Songbird to Launch Tonight

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1. poe
   

   February 7th, 2006 at 11:19 pm

   nice iNterface.

2. Philipp Schumann
   

   February 7th, 2006 at 11:40 pm

   Exciting to see another player (pun) in this market.

   Now the only thing that bothers me is that the Mozilla folks don’t seem to have a terribly good grip on product naming. Or they fall in love with their code names so much they just keep them.

   Then again, this fits in just well with the open source / ever-beta / release-early-and-often paradigms…

3. Frederic de Villamil
   

   February 7th, 2006 at 11:52 pm

   It’s nice to see how the old media player has been evolving to media center. We just have to hope that the media majors will evolve just the same way or one day there will really be a gap that no one will able to solve.

4. Brian
   

   February 7th, 2006 at 11:52 pm

   Puke! What a terrible idea. Doesn’t anyone remember when IE put the radio toolbar option in about 6 years ago? It was a poor idea then and is still poor now even though there is some eye candy. I don’t want monolithic programs, I want small ones that do their jobs well, a la grep and other unix utilities. Firefox isn’t the new operating system. Haven’t we figured that out yet?

5. Jens Poder
   

   February 8th, 2006 at 1:55 am

   This is really interesting. I hope it will be an interface that unifies the experience of listening to media on the web, but gives me the tools to organize my listening experience.

   Kind of like itunes, but with the added delightful surprise of finding and listening to music that I didn’t know i would like.

6. Jake
   

   February 8th, 2006 at 2:02 am

   I’m a smart guy, but I’m just not getting the point here. Do I really need a media player that can’t integrate/provide use with my iPod? Is there some benefit (other than autodetecting media files) to using this?

   And honestly, I find the whole tone of these guys to be “We’re doing you a favor, you should be kissing our rings, not giving us feedback”. Maybe they really are doing this out of the goodness of their hearts, maybe they’ve got a business model built in. Either way, you’d think they’d want users - and their approach is a bit abrasive for this (potential) user.

7. Frederic de Villamil
   

   February 8th, 2006 at 2:03 am

   Brian: using a script which use find + mp123 and some randome thing to play mp3 is really an exciting thing. But having an unified media center (using Firefox or whatever) is a really good thing.

   Don’t think of it as another bloated web browser, but as an independant media center with browsing functionnalities.

8. Tom
   

   February 8th, 2006 at 2:19 am

   i thought i’d introduce a little levity:

   am i crazy, or in the logo, is the little birth passing air?

9. Tom
   

   February 8th, 2006 at 2:20 am

   dang i,t i meant “bird” not “birth”. that’s what happens when you’re typing in the dark at 2am.

10. John
    

    February 8th, 2006 at 2:58 am

    Well all I have to say is that they should not try and redesign their website on the day of product release… what a mess !!

    Downloading now

11. Alex Morganis
    

    February 8th, 2006 at 3:47 am

    Wow! That looks great. I can’t wait to test it out.

12. Paul-Serge
    

    February 8th, 2006 at 4:07 am

    This looks like a combination of Firefox and iTunes .. wich means I’m immediatly going to download it!

13. Russell Limprecht
    

    February 8th, 2006 at 4:14 am

    @Tom,

    Great catch.

14. jon
    

    February 8th, 2006 at 5:03 am

    Looks like they are going for a minimalist approach to the website. All I got was

    “Can’t connect to local MySQL server through socket ‘/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock’ (111)”

    

15. Dima Volh
    

    February 8th, 2006 at 5:51 am

    I posted this on their site, but it’s currently down…

    I understand that there is a need for a business model, but it seems like the sidebar contains advertising links to anyone who was willing to pay… How does this help me as a user?

    A few notes:
    1. If Songbird is using VLC which is GPL - doesn’t it mean that the whole thing is GPL and can be freely used and distributed? How come they have their own proprietary license?
    2. This thing connects to the Net - will it report my “usage stats” to the “partners”? Where is the privacy policy?
    3. If this is Firefox, where is the tabbed browsing!? Where are the other Firefox goodies? How is this different from the Windows Media Player Web panel?

16. JW
    

    February 8th, 2006 at 6:51 am

    I’ve been reading their site some time, and they keep repeating it’s an 0.1 version, an alpha. They announced it would be bloated, messy. So Jake, connecting to your iPod is something they will probably think about later, and Dima Volh, the tabs were probably also not one of their top priorities.
    About their license, Mozilla uses MPL, VLC uses GPL, and I think they also used some other programs with yet other licenses: they cannot do anything but have their own propietary license.
    I’m really going to try it, and I hope following versions will come faster than this one (it’s been from Oct or Nov, I think…)

17. Screwtape
    

    February 8th, 2006 at 6:52 am

    This looks like a rip off of iTunes interface. Oh wait, I am mistaken, this one is BLACK. How silly of me to make that comparison.

