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Songbird Flies Today

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wed Feb 08, 2006 12:24 PM
from the free-as-a-bird dept.
fr1kk writes to tell us that with the recent advent of a preview version for the new open source response to iTunes, Songbird, BoingBoing has taken a few minutes to interview team lead Rob Lord. While this program may be a great alternative to the DRM ridden iTunes and Windows Media Player platforms it is still only a Windows release. The good news is that by being open source that will (hopefully) not last very long. The Songbird site appears to be swamped right now, but there are several different mirrors available to download the client.

Related Stories

[+] Hardware: Songbird the Open Source iTunes? 226 comments
An anonymous reader writes "Cnet has an interesting story about a company about to release an open source alternative to iTunes. Apparently, the software can be used with a multitude of music services." From the article: "Apple's iTunes is 'like Internet Explorer, if Internet Explorer could only browse Microsoft.com,' Lord said. 'We love Apple, and appreciate and thank them for setting the bar in terms of user experience. But it's inevitable that the market architecture changes as it matures.'"
[+] Songbird Source Released 114 comments
Rinisari writes "The source for Songbird, a music-oriented XULRunner application, is now available via Subversion. Rob Lord, CEO of Pioneers of the Inevitable, released the source for the not-yet-0.2 version of the music player, which integrates a music library and the facility to purchase and download music from a variety of vendors. If you haven't heard of it, read the features list and try it out. Slashdot previously mentioned Songbird when it was released as a preview in February."
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  • More on Lord (Score:5, Interesting)

    If you're interested in more of Robert Lord's [roblord.org] background and experiences, check out his resume [roblord.org].

    Although I dislike Winamp [slashdot.org] for it's complexity, I did thoroughly enjoy his simplistic (and very well designed) homepage called "smudges of wisdom."

    He seems to be an interesting fellow with odd musical tastes:
    Mostly sadcore (tm), not to be conflated with common ennuicore (tm).
    Also interesting is that he goes through a list of decent books, some of which I'm familiar with. The best part about them is that they aren't at all the typical programming books [stanford.edu] you'd expect.
  • by Caspian (99221) on Wednesday February 08 2006, @12:27PM (#14670623)
    Source code.

    (Disclaimer: I'm pro-open-source. But, seriously, how many "music fans" (of the sorts who presently tote about iPods) would even know what source code is, much less give a crap about it? They Just Want It To Work(TM), man.
  • I predict... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 08 2006, @12:27PM (#14670626)
    ...the same overwhelming success as Ogg. And for the same reasons.
  • Here's the thing (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Spytap (143526) on Wednesday February 08 2006, @12:28PM (#14670640)
    Unless it syncs with my iPod, I really don't have much use for it. Honestly, that's where my music listening is done, not in my office at my computer...
    • Re:Here's the thing (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Overly Critical Guy (663429) on Wednesday February 08 2006, @01:01PM (#14670956)
      I see nothing wrong with iTunes. I take issue with the submission's "DRM ridden" phrase. iTunes is not "ridden" with DRM; you don't even have to buy any music from iTunes and have a completely DRM-free experience. iTunes functions just fine as the best music management software without you having to use anything with DRM. I used iTunes for a whole year that way. I imagine most people use it that way, actually.

      However, if you do buy from iTunes, Apple provides the most lax DRM in the market. I have never, ever come across any limitation. I can burn as many CDs as I want, share the music with multiple computers, and copy them anywhere at will. When someone rattles on about iTunes DRM, it's clear to me they don't really use iTunes at all. If they did, they'd know the DRM is so invisible that most users don't even know it's there. I always forget it is.

      So you read about the software and then realize, this thing is designed to connect to multiple online stores, so it will be just as DRM ridden as anything else! Looking at the screenshots, I suddenly recognize this as the iTunes clone that Mac fans were ripping on last year. The interface is a 100% brain-dead clone of the iTunes interface, widget for widget. They couldn't even come up with their own idea. This makes OSS look bad. I can certainly guarantee this software will never take off in this state, and making goofy claims that "FairPlay is the 8-track of our generation" (huh?) doesn't help any. The developer is very arrogant and claims shopping in one central location like the iTunes Music Store is some backwards idea, when in reality, we've already DONE the multiple stores thing for years, and people have gravitated to one central source (the majority choosing iTunes). It's been the natural progression of the market. That seamless vertical experience is needed to connect it all together. Steve Jobs has stated that relying on 3rd party support in the consumer hardware space doesn't work, and so far, he's been proven correct.

