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Topic: Hardware

Songbird now in convenient Philips hardware form

Summary: Open source projects like Songbird often have a hard time being noticed by the general market, but now it will have the power of Philips behind it. Philips also has a business model that Songbird can take advantage of, not just in the hardware but through its existing site.

Dana Blankenhorn

By Dana Blankenhorn for Linux and Open Source |

Songbird, the open source media player, is now being embedded in Philips' GoGear line.

This is a win-win.

Open source projects like Songbird often have a hard time being noticed by the general market, but now it will have the power of Philips behind it. Philips also has a business model that Songbird can take advantage of, not just in the hardware but through its existing site.

Philips, meanwhile, gets an excellent player that is far more competitive with iTunes than anything it previously offered.

This is the way open source is supposed to work. It's supposed to connect with the market. If you don't want your hands stained with filthy lucre you're FOSS, not open source.

Songbird recently released Version 1.4.3 of its software. The new version has a warning against using it with Windows 7, but Stephen Lau writes that's just a "caveat emptor" thing, that he knows of many users already running Songbird on Windows 7.

In the same post he notes that Songbird is no longer maintaining an iPod Extension, preferring to go with an import-export syncing function instead. "Playing an unsupported game of catchup with Apple sucked," he writes.

On the Philips side, support is being rolled out slowly. Some new GoGear players will include Songbird inside. Others will have a support CD provided.

Topics: Hardware, Microsoft, Open Source, Operating Systems, Software, Windows

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6 comments
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  • another nail in the proprietary software coffin

    FOSS is displacing Apple and M$ every day.
    Linux Geek
    Reply Vote

  • This is great news,

    I've been waiting for a corporate sponsor to team up with Songbird. I now hope that some of the major linux distros start packaging it in their repositories.
    urbandk
    Reply Vote

  • Old canard

    "If you don?t want your hands stained with filthy lucre you?re FOSS, not open source."

    I'm surprised and disappointed to see this old canard on this blog. FOSS has no problem with pursuing "filthy lucre." It is merely concerned with guaranteeing the rights of users of the software. It is aparent to me that Red Hat has "stained [their hands] with filthy lucre" quite effectively with FOSS.
    Buzz de Cafe
    Reply Vote

  • The FSF has NO problems with you charging for free software

    Buzz de cafe is right.Free software is about freedom not gratis-free. It seems to me that someone who writes about FLOSS would have known that.
    IBM and Red Hat arent non-profits you know, they use Linux and other free software projects because it suits them in their main quest: to make money.
    Of course, there are some writers like Perlow and such who are fanatically against free software and the GPL and they repeat such inane comments on a regular basis trying to push their message that the GPL (the most popular open source license by far) is not good for business and that it scares companies away.
    I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and we will just leave it as a feeble attempt at humour.

    Actually, even your delivery sucked. You meant to say "If you don?t want your hands stained with filthy lucre youre free software, not open source." because FOSS means Free AND Open Source software (some people dont like the limitation of the english word free and prefer Free/Libre Open Source Software to remind people that the free is about freedom not gratis.
    By saying FOSS, then open source you were redundantly redudanta.

    Btw, check the FSF site, Im pretty sure you will find that you CAN charge money for free software. It is not forbidden or limited, AS LONG as you respect your obligation to the license if you intend to distribute.

    Yup, free software can come with a price.
    And Im not just talking about the extortion/tax that Microsoft tries to levy to companies using Linux like the mob does.
    zeke123
    Reply Vote

  • Even I know what F(L)OSS means

    I'm very much in the "end-user" arena of the open-source & Linux worlds, not at all the sort that's a fanatic or even knows enough to be one. Still, even I was confused and put off by your characterization of FOSS (FLOSS) as being anti-capitalist. From everything I've read, the only distinction between OSS and F(L)OSS is that a lot of people wanted to emphasize what the OSS really meant.

    Too many end-users thought OSS just meant looking at code, which is relatively meaningless for someone like me... So they tacked on the "F" for free -- but then, too many people (like you?) assumed it meant nobody can charge for things made with it, which was also wrong. So the acronym was changed yet again, showing it's "Free as in Libre", that we're free to read the code, change it, share it, make it run something we then sell, whatever we want. So I now write "FLOSS" or "F(L)OSS" rather than just OSS, and explain if there's a real chance of somebody misunderstanding.

    I'm slightly surprised that a true end-user like me would be able to explain that, but somebody writing a tech column on open source would blow it. Then again, as an English major at a big school, I heard lectures from writers & profs that said outright, "we're winging it as much as you are" -- so perhaps it's not quite so surprising, eh?
    XyzzyMagicat
    Reply Vote

  • "it's not the software that's free; it's you"

    (obligatory quote)
    sillyxone
    Reply Vote
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