Lessons Learned from Canonical, Banshee, and GNOME

by Susan Linton - Mar. 17, 2011Comments (25)

Ubuntu With the brouhaha begun by Canonical's changing of the Banshee affiliate code dying down there are some important lessons to be learned by all sides involved. One of the most important is that protracted in-fighting causes long term harm in the area of good will and public appearances. While Canonical was painted the villain by the community at large, GNOME, who was already battling negativity from controversial moves in its new GNOME 3 Shell, didn't come out of it unscathed. In essence, there were no winners here.

The latest round of fighting seemed to begin when news came out that Ubuntu had changed the affiliate code in the Banshee audio application to direct funds from a revenue sharing agreement with Amazon Music Store from The GNOME Foundation to Canonical, which under the GPL Ubuntu has the right to do. But many within the Open Source community saw this as unneighborly and provocative. After all, Canonical is seen as a wealthy company while GNOME is a Open Source project struggling to raise enough capital to stay afloat. GNOME played a large part in Ubuntu's rise to Linux distribution dominance and yet they've been given the boot lately. In fact, bad blood between the two organizations go way back.

While the true beginnings of the animosity would be difficult to pin down, an educated hypothesis could peg public awareness to Dave Neary's report on outside contributions to the GNOME project, in which Ubuntu faired poorly. Although other notable companies such as Mandriva and Mozilla contributed less, Canonical took a large brunt of the fire because of their reliance upon GNOME for Ubuntu's system interface. Ubuntu developers said their contribution were not welcomed nor accepted. Flame wars ensued and it could be interpreted that Canonical lost that round. Shortly afterwards, Canonical announced that Ubuntu would ship with their own in-house developed Unity interface instead of the GNOME Shell starting with 11.04. This was a major blow to the GNOME project because before Ubuntu, GNOME occupied a solid second place in desktop preference polls and analysis of downloads. With the rise of Ubuntu came the rise of GNOME to the number one position. Canonical's Unity announcement could be seen as the decisive winning shot of the war, although publicly it was seen as a neutral decision not aimed at GNOME personally but rather reflected the new mobile and embedded direction envisioned by Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth. There was a low-level sidebar concerning GNOME's rejection of newly popular Ubuntu Indicator Applets, but it contributed little to the overall impression. The war was over, or so casual observers thought.

But Canonical had one more bomb in its arsenal to fire, which rekindled the old flames. It seems more opinions were expressed on Ubuntu's decision to change the Banshee revenue sharing affiliate code than any other debate before. This time Ubuntu definitely lost the public reputation battle. While many tried to defend Canonical's actions, it just didn't work out very well. Canonical looked petty and selfish. After all, the revenue from the Amazon Music Store only amounted to approximately 3000 USD yearly. Did Canonical really need that money as much as The GNOME Foundation? Ultimately, that wasn't even the point. Ubuntu doesn't work and play well with others. At least that's the public perception.

Added all up, it appears as though Ubuntu used GNOME to get what it wanted and then quit calling once they got it. Whether that's an accurate assessment or not, there are some valuable lessons other community projects, members, and users can take away from all this.

1. Public opinions and impressions, whether accurate or not, are important to a company's future growth. Although the monies raised from this affiliate code change will be minimal, the goodwill of Canonical has suffered. But few think it matters greatly to Canonical as they have bigger fish to fry than non-paying community users and non-paid community contributors. Community users and vocal bloggers propelled Ubuntu to number one and gave Canonical the clout to secure other financially profitable avenues. But just as goodwill propelled Ubuntu, so can it take it down. 11.04 with Unity will be a test of Ubuntu user loyalty and Banshee will play a role in overall tone in upcoming reviews. Public impressions are important.

2. Choose your fights carefully especially in a world where user loyalty is fierce and opponents are often backed by bigger players than yourself. Red Hat is a major contributor to GNOME both financially and technically. Red Hat is a company that's made a success of watching their bottom line and are not likely to "let a good crisis go to waste." Taking on GNOME is akin to taking on Red Hat. Bigger companies than Canonical have fallen prey to Red Hat clout and expertise.

