Ubuntu's money problem: How much (if any) should Canonical take from Banshee's Amazon sales? (And did Canonical split the baby right in the final compromise?)
You want a kerfuffle? Here it is.
Canonical makes "affiliate" revenue from sales via its Ubuntu One music store, which works through the Rhythmbox music player/manager.
Now that Ubuntu is changing to Banshee as its default music-management application — and Banshee happens to have a plugin for the Amazon music store, things have gotten a little messy. From the upstream developers, Banshee gives all of its Amazon "affiliate" revenue to the GNOME Foundation (Banshee being a GNOME-friendly project).
But Canonical wanted to change the code and keep most of the money for itself. After much angst, the way things look now, it'll be a 75%/25% split of both the Amazon store and Ubuntu One, with 75% going to Canonical, 25% to the GNOME Foundation.
The whole episode hasn't sat all that well with many members of the free, open-source software community. I don't know if anybody has run the numbers, but just looking at the money, GNOME could actually make more from this arrangement than it would if Banshee weren't the default player in Ubuntu. Or not. I have no idea.
Anyhow, I haven't been following the issue all that closely, but I took a peek at Planet Ubuntu and found a lot of thoughtful writing from Ubuntu community members on the issue (and don't miss Ubuntu Community Manager Jono Bacon's explanation of the final decision in the last link in this first group):
From Planet Ubuntu
Legally open, socially closed, part 1, by Michael Hall
Legally open, socially closed: part 2, by Michael Hall
Canonical, you're breaking my heart, by Vincent Untz
Canonical and Banshee: making money with others' open source, by Sense Hofstede
The Kerfuffle, by Greg Grossmeier
Dear Ubuntu Community Manager, by João Pinto
Banshee Supporting GNOME on Ubuntu, by Gabriel Burt
Banshee in Natty to ship multiple stores and contribute to GNOME Foundation, by Jono Bacon
From Planet GNOME
Canonical's New Plan for Banshee, by Gabriel Burt
Other Ways to Slice Revenue Pies, by Luis Villa
An Open Proposal to Canonical, by Aaron Bockover
So how do I feel about this? It certainly sheds light on how Canonical does business (aggressively and not exactly out in the open). I'm not terribly comfortable with any of this.
Most everybody who gets started with Linux begins with a less-than-complete view of who's responsible for what.
I've made this same mistake myself — many times, no doubt — when I've credited Distribution X for fixing Bug Y when that problem was really addressed by Project Z. It's hard to know who fixed what, who's responsible for what, and who's just packaging something up and offering it to users.
The more I learn, the more respect I have for the many upstream projects, from the Linux kernel to the tens of thousands of applications that make up the Linux/Unix software ecosystem.
Distributions are vitally important (and right now Debian Squeeze is my distro of choice, though I have Ubuntu 10.04 on one computer, OpenBSD 4.7 on another). They put all of this software in a tangible, usable form that people can grab in the form of an ISO image and install en masse on their computer.
Linux, or FOSS in general, isn't the distributions (or, forbiddingly, a single distribution), the kernel, applications large and small, developers, users, even agreeable hardware vendors — it's all of these parties (and some party harder than others) and more.
I don't want to get all Jono Bacon on your collective asses (and this is much harder given Jono's relationship with Canonical; I continue to respect him but don't envy him one little bit), but it's about respect, open decision-making, and realizing that if something smells from afar, it probably stinks pretty good up close.
4 Comments
Leave a comment
About this blog
Wasn't this deal done by the Banshee team and Canonical? Also isn't the fee split made know to public? Are you expecting that the Banshee team should have made it vote to the public? I can't imagine how businesses would run that way...
What I don't get is how people try to apply what seems to be a personal moral "thing" to what essentially was a business deal.
If Canonical decided without consulting the Banshee team to divert the funds to themselves then I could see what all the fuss was about.
Also what is this about running the numbers and seeing what funds that will be diverted? Ubuntu never used Banshee, therefore there are zero funds being diverted from Gnome, unless you wish to tow the line of RIAA et al.
Also lets look at Banshee which is Mono based, what about the moral implications of using something that ties into MS patents and also could have been said to have been developed through MS funds via Novell...
I guess we can always get on our moral soap box when it suits us and gloss over when it doesn't....
The part that makes no sense to me is the idea that this has anything to do with a philosophical argument. It was a business deal, plain and simple. There is no moral component here at all.
Furthermore, the inclusion of Banshee as the default application will, in all likely-hood, bring in more revenue even with the 75/25 split. I havent personally done any number crunching, but given that Ubuntu is the premier distribution, with a large proportion of the linux user base, anything that is selected as the default application will be used by the majority of the users.
100% of nothing is not better than 25% of something.
I agree that GNOME is likely to see more financially with 25% of the Banshee money if Banshee is the default in Ubuntu than 100% if it is not, but that's still just an educated guess.
They will certainly benefit from the 25 percent of the Ubuntu One money, which they weren't getting before.
So it does seem like a win for GNOME, from a financial standpoint anyway.
What stinks here is the process: Canonical makes a bonehead move, the community finds out, Canonical tries to justify itself, the upstream get pissed, Canonical backtracks and changes the terms.
It's messy, predatory and hidden. Canonical should control Ubuntu only to a certain extent. Without buy-in from and consultation with the community, the whole thing falls apart. The community needs some ownership of Ubuntu in a figurative if not literal way. It's in Canonical's best interest not to act like the companies we're always criticizing for screwing users and developers.
Messy, predatory and hidden????
Woot? I didn't realise that the Banshee deal was "leaked".
Canononical made a bonehead decision? I guess that depends on if I read blogs like yours or ones like:
http://www.networkworld.com/community/canonical-alters-banshee-agreement
Which states that Banshee made the final decision not Canonical.
What gets me is how the "community" acts not matter what decision Canonical makes be it PA, Unity or even window buttons!!!
Unlike a lot of companies Canonical are willing to alter a deal based on the feed back of the community, unlike a lot of others.
Also please remember where Ubuntu comes from, the idea of it is to fulfil an area which was never there. If you want a distro which follows idealism as much as possible you have Debian.