18. Fortino
    

    February 8th, 2006 at 6:58 am

    looks like the bird is no longer flying…their site keeps providing the following error message:

    “Can’t connect to local MySQL server through socket ‘/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock’ (111)”

19. Dima Volh
    

    February 8th, 2006 at 7:03 am

    JW: GPL clearly says that once you use GPL components in your product, you must release it under GPL. This means that both the binary and the source are GPL and are *free* to download, reuse and re-distribute. As far as I can see they already have distribution and other restrictions. Also, they say that “most” of the code will be open source. This is clearly a violation of the GPL. Also, parts taken from Mozilla (MPL) are always also available under the GPL, so there is no problem there. The point is that GPL is incomatible with *proprietary* licenses.

20. Alterion
    

    February 8th, 2006 at 8:07 am

    no.. if you read thier website it is open source they have thier own license that they’ve got lawyers to make becuyase they realised that the GPL would not be compatible with the licnces for some of their other code ect. does it matter if some idiots scream GPL violation if they’ve agreeed iot ith the VLC guys anyway .. the GPL is non-exclusive just like any other software license. The interface is actually pretty good and there will be a version of ml_ipod for ipod syndication

21. Brian
    

    February 8th, 2006 at 8:16 am

    My prayer is that some day, I can use ANYTHING other than iTunes to use with my iPod.

    Please, someone save us.

22. Bob Aman
    

    February 8th, 2006 at 8:29 am

    What Brian said… does it play nicely with the iPod? (And does it play nicely with last.fm?) Otherwise, I just don’t care.

23. Brian
    

    February 8th, 2006 at 8:39 am

    I love my wife, and it was very sweet of her to buy me an iPod. Too bad she didn’t know about the Zens.

24. kp
    

    February 8th, 2006 at 9:25 am

    Why does the interface look similar to iTunes? Does open source mean copy the look and feel and rewrite the code? Disappointed to see very little originality in the UI.

25. KIlleroid
    

    February 8th, 2006 at 9:28 am

    I love it and am going to start ctively using it.One of my gripes with is hat it takes awaqy browsing in tabs.That was one of the main reasons i switched to firefox back in the days.

26. Mike
    

    February 8th, 2006 at 9:50 am

    Here’s another one for all you “OMG Itunes rip off!!” guys: J. River Media Center.

    Beatport integration out of the box is great for me, but for some reason I can’t get it to work. Maybe if I reinstall Flash…

27. Orli Yakuel
    

    February 8th, 2006 at 10:50 am

    I Really love the interface of soundbird but It’s taking a lot of resources from my computer.
    (actually, too much for a player in my opinion..)

28. Tina
    

    February 8th, 2006 at 11:04 am

    I thought it’d be better than this. The only thing I like about it, is that it’s faster than my iTunes, but so is Windows Media Player which is my primary player. Songbird uses Firefox code, but isn’t as good as Firefox, and it looks like iTunes, but is doesn’t transfer songs to my iPod…

29. brian veen
    

    February 8th, 2006 at 11:06 am

    It’s an ugly ripoff of iTunes that is also an equally ugly browser. Is this for people who can’t run more then 1 app at a time? I don’t get it.

30. Ralph
    

    February 8th, 2006 at 11:08 am

    Nobody said, Songbird would be Firefox with music library support - so why all those questions about the tabs? It is built on the same platform, but that doesn’t mean it is a web browser. Does anyone consider Thunderbird a web browser, only because it is built on the same platform as Firefox? Nvu and Komodo are also built on the same platform - who misses tabbed browsing there?

31. brian veen
    

    February 8th, 2006 at 11:39 am

    Poor examples Ralph, the reason these questions about tabs are being asked is because Songbird can be and encourages us to use it as a mozilla browser, it has a url line. Last time I checked Thunderbird won’t let you navigate to webpages like Songbird does. So your comparison doesn’t make any sense. It has less to do what what platform they are built on and more to do with what we use them for.

32. Jonathan Bacon
    

    February 8th, 2006 at 11:44 am

    Wonderfull, I have been keeping tabs on this for quite some time and am very excited to see it.