3. Being a good neighbor pays dividends. Canonical has been battling the reputation of not contributing to upstream projects for quite a while. It isn't just GNOME. The Linux kernel and several other projects have reported very little code originating from the Ubuntu project. Again, Red Hat is a large contributor to many and most loyalty will go to them and if Red Hat ever needs a hand or special consideration, they have but to ask because they are seen as a good neighbor. Canonical may need a favor sometime and requests could fall on deaf ears.

4. Being legally right is rarely synonymous to morally right. Just because the GPL allows Ubuntu to change what code it likes and redistribute, should it if it hurts someone else? Again, this goes back to public image and whether or not users and developers will be supportive of such a move. Is it relevant or correct to ask who needs the money more? Who is more entitled to it? Should Ubuntu, who add nothing to the Banshee project, circumvent Banshee developers' wishes?

5. Running roughshod over smaller Open Source projects just may harm wider corporate image. Does Canonical want to portray itself to the wider commercial world as a trustworthy partner or one that will cut throats as desired? Will the meager earnings from Banshee equal or surpass the earnings from one lost commercial contract with a hardware manufacturer?

6. Don't make a mountain out of a molehill. Since the amount of revenue is so small to either The GNOME Foundation or Canonical, should Banshee developers have said anything about it at all? Were they the ones that looked petty? Every public move and consequence must be calculated before acting. This is why corporate CEOs get paid the big bucks. Sometimes one has to know when not to speak.

It bears repeating that Ubuntu and Canonical have done nothing technically wrong. There's nothing in the GPL that demands they ship code changes upstream, they merely have to make it publicly available. Ubuntu hasn't been accused of not providing their source code. In addition, the GPL gives Ubuntu every right to change as much or as little as they wish to Open Source code, including any affiliate codes. They also have every right to use GNOME for their interface or not. They have the right to give away CDs or not. So, Ubuntu hasn't broken any rules. But have they lived up the high standard of community members that Debian, Red Hat, or Novell have set? Well, you'll have to answer that one for yourselves.

Previous: Major Browser Makers...Next: A Cavalcade of Open ... Browse Blog

by oiaohm on Mar. 18, 2011

"It bears repeating that Ubuntu and Canonical have done nothing technically wrong."

Please do you homework. Banshee license does not cover trademark. They were still using the trademark after the alteration. By trademark law it is the trademark holders product anyone altering it without trademark holders direct permission is screwed legally particularly when its effecting money since the amazon store could be paying for the right to use the trademark. Want a case Mozilla vs Debian over Firefox.

Next Canonical tries claiming that is had an agreement after threatening just to delete the store. Contract law point of out duress. So the agreement is not worth the bit of paper it written on.

Finally I am in Australia and Fair Trading/Consumer protection laws. Also are tripped by Canonical actions. Since Banshee looked the same gave no clue that the store was doing something different.

I have not looked into if Canonical would be in breach of any electronic crimes laws covering deception.

Copyright law is not the only law in play. Trademark breached. Contract Law breached and Consumer protection laws breached.

Finally to protect themselves they found the first thing they could play to try to make Gnome look like the devil when Canonical themselves are not the best of upstream. This could fall under deformation.

Ok how many crimes are we going to let Canonical do before being upset.

0 Votes

by istok on Mar. 18, 2011

A bunch of destructive, uninspired, talentless, immature hucksters.

i'm so very glad i use neither canonical's os nor gnome. and btw there's only one thing worse than gnome and that's kde.

0 Votes

by Bertrand Lorentz on Mar. 18, 2011

A few factual corrections :

1/ Banshee is available under the MIT/X11 license : http://banshee.fm/about/license/

2/ As of March 1, 2011 the total revenue from the Amazon Music store in Banshee is about 4000 USD. But the feature has only been available since August 2010, and revenue has now reached almost 1000 USD per month.

See this page for details and a link to the monthly breakdown : http://banshee.fm/about/revenue/

0 Votes

by Anthony on Mar. 18, 2011

This is why I use MacOS. Well, this isn't why (really I just use it cos it came on my Mac...), exactly, but the fragmentation and infighting in the Open Source community means the consumers suffer. Look at Android, for a perfect example. Great product, but it's impossible to tell which product is on which Android build, espescially with all the custom UIs floating around on the various versions.

