Top of this document
Go directly to navigation
Go