      I have no experience with Windows Media Player's offerings, so I can't comment on its DRM. But I find most of the DRM commentary on Slashdot to be alarmist and inapplicable to the real world, and stuff like this just makes OSS look like kooky copycat artists fighting some unseen force that most users aren't even coming into contact with in their daily experiences.

      The developers should probably expect a response from Apple's lawyers shortly. The iTunes interface is patented, and this is just blatant! Get an original idea, guys.
      [ Parent ]
      • Re:Here's the thing (Score:5, Insightful)

        by gstoddart (321705) on Wednesday February 08 2006, @01:19PM (#14671158)
        (http://slashdot.org/)
        I see nothing wrong with iTunes. I take issue with the submission's "DRM ridden" phrase. iTunes is not "ridden" with DRM; you don't even have to buy any music from iTunes and have a completely DRM-free experience.

        Thank you for pointing this out, because I was just about to.

        My music is all MP3's ripped on FreeBSD using lame, mounted over a samba share, and managed by iTunes. iTunes then gets used to play from the computer, rip CDs, or populate my iPod shuffle.

        DRM doesn't even factor in to the equation.

        The iTunes software is nicely designed, works well, has a lot of features, and came free with my iPod. Why would I start looking for a v0.1 FOSS replacement for it?
        [ Parent ]
      • Re:Here's the thing by jwdeff (Score:1) Wednesday February 08 2006, @01:24PM
      • Re:Here's the thing by shokk (Score:3) Wednesday February 08 2006, @01:32PM
      • Re:Here's the thing (Score:4, Informative)

        by uradu (10768) on Wednesday February 08 2006, @01:34PM (#14671343)
        > If they did, they'd know the DRM is so invisible that most users don't even
        > know it's there. I always forget it is.

        I've bought plenty of albums off ITMS, and it is indeed easy to burn them to a CD and then rip that, especially when buying a whole album. When buying individual tracks, things get a bit messier, since CDEx can't lookup the metadata anymore.

        But saying that the DRM is invisible is silly. I have a Roku SoundBridge, which works just fine with iTunes, except for DRM-ed tracks. None of the ITMS albums and tracks will play on the SoundBridge, unless burned and re-ripped into iTunes. And this won't ever likely change, since Apple seems to have no interest in licensing their FairPlay (ha!) DRM to third parties.
        [ Parent ]
      • Re:Here's the thing by LnxAddct (Score:1) Wednesday February 08 2006, @01:40PM
      • typical Mac zealotry by penguin-collective (Score:1) Wednesday February 08 2006, @01:46PM
      • no iTunes for Linux, *BSD, Irix, Solaris, etc. by barutanseijin (Score:1) Wednesday February 08 2006, @01:52PM
      • Re:Here's the thing by DeadCatX2 (Score:1) Wednesday February 08 2006, @01:57PM
      • Re:Here's the thing by vertinox (Score:2) Wednesday February 08 2006, @01:58PM
      • DRM is fine, unless you're a podcaster. by crovira (Score:3) Wednesday February 08 2006, @02:05PM
      • iTunes DRM Bites Hard (Score:4, Insightful)

        by DreadSpoon (653424) on Wednesday February 08 2006, @02:39PM (#14671927)
        (http://www.awesomeplay.com/ | Last Journal: Thursday November 10 2005, @04:51PM)
        I have a nice speaker system setup with my Linux box. There's no way to play any of my $250 worth of iTMS-purchased songs on that machine. None. All of the files bought from iTMS are DRM-locked and can only be played on machines which are authorized through iTMS.

        Unfortunately, there is no software for Linux which is capable of doing that. DVD Jon had released FairPlay and some other tools which could unlock those files, but Apple broke those utilities with the release of iTunes 6. You have to log into iTMS with a computer to generate a key for the computer. The tools can no longer log into iTMS, and so they cannot generate a key for my Linux box.

        I can't copy the files off my Mac to my Linux box, I can't copy the files from my iPod to my Linux box, I can't copy the files to any machine that can't run iTunes, including any other portable music players made by companies other than Apple.

