their business needs already. Again: In my world, they are already profiting from the banshee project, ignoring Amazon sales. Integrating Ubuntu One sales was a (fine, great, understandable) business decision. Implying that they can change a 'buy here and you make Amazon donate to Gnome' (yes, the wording is obviously not neutral) plugin, because they are nice enough to distribute the banshee product as a default media player in Ubuntu is outragous in my world. Edit: Just stumbled upon this part of your answer: 'I think it's a bit presumptuous to assume that Canonical doesn't need the revenue from the music sales.' This is mightily misleading and misrepresenting my post. I'm not sure if you don't know or if that is a mistake, but Ubuntu/Canonical DO (potentially) already get money from banshee users. Their own store is integrated in banshee as well [4] and the decision that they backed off from [5] was in fact that they wanted to ship only their own plugin. Which would've been fine. With that decision users by default would've been forced to a) buy using Ubuntu One (100% to Canonical) or b) buy elsewhere, possibly using the disabled by default Amazon extension, which might donate to the Gnome Foundation. They changed their route and I have a hard time understanding it (mind you, again, not from a business perspective. If you like to tack the Greed Badge on your shirt, and probably you need to as a company, this is fine. If you want to have code monkeys working for you for free however, this might be the wrong way to take). 1: http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/item/2073/ http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/item/2073/ 2: http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/item/9761/ http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/item/9761/ 3: http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/11731/ http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/11731/ 4: http://packages.ubuntu.com/de/lucid/banshee-extension-ubuntuonemusicstore http://packages.ubuntu.com/de/lucid/banshee-extension-ubuntu... 5: http://gburt.blogspot.com/2011/02/banshee-supporting-gnome-on-ubuntu.html http://gburt.blogspot.com/2011/02/banshee-supporting-gnome-o...

rmc 16y ago

Canonical don't get 75% of the sale, they get 75% of the affiliate bonus. I don't know how much it is, but I guess its low (anyone know?)

dmaz 16y ago
Looks like 10%[1], so Canonical gets 7.5% of the sale. For comparison Apple takes $0.29 per $0.99 song. [1] https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/associates/join/compensation.html https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/associates/join/comp...
- whatusername 16y ago
  Apple processes the Credit Card and provides the distribution. So not quite a fair comparison.
Newky 16y ago
Apologies for incorrect wording. Am I able to edit the title?
darklajid 16y ago
Low? Nice term. We're discussing a foundation (no means of income except sponsorship and a high level version of begging) versus a company run by a billionaire (forgive spelling errors and missing out details on MS's financial situation). Amounts are published regularly, see for example [1] on the very same blog. 1: http://gburt.blogspot.com/2010/12/amazon-affiliate-revenue.html http://gburt.blogspot.com/2010/12/amazon-affiliate-revenue.h...

motters 16y ago

Canonical should leave the Amazon store alone, and give users the freedom to decide whether to buy their music using UbuntuOne (donating to Canonical) or Amazon (Donating to Gnome). Even better, under System/Preferences make the donation preferences configurable (I'd like to see a donation control panel allowing you to allocate a donation to different FOSS projects based upon your usage of them, or according to some user defined ratios).

tedreed 16y ago
I already have an Amazon account. Why would I go out of my way to get a different account just so a few pennies of my purchase can go somewhere different? I don't think the "leave it to the users" option really works here. A lot of people will choose the least-work path.

ssp 16y ago

Banshee might want to consider getting a trademark on their name, and then only allow other people to use it if they keep the affiliate code that goes to the GNOME Foundation.

natrius 16y ago
It would probably be a net negative for the Banshee project. Ubuntu wants Banshee to be the default player because of the quality of the software, not the name. I don't think they'd mind being forced to rename it UbuntuTunes.
rmc 16y ago
Theres an easy way around that, just compile the software and use a different name, like what debian do with Firefox, its called IceWeasel in debian.