Linux Mint diverts [$3.41] Banshee revenue

http://www.itworld.com/it-managementstrategy/231963/linux-mint-diverts-banshee-revenue

by nickolai • 15 years ago

45 16 15 years ago

ahoge• 15 years ago

Since this isn't restricted by the GPL, you can do whatever you want. From a moral standpoint it is kinda bogus though. (Unsurprisingly, the author of that article arrives at the same conclusion.)

natrius• 15 years ago

The GPL doesn't prevent this behavior, nor is it intended to.

nodata• 15 years ago

Just because Canonical did something morally dubious doesn't make it okay for Mint to do it too.

To take this to the logical conclusion, Banshee should never earn any affiliate revenue ever (unless people build from source), and the distro should take it all.

This is clearly ridiculous.

No distro removes ":help uganda" from vim, and I would argue that if only one side were to get the money, it should be Banshee.

The truth is the distros need Banshee, Banshee needs the distros. Rather than arguing over who needs who how much, split the money 50/50.

PerryCox2• 15 years ago

> "The truth is the distros need Banshee, Banshee needs the distros. Rather than arguing over who needs who how much, split the money 50/50."

This hits the nail on the head. Joel Spolsky's answer about splitting equity comes to mind.[1]

[1] http://answers.onstartups.com/questions/6949/forming-a-new-s...

tzury• 15 years ago

This is no doubt, a great and canonical guide for equity splitting, yet I find it hard to see the link to this case.

khafra• 15 years ago

Shapley Value to the rescue! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shapley_value

joe_the_user• 15 years ago

Note that the article states that Canonical changed the Banshee code to give a 75/25 split. I'm not sure how that outcome is terribly different on a moral level than the 50/50 split you advocate.

Note that Banshee is sending the money to the Gnome Foundation, a non-profit, indeed, but one which surely Red Hat must support by necessity, with Red Hat being a profitable company ten times the size of Canonical (with Mint being even smaller).

dspillett• 15 years ago

I don't see this as a major problem, at least not one limited to Mint. Ubuntu does the same thing (as pointed out in the linked article) and it has been talked about happening to other packages be other packagers too.

It isn't something that you'll ever stop happening, but if the authors of software containing affiliate IDs to embed into links there is at least a way to make it obvious to the user. Make it a configurable option. Keep your own affiliate link hard-coded, but include a spot in the per-install and per-user configuration files where a different affiliate ID can be provided. On first run for a given user, if there is an alternate ID provided in the global configuration give the user the choice of which to use: the author's ID or the packager's ID, and store the choice in the per-user config file. You could even give the user the option to opt-out completely, which would be a nice gesture, and a knowledgeable user could change the ID at a later date by editing the config (or you could provide a box in the options area of any GUI associated with the application).

This way the user knows if the packager has suggested a different ID (if they haven't either just keep quiet and use the default or give the user a "Can we use our affiliate ID please? It funds development of this tool." yes/no option on first start), unless the packager patches around that, which would in my opinion be too far over the shady side of the line. By all means keep your affiliate ID (or the yes option if it is just a yes/no situation) as the default (again, if the package maintainer mess with this rather than just providing an alternate ID to chose from I'd consider that "not cricket"): I can't speak for all users but if I'm asked and it is explained to me exactly what is being sent/tracked and why I will probably say yes, if an affiliate ID is "sneaked in" without me knowing and I find out I'm liable to go to some lengths to block it.

hendrix• 15 years ago

mint supports the MATE desktop (gnome 2.x fork). whilst the diverting of royalties is a quite morally sketch, distribution of MATE takes precedence IMO since it is providing sanity in the world of the unholy mess of train-wreck desktop environments aka gnome 3 & unity.

keithpeter• 15 years ago

Linux is about choice, so I wish the MATE project well, however, it could be seen as thinning out the resources available for XFCE development... and so it goes...

nyellin• 15 years ago

Banshee's monthly profits until August 2011: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AlEOoO4Ozn9IdFR...

It's sad that things worked out like this. Ubuntu is dropping Banshee in 12.04, supposedly to remove the Mono dependency from ubuntu-desktop.

spedsal• 15 years ago

If you don't want Mint to get that $3.41, just update Banshee from their PPA -- that should remove Mint's (or Canonical's) affiliate code, right?

I feel like Banshee should get the proceeds from these sales to keep Banshee in active development -- Mint and Canonical should feel this way, too. Why wouldn't they want to support their upstream components? In theory, they could burn through all the good media players they might integrate into their distributions, if this affiliate pocket change "theft" caused them to cease development.

andyking• 15 years ago

Is it just me for whom the scrolling "ITworld LIVE" thing just inside my field of vision makes the article really difficult to concentrate on?

Why do I need to know that someone's just joined their site, or 'shared' a completely different article (with whom?). It's just an overload of irrelevant 'information.'

jerrya• 15 years ago

I have no idea why publishers present that sort of crap, or the scrolling twitter feeds either.

It truly proves conclusively these sites are far more about the clicks than they are about presenting information

I would like to see an adblock/ghostery/disconnect/... utility that specifically removed any auto scrolling elements.

mise• 15 years ago

Mint's choice to give a broken Google custom search engine in Firefox and Chrome is my main issue with the operating system (which means I like their other choices in design).

The forums in effect say "tough, that's how we make money".

In Firefox, it cannot be replaced in a straightforward manner with default Google. Yes, there are ways around it. But they're technical, and fidgety. It's a nuisance.

Linux Mint diverts [$3.41] Banshee revenue

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