        Sure, the several thousands songs I ripped from CDs to MP3s are fine and I can move those around, but at my current rate I would soon surpass the number of MP3s I have with the number of DRM-encumbered MP4s I have. (I don't plan on purchasing so much as one more song from iTMS until there is a way to transfer them to my other computers and devices.)

        iTunes is fantastic if all you want to do is rip CDs onto your Mac or sync songs to an iPod. My iPod is breaking down (and is well out of warranty) and any replacement I buy will definitely not be an iPod, and my only Mac is an old iBook with horrendous sound ouput quality compared to the sound system on my Linux desktop. I've had to resort to burning my MP4s to CD (a lot of CDs), re-ripping them into Vorbis on the Linux box (losing some sound quality due to encoding the music twice), and then manually retagging all of the songs since the meta-data is lost when burned to CD. Whatever convenience I gained by using iTMS has now been lost.

        iTunes *IS* DRM encumbered. Well, more accurately, iTMS is. [b]And that's what Songbird is competing with - the music store, not the music manager.[/b]
        [ Parent ]
      • Re:Here's the thing by pintomp3 (Score:2) Wednesday February 08 2006, @02:58PM
      • Re:Here's the thing by aeoo (Score:2) Wednesday February 08 2006, @03:19PM
      • Re:Here's the thing by Chardros (Score:1) Wednesday February 08 2006, @03:32PM
      • Re:Here's the thing by kponto (Score:1) Wednesday February 08 2006, @04:01PM
      • Re:Here's the thing by Lumpy (Score:2) Wednesday February 08 2006, @04:13PM
      • Re:Here's the thing by Omestes (Score:2) Wednesday February 08 2006, @05:39PM
      • Re:Here's the thing by Dominatus (Score:2) Wednesday February 08 2006, @10:42PM
      • Re:Here's the thing by Captain_Chaos (Score:2) Thursday February 09 2006, @07:03AM
      • Re:iTunes is overrated. by countb (Score:1) Wednesday February 08 2006, @02:03PM
      • Re:iTunes is overrated. by infinityxi (Score:1) Wednesday February 08 2006, @03:21PM
      • Re:iTunes is overrated. by idsofmarch (Score:2) Wednesday February 08 2006, @03:43PM
      • Re:Here's the thing by shokk (Score:2) Sunday February 12 2006, @04:02PM
      • 4 replies beneath your current threshold.
    • Re:Here's the thing by gnud (Score:1) Wednesday February 08 2006, @01:04PM
    • Re:Here's the thing by Spytap (Score:2) Wednesday February 08 2006, @05:54PM
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
  • Not invented yet? (Score:5, Funny)

    by mccalli (323026) on Wednesday February 08 2006, @12:30PM (#14670654)
    (http://www.eruvia.org/)
    From the article: Songbird can connect to any a la carte media store -- downloadable music, radio, video, P2P networks, and classes of services that haven't been created yet.

    It can connect to classes of service that haven't been invented yet? Impressive. I shall go away and ponder the transdimensional time-travelling inplications of this statement. Over a large brandy.

    Cheers,
    Ian

    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
  • iTunes, DRM-ridden?! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 08 2006, @12:31PM (#14670665)
    Only on slashdot can iTunes be equalled to Windows Media Player...

    Get your facts straight: files encoded from your own CDs do NOT have any DRM in them. Only tunes bought from the built-in on-line music store have DRM.

    iTunes is a player/ripped/jukebox/music store program. You DO NOT NEED to buy DRM tunes online, you do not even need an internet connection (although it comes in handy for the CDDB feature when ripping your own CDs).

  • wonderful (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 08 2006, @12:31PM (#14670670)
    it's always nice to see someone doing what's been done before, only prettier, with a GPL, no support and random crashes.
    • Re:wonderful by CMiYC (Score:3) Wednesday February 08 2006, @01:45PM
    • Re:wonderful by Fordiman (Score:2) Wednesday February 08 2006, @04:51PM
  • Open Source Music by inKubus (Score:2) Wednesday February 08 2006, @12:32PM
  • We Need an Extension (Score:5, Funny)

    by jgbishop (861610) on Wednesday February 08 2006, @12:32PM (#14670688)
    (http://www.borngeek.com/)
    Is there a SongSomething extension to rename this program? I prefer Songfox to Songbird...
  • Say what what? (Score:4, Funny)

    by SEWilco (27983) on Wednesday February 08 2006, @12:34PM (#14670705)
    (http://www.wilcoxon.org/~sewilco | Last Journal: Friday October 19, @12:46AM)
    "a preview version for the new open source response to iTunes, Songbird, BoingBoing"

    Which what what?

