Amarok to Palm: "Forget Apple, Come to Us!"
Open source project Amarok, in an open letter to Palm, has invited the company to work with them. The reason: the Apple iTunes 8.2.1 update guarantees that the Linux-based Palm Pre smartphone can no longer use the iTunes music management software.
Dutch KDE developer Bart "Stecchino" Cerneels wrote in a July 16 Amarok blog addressed as an open letter to the Sunnyvale CA handheld provider: "You're in the business of selling phones, not software. I don't think deciding to 'outsource' this to Apple was a smart move though. So now the bully is attacking you on *their* playground... You could go crying to the [lawsuit court]. But if you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire the Amarok team!" He adds: "We promise not to change our application to prevent users [from using] Amarok with your device."
Another Amarok developer supported him in a separate KDE.News entry. Under the title "The Business of Free," Nikolaj Hald Nielsen described the possible collaboration between the free Amarok project and the Silicon Valley firm that could ultimately profit both entities. He was referring to the recent Gran Canaria Desktop Summit talk given by Cerneels and himself of an already mutually beneficial collaboration between Amarok and the Magnatune online music store, by way of example. It's clear from Nielsen's bio that he has since become lead programmer at Magnatune (in addition to his work at Amarok) after integrating the Magnatune shop into Amarok three years ago.
Palm customers won't be able use the current iTunes on their smartphone as easily when the iTunes 8.2.1 update appears. The news came from Arik Hesseldahl in a July 15 Business Week blog. The Palm Pre was apparently being marketed as an iPod device so as to sync up with iTunes, thus making Palm an iPod and iPhone competitor. This was beginning to rankle Apple in mid-June, as they reported in a support notice.
The Palm Pre with its Linux-based webOS was announced at the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show in January. June 16 Palm's promised Mojo SDK also became available to app developers.
Comments
comments powered by DisqusIssue 268/2023
Buy this issue as a PDF
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Find SysAdmin Jobs
News
-
LibreOffice 7.5 has Arrived and is Loaded with New Features and Improvements
The favorite office suite of the Linux community has a new release that includes some visual refreshing and new features across all modules.
-
The Next Major Release of Elementary OS Has Arrived
It's been over a year since the developers of elementary OS released version 6.1 (Jólnir) but they've finally made their latest release (Horus) available with a renewed focus on the user.
-
KDE Plasma 5.27 Beta Is Ready for Testing
The latest beta iteration of the KDE Plasma desktop is now available and includes some important additions and fixes.
-
Netrunner OS 23 Is Now Available
The latest version of this Linux distribution is now based on Debian Bullseye and is ready for installation and finally hits the KDE 5.20 branch of the desktop.
-
New Linux Distribution Built for Gamers
With a Gnome desktop that offers different layouts and a custom kernel, PikaOS is a great option for gamers of all types.
-
System76 Beefs Up Popular Pangolin Laptop
The darling of open-source-powered laptops and desktops will soon drop a new AMD Ryzen 7-powered version of their popular Pangolin laptop.
-
Nobara Project Is a Modified Version of Fedora with User-Friendly Fixes
If you're looking for a version of Fedora that includes third-party and proprietary packages, look no further than the Nobara Project.
-
Gnome 44 Now Has a Release Date
Gnome 44 will be officially released on March 22, 2023.
-
Nitrux 2.6 Available with Kernel 6.1 and a Major Change
The developers of Nitrux have officially released version 2.6 of their Linux distribution with plenty of new features to excite users.
-
Vanilla OS Initial Release Is Now Available
A stock GNOME experience with on-demand immutability finally sees its first production release.
More Power to Linux
I'm Belgian
Thanks for posting this on your site, we like the word to be spread so hopefully something will come of this. It will mean a boost for all Free Software multimedia applications.