So, there’s an interesting meeting scheduled for Wednesday at the upcoming Ubuntu Developer Summit (UDS) titled, droolingly, “Ubuntu One Music Store“.
—Yeah, I know!
The linked blueprint for the idea the discussion is to focus on simply states: –
The Lucid music store project aims to deliver the ability to purchase music from within a desktop music player.
No further specification or information is yet available.
Which is annoying since I have a lot of questions…
What kind of Ubuntu Music Store?
Rhythmbox, Ubuntu’s default music player, already has two music stores integrated within it out of the box, namely Jamendo and Magnatune integrated into it.
It’s unknown whether the blueprint in question involves (somehow) getting major labels or other online music storefronts, such as 7Digital or Amazon MP3, to provide the “music” through this Ubuntu-branded store.
However, there’s another interesting point left dangling for discussion.
The meeting title refers to Ubuntu One in its title.
But isn’t Ubuntu One simply a sync app, like Dropbox? There’s nothing related to a storefront for any kind of content, music or otherwise at present so if Ubuntu is planning a music store, what’s it got to do with Ubuntu One?
Initially, I wondered if it was simply a means to sync music purchased from other online stores. Like, you buy an album and then click “add to Ubuntu One”.
But if so, why would it specifically be described as a store when “Ubuntu One Music Sync” or similar would be more accurate?
And if it is sync-related, is that really going to be helpful when Ubuntu One is, to date, only available on Ubuntu PCs and laptops, not phones, iPods, etc?
Finally, Ubuntu doesn’t ship with MP3 codecs by default, so if this is a proper store selling proper music—by which I mean the kinds of music people want to buy—is Ubuntu going to start making MP3s work out the box?
Questions, questions, questions!
This is one discussion sure to prove fascinating.
Want to be part of it? It’s scheduled for Wednesday 18th November @ 12.00 EST UDS< and you’ll be able to join in the chat via the Presidente room on IRC @ #ubuntu-uds-presidente.