  • Mozilla-based? (Score:5, Informative)

    by eMartin (210973) on Wednesday February 08 2006, @12:34PM (#14670708)
    Right after I opened it, I noticed the column header control, and that the popup menus look more like the Firefox ones than the Windows native ones, so I checked Songbird's directory, and yes, it appears that it is Mozilla-based.

    Now, maybe that's common knowledge, but it's the first I've heard of it, and I think it's worth mentioning. Especially since talk of cross platform porting is.
    • Re:Mozilla-based? by eMartin (Score:2) Wednesday February 08 2006, @12:37PM
    • Re:Mozilla-based? by papadiablo (Score:2) Wednesday February 08 2006, @12:38PM
    • Re:Mozilla-based? (Score:5, Informative)

      It's actually a pretty significant milestone for Mozilla because Songbird (AFAIK) is the first major product released that is built on the XULRunner platform [mozilla.org].

      XULRunner is exactly what it sounds like -- a small runtime to allow deployment of XUL-based applications on machines that may not have Firefox installed. Think of it as a JRE for XUL.

      Until XULRunner, there was no practical way to build full-fledged apps using Mozilla tech that didn't run inside one of their products (Firefox, Thunderbird, Sunbird, Seamonkey) because that was the only way to get access to a XUL interpreter. Songbird is an interesting demo of how XULRunner gets you beyond that.

      [ Parent ]
    • Re:Mozilla-based? (Score:4, Funny)

      by iabervon (1971) on Wednesday February 08 2006, @01:26PM (#14671245)
      (http://iabervon.org/~barkalow/ | Last Journal: Saturday May 31 2003, @02:01AM)
      You should know it's Mozilla-based because the name ends with "bird". Of course, they'll probably have to rename it to "Songfox", which should clarify things further. (For that matter, foxes are cuter than birds.)
      [ Parent ]
      • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
    • Re:Mozilla-based? by Flwyd (Score:2) Wednesday February 08 2006, @02:23PM
    • Re:Mozilla-based? by db32 (Score:1) Wednesday February 08 2006, @02:26PM
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
  • DRM Ridden? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TheBigMacMan (938594) on Wednesday February 08 2006, @12:35PM (#14670717)
    As far as I know, and I may be wrong here, iTunes will play standard mp3's. At least mine does. So what would the "...a great alternative to the DRM ridden iTunes..." gain you? I would rather have a player that can play drm'd songs, if I were forced to play a few, and still be able to play standard mp3's.
  • So??? by pythas (Score:1) Wednesday February 08 2006, @12:35PM
  • DRM Ridden? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by binaryDigit (557647) on Wednesday February 08 2006, @12:36PM (#14670733)
    While this program may be a great alternative to the DRM ridden iTunes and Windows Media Player platforms

    So what, are they going to offer the same content without DRM? Think not. How does DRM play in here? If iTMS has DRM it's because the copyright holder has agreed to allow iTMS to distribute content based on the DRM. Being OS isn't going to help this new system out in that regard. Now they may cater to those who are searching for content that is not DRM'ed, but that's content.
  • Been waiting for this one... by fak3r (Score:2) Wednesday February 08 2006, @12:37PM
  • allofmp3 by lordkuri (Score:2) Wednesday February 08 2006, @12:38PM
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
  • Benefits by gunpowda (Score:2) Wednesday February 08 2006, @12:39PM
    • Re:Benefits by theurge14 (Score:2) Wednesday February 08 2006, @02:32PM
  • by joetheappleguy (865543) on Wednesday February 08 2006, @12:40PM (#14670765)
    (http://dosomefink.com/)
    ...Nice troll.

    Last I checked my .mp3's and CD rips are still DRM free in both iTunes or WMP.
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
  • The Lord Giveth by digitaldc (Score:2) Wednesday February 08 2006, @12:41PM
  • Proxy settings (Score:5, Informative)

    by nullvector (694435) on Wednesday February 08 2006, @12:41PM (#14670780)
    I didnt see a menu for proxy settings in the app. Might be helpful for those who are at work right now.