I had such hope for Ubuntu, and I really wanted it to work, but with this kind of petty bickering behind the scenes, no wonder it never really gained any traction in the market. It may have worked for Microsoft to be cutthroat and burn briges, but they're Micosoft.

0 Votes

by brrant on Mar. 18, 2011

I believe the best way to take the measure of someone is by observing what they do when they have the upper hand. On the rise from ignominy, most are wise enough to be considerate while playing in the public eye, but too often change once they find a place of security.

Though Ubuntu is not my favorite flavor of Linux, there is a place for them in the market. Even if they behave badly, as they seem more inclined to do as time passes. Because there will always be a segment of the market willing to give up freedom and control for the sake of convienence. Ubuntu seems to be the product for that segment of the Linux world. And at their worst, Ubuntu is still a better alternative to Microsoft, at least so long as they remain committed to the open source model.

Redhat has sometimes been blasted for being a corporation. I’m glad at the least that more people will realize that Redhat has been a good member of the Linux community after seeing Ubuntu over the last couple of years. Yes, a corporation must turn a profit to continue to exist, but being a contributing member of the community is still definitely possible. And being petty isn’t a required part of any business model.

0 Votes

by brrant on Mar. 18, 2011

0 Votes

by an anonymous user on Mar. 18, 2011

@oiaohm

Wow. So much rubbish. Looks like "lets throw enough dirt with vague legal references so that something sticks".

Banshee will be distributed by Ubuntu only from Natty (at least on the desktop). How is there a deception when the application was not even distributed in the first place?

There are no trademark issues. This is not about banshee per se but the default choice of plugins. Any distro which changes any plugins is at fault then.

What **** duress? Did Canonical hold a gun to the banshee developer's heads? They were within their legal rights to do what they did. Go read the MIT license before you spout more nonsense.

You are using vague legal threats with no basis to restrict user freedoms. The OSS licences clearly allow this sort of modifications. Your attitude is pure bigotry.

0 Votes

by syncdram on Mar. 18, 2011

10.04 is and will be my last run with Ubuntu. After the LTS runs out I will be going to Linux Mint, and all my 4 pc's The direction Ubuntu is going whether right or wrong is not suitable for a "Desktop". The argument that you can still switch back to Gnome if Unity is not for you or none compatible is still nothing like the Gnome we grew up with. I feel we were gagged when Mark made the closed door decisions he did. Its His Money granted but all the money he owns did not get Ubuntu were it is today after hitting the consumers desktop. It was the Users of Ubuntu, without a fan base Ubuntu would be nothing. As a very long time user of Ubuntu and there insight to get Windows users to switch to Ubuntu I believe this will be the final nail in the coffin. All Good things do come to an end.

0 Votes

by Cody L. Custis on Mar. 18, 2011

@syncdram

You do realize that Linux Mint is a fork of Ubuntu, with a different skin and some non-free plugins. You could just as easily add those plugins to Ubuntu 10.04 and get an OS which is functionally identical, and even monkey around with the color scheme and backgrounds if Ubuntu bothers you that much.

Red Hat have always been hard core coders. Canonical is great at marketing and responding to user demand.

0 Votes

by Romanybob on Mar. 18, 2011

Come on over to Mint Syncdram, the waters fine!

My main system runs LMDE (Linux Mint Debian Edition) It has nothing to do with Ubuntu, yet provides the same level of functionality. Although allot quicker.

The main edition Julia (10), is Ubuntu based as Cody said. Give it a try though, with the additional software & tweeks some say it's what Ubuntu should have been...

0 Votes

by an anonymous user on Mar. 18, 2011

"6. Don't make a mountain out of a molehill. Since the amount of revenue is so small"

It may still not be large, but it may be much more than the $10K of past years. With Banshee becoming the default music player in Ubuntu, it would be reasonable to expect the revenue to increase, perhaps considerably.

My guess is that Canonical certainly expects it will increase considerably, as it is difficult to imagine them handling this issue in such an insensitive, ham handed fashion so as to create so much ill will from the Linux community otherwise.