33. Ralph
    

    February 8th, 2006 at 12:07 pm

    @brian veen: well, windows explorer has an URL line as well, but you wouldn’t expect tabbed browsing there… However, i got your point, that it depends on kind of usage. While i would never think of using tabbed browsing in Songbird - i’m an Opera user - i fully understand, that a lot of people still want to use it that way…

34. Jack
    

    February 8th, 2006 at 2:30 pm

    Ralph: Try IE7 - it has tabs which work a treat.

35. Rick
    

    February 8th, 2006 at 2:48 pm

    I love the idea of this (especially as an alternative to iTunes), but I too like smallish applications that do a particular job well. I’d love to take this for a test drive, however, and let it surprise me, but it keeps crashing–it does suck a lot of resources. I guess I’ll wait for the next, more stable version to take it for a spin.

    This looks like it might be a little bloated, even once they work the kinks out.

36. ranwill
    

    February 8th, 2006 at 4:57 pm

    Well, I downloaded it tonite and have it playing. Browsing thru my library is very slow, and I can’t find a refresh button for the browser.
    There’s definately a lot of choices for music other than my own. As a matter of fact the directory tree for it all is a bit overwhelming.
    We’ll see how it goes for a few days.

37. Stephan Bording
    

    February 8th, 2006 at 6:45 pm

    The iTunes bashers seem to forget that it came to Windows (after being a Mac exclusive) in order to support the iPod. That is, provide a good synch solution instead of the unimpressive MusicMatch software which Apple was compelled to license to let Windows users access iPods.

    Becoming the jukebox player of choice for the cool kids was just a side effect. So, now we have ex-WinAmp guys out to get revenge on iTunes for stealing their turf!

    Fine with me, just as long as it supports the iPod. (The current version of Songbird has no device support.)

    And possibly fine with Apple too, because if everyone stops using iTunes they won’t have to spend extensive development resources updating the Windows version. As for missing the revenue from the Music Store, in all their financial briefings they admit the associated Music Store is only break-even to provide an easy way to get music so that they can sell more iPods.

    Since Apple has to bend over to the record companies and waste a lot of time on DRM which makes customers angry at them (which is of course misdirected anger: I’m sure Apple would actually love to let people buy DRM-free music for iPods, that’s how they started after all, iTunes ripped CDs onto the iPod, no DRM involved), they might be happy to have the responsibility taken off their hands.

    Of course, if the opensource people failed to provide a polished iPod synching solution, people would stop buying iPods, so I guess iTunes will stay around.

    Songbird needs device support to justify its existence. I agree with the people who say a pure music browser would be better done through Firefox.

38. Serge Lescouarnec
    

    February 9th, 2006 at 9:17 am

    Michael

    Tried to check it

    Seems like their website is down.

    Not an auspicious start.

    Serge
    http://sergetheconcierge.typepad.com

39. Tx Bubba
    

    February 9th, 2006 at 12:34 pm

    I own an iPod (a gift). And I understand the desire to have an alternative to iTunes (which bites as a player regardless that it’s a port).

    So, we’re hoping for an open-source solution to a propreitary player. And people hate Windows, which is looking like the kinder, gentler Apple?

    Maybe we should want an MP3 player that works with software other than iTunes, eh?

40. Alex Morganis
    

    February 10th, 2006 at 3:39 am

    Serge: Their website is down because of all the traffic they’re getting. It appears to be up and running for me :D.

41. sylvain
    

    February 10th, 2006 at 9:16 am

    Hi hope this nice interface will become a standard because the others software are not as “open” as this one

42. Michael Downing
    

    February 10th, 2006 at 12:12 pm

    Not totally clear on the concept: “transfer MP3s into Songbird in support of digital music stores like eMusic, music subscription services”, but I like the idea (much touted) of universal playlist formats/access. Just one media player of course who is the big holdout I imagine with this concept.

43. macewan
    

    February 10th, 2006 at 3:12 pm

    http://download.songbirdnest.com/installer/

44. Christy Kulasingam
    

    February 11th, 2006 at 6:58 am

    While some of the discovery features sound useful, the current feature set is not compelling enough for me to move from trusty Winamp. To make Songbird my one-stop media centre and manager, I’d want more collection management features like those in Music Collector / Movie Collector (which will probably get added through extensions eventually.) It’s still early days, so I’ll wait and see.

45. sjt
    

    February 12th, 2006 at 6:21 pm

    Looks like a skinned version of iTunes.

    Why do I need this?

46. Stijn
    

    February 17th, 2006 at 2:16 pm

    If you like the concept of Songbird (as I do), join the last.fm group:

    http://www.last.fm/group/Songbird

47. zsetqozrss
    

    May 21st, 2006 at 3:38 am

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