    You can add the following lines into your config.js in the Songbird directory.

    pref("network.proxy.http", "type proxy here in quotes");
    pref("network.proxy.http_port", YOURPROXYPORT);
    pref("network.proxy.type", 1);

    Of course, replace the port and proxy values, and you're in. Its based on firefox, so I just got the settings from the Firefox config and changed from user_pref() to pref().
  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 08 2006, @12:42PM (#14670785)
    How exactly is iTunes "DRM ridden"? Here's my take on iTunes: it's free, it's got a decent feature set, and it's easy to use. Other than if you need to run it on an unsupported OS, what's the problem? The only DRM is for songs purchased from the iTunes Music Store, and even that DRM is pretty non-invasive. If you don't want Apple's DRM (queue whining about not being able to play iTMS music on non-iPod MP3 players), just get your music elsewhere. Rip it from CD into numerous formats with pretty solid codecs. Buy standard MP3s from some place like allofmp3.com. Download it (legally, of course) from the 'net.

    Honestly, if the software "just works", doesn't force DRM on you, and has the features you need, why spend the time making a product that just attempts to do the same thing? Are there compelling new features in SongBird that iTunes doesn't provide? The way I see it, iTunes is a very nice, free digital audio player that also has the ability to sync with an iPod and use iTMS if you want to take advantage of those things. If you don't want to use iTMS music or an iPod, then just don't use those features.

    That being said, hopefully SongBird will have some great innovations that'll push other software makers ahead as well... I'm just not sure there's any more to it than "we don't have DRM and you can see our sourcecode - yay!" and if the developers stick with that mindset it'll never go anywhere.
  • Great, iTunes doesn't install anymore (Score:4, Interesting)

    by TheSkepticalOptimist (898384) on Wednesday February 08 2006, @12:43PM (#14670796)
    The recent 6.02 release of iTunes won't install anymore on my Windows machine and it corrupted my old version of iTunes. I am iTuneless as of this moment so I will give it a try....

    But alas, Songbird is garish, slow, and overwrought with features. Trying to be everything to everyone by embedding web browsing and access to many alternative music stores and sponsored websites, Songbird misses out on the point of being an iTunes replacement, simplicity. Like most open source projects, people have to learn where to draw the line between duplicating someone else's success to doing too much to surpass it.

    Perhaps being a proof-of-concept product they will tweak it and streamline it enough to be both usable and simple. But I don't think we need a Mozilla based web browser that builds multimedia playback into it. Nice try. Should have just made a FireFox extension.

    I guess I am forced trying to get iTunes running again, in the short while at least.
  • FUD, FUD, FUD by Anonymous Coward (Score:2) Wednesday February 08 2006, @12:44PM
  • by dr_canak (593415) on Wednesday February 08 2006, @12:45PM (#14670814)
    I'm late to the game of personal MP3 players and what can and can't be played on any given device. The Songbird site is down, but i did read the article. So my main question is:

    Can I use this new app to purchase music from any site that supports purchases (i.e. Apple, Napster, Rhapsody, Amazon, etc...), get a plain old MP3 file, which I can then play/burn onto any device I choose?

    I had some experience with Rhapsody a few months back, but it seemed to be in some proprietary format, and I could only use their software to play/transfer/burn the file to my media. Will Songbird get around all of that?

    thx in advance,
    jeff

    thx,
    jeff

    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
  • by Caspian (99221) on Wednesday February 08 2006, @12:49PM (#14670843)
    In re: 'from the free-as-a-bird dept."
    Attn: Robert Commander Taco Malda, Jeff Hemos Bates

    I represent the law firm of Dewey, Cheatham and Howe, on retainer for Apple Corps [wikipedia.org] d.b.a. Apple Records. Our clients hold international legal and commercial rights to the recording Free As A Bird [wikipedia.org].

    Your unauthorized distribution of lyrics to this performance constitute, at a minimum, a violation of U.S.C. 666-69-3117 and of the provisions on distribution laid out in the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA). You are thus ordered to cease and desist the distribution of these and any other Apple Corps lyrics in your "dept" headings. Our firm has not ruled out further legal action to enforce our clients' Intellectual Property rights.

    Signed,

    Robert Cheatham, Esq.
    Dewey, Cheatham and Howe
  • maturation of open source projects by drDugan (Score:2) Wednesday February 08 2006, @12:49PM
  • NOT "..still a Windows release" by fak3r (Score:2) Wednesday February 08 2006, @12:50PM
  • "hopefully"? by Hemi Rodner (Score:1) Wednesday February 08 2006, @12:53PM
  • Is that iTunes? (Score:3, Funny)

    by jpsowin (325530) on Wednesday February 08 2006, @12:53PM (#14670882)
    (http://www.fireandknowledge.org/)
    Yes! Another open-source copy of a commercial app!
  • How is SongBird any