A considerable increase in revenue could even provide an argument that Canonical has acted fairly. (I still wouldn't think they have, but admit there could be some legitimacy to it.)

0 Votes

by an anonymous user on Mar. 18, 2011

Here we go again with the highly uninformed, unresearched mudslinging. First, Ubuntu doesn't currently ship with banshee, so people should wait until after 11.04 release to be critical of the revenue stream change. You may find that the amount banshee makes directly increases, even though it is a small cut. And banshee doesn't even work on all Ubuntu supported platforms. The arm port is horribly screwed up.

As to upstream. Canonical/Ubuntu upstreams to Debian. Kernel work done on Ubuntu is usually for hardware support with the hardware vendors, and the patches sent to the kernel are through the vendors directly. That gets more hardware vendors involved than having Redhat do all the work.

As to the Gnome/Unity issue...no comment. I use kde, so I just don't care. But I do remember a similar incident a few years back that eventually ended up with Linus throwing up a ton of patches to Gnome.

0 Votes

by oiaohm on Mar. 18, 2011

"Banshee will be distributed by Ubuntu only from Natty (at least on the desktop). How is there a deception when the application was not even distributed in the first place?"

Because other uses who have seen the Banshee brand in other locations are in there legal rights to presume it will act the same unless clearly marked otherwise. Yes amazon(Ubuntu) as the plugin and displayed would reduced the legal problems. Particularly under Australian law fair-trading and consumer protection since the fact an alteration is made can be seen. Just changing the Payment ID is deceptive. Simple fact the current alteration is wrong. This needs to be corrected at the min ie alter more.

Also due to the first time and Ubuntu is not shipping unaltered Novell has a good case for duress that they had to do what Ubuntu said against there freewill to be shipped on Ubuntu so could not use Trademark straight up to block shipping.

Effectively what Ubuntu is test casing here is the right to clear all income streams from open source programs and point to themselves for there own profit. There is no legal allowance for this.

"There are no trademark issues. This is not about banshee per se but the default choice of plugins. Any distro which changes any plugins is at fault then."

Technically if it changes the representation of a trademarked product. Yes it does. Go read the Mozilla vs Debian rulings.

But in this case a default plugin had its action changed yet its appearance not. So people would be in there right to believe the amazon payment was going to Banshee.

"What **** duress? Did Canonical hold a gun to the banshee developer's heads? They were within their legal rights to do what they did. Go read the MIT license before you spout more nonsense."

Does MIT license apply to a miss use to trademark case. Answer no. Please go read MIT yourself. Banshee Trademark is held by Novell and its rights are not granted for open usage. MIT is copyright does not contain a trademark section. This is the same as saying MPL allowed Debian to alter Firefox and keep on using the Firefox trademark legally is also invalid.

Yes MIT grants you the right to use the source code but not the source code. So its also just like the openoffice/libreoffice. Since libreoffice wanted to alter things about openoffice they had to change the trademarks.

"You are using vague legal threats with no basis to restrict user freedoms. The OSS licences clearly allow this sort of modifications. Your attitude is pure bigotry."

Problem is OSS licenses don't cover everything. Right to modify the source code does not include the right to keep on using the trademark without alteration if you do.

About time people pull their head out the copyright is everything and wake up there are limits to what OSS licenses allow.

MIT also does not cover patents. This is the legal limit of the MIT license.

Basically these Ubuntu supporter about time they sit down and read other laws outside copyright. Wake up Ubuntu has done illegal and can be held to account if Novell decides to. Problem with trademark Novell is free to sit for upto 3 years then hit Ubuntu for all income made plus interest plus damages for miss use of trademark.

0 Votes

by roger d on Mar. 18, 2011

Gnome will soon be nothing like the Gnome we grew up with the planed Gnome changes I have been reading about. In a year or probably much longer we will see which is better.

0 Votes

by anonymousista on Mar. 19, 2011

>It may have worked for Microsoft to be cutthroat and burn briges, but they're >Micosoft.

Thats pretty rich coming from a guy with the Mac.

Is there anyone more cutthroat and willing to burn bridges than Jobs?

Anyone (this side of MS) else have such an aversion to collaboration as Apple?

Try again.

0 Votes

by anonymouse on Mar. 19, 2011

Gnome, like Network Manager and Plymouth and a lot of other stuff coming from Red Hat, is garbage. KDE has been more polished and forward thinking than Gnome for a few years, now, as are many other desktops. Gnome is the dinosaur.

Network Manager and Plymouth just don't work, and neither does Kickstart.

I wish Canonical would sever all ties with Red Hat and not try to make any of their half-baked software work in Ubuntu.

Just say KDE!

0 Votes

by stevpm on Mar. 19, 2011

I cant wait for Gnome shell...they have my loyalty..ubuntu have real piss us users..atleast they should gv us three options, the gnome,gnome shell and unity at install of z 11.04, but as ts said..they are selfish now..

0 Votes

by syncdram on Mar. 19, 2011

@ Cody L. Custis Yes I'm fully aware that Linux Mint is a fork of Ubuntu, but Mint is staying with there original gnome shell. Since the 2nd release is how long I used Marks Ubuntu. Accepting his changes by installing plug-ins, changing a hole array of things to cover up Unity for the sake of staying with Marks Ubuntu just isn't right.

0 Votes

by syncdram on Mar. 19, 2011

@Romanybob I'll be there soon! very soon.

0 Votes

by an anonymous user on Mar. 20, 2011

I hope Canonical/Ubuntu will stand strong and hold their ground against all the violent assaults made upon them.

Yes, Susan, you '6th point' says it all... Banshee developers are petty and lack vision... For example having their own software available for such a user base like Ubuntu's at default couldn't harm their project... it's only a recognition for their work...

Canonical did/is doing much for the deployment of Linux, they don't have the man power that Red Hat Inc has and they still do their job... I hope Red Hat will fall due to their lack of vision and tyranny (because that's what they really are, tyrants and despots).

I don't use Ubuntu, but their community should be proud for being united and strong against such ruthless assaults on their positions...

0 Votes

by Carlton Hobbs on Mar. 20, 2011

As I started reading, i was about to say how this blog post wast backwards, but then you got to you point #2 and basically explained WHY you are backwards yourself.

You start to make it out that big corporate Canonical is pushing around little Gnome. Then you basically admit that Gnome is empowered and directed by Red Hat (and Novell). That is a basic admission that the opposite is true. big Gnome is pushing around little Canonical. And it isn't surprising because of the relative size/security of those revenue streams (Red Hat funding) mean that Gnome won't care much for Canonical.

Thom Holwerda at OSNews.com has it right, Even KDE which has less reason to work with Canonical than does Gnome was willing to do so because 1. It wasn't that difficult and 2. Canonical was a good FOSS citizen in the process. 3. It respected Freedesktop.org even with its problems.

I expected to hate Unity after trying it in Ubuntu 10.10, but now I really like it...as long as they reduce the crashes currently still in 11.04.

0 Votes

by an anonymous user on Mar. 20, 2011

If Banshee is the default, that means that suddenly thousands of extra banshee users will materialize, one day to the next.

Users brought by Canonical. The license gives Canonical the incentive to use Banshee, as they can obtain the generated revenue stream...

I personally don't see the issue. If Banshee did not allow this, they would not be the default app, and would not see the extra users. If Banshee allows it, they should not bitch, because they allow it.

The only problem could be from Banshee loosing 'real' users due to this, as those don't download the app anymore as it is now included,

I make OSS software myself of which others could profit. If you care, you should not be making it as OSS.

0 Votes

by bemused on Mar. 20, 2011

Because of Ubuntu's shenanigans, now I run #! xfce.

...peace.

0 Votes

by Mats Hagglund on Mar. 21, 2011

Personally I like more KDE than Gnome 2. Linux desktop hasn't change much during the last 5 years, especially Gnome. It needs to be upgraded. So i put my hope that KDE-people are doing better job. It's still far from perfect but KDE 4.6 is really nice step forward with better usability.

0 Votes

by legion1978 on Jun. 18, 2011

uhhh i trully believe im stickin to linuxmint 10 .. somehow unity does not match [yet] gnome+compiz productivity/eyecandy.. and Ubuntu people keep taking [what it seems to be] wrong decisions so...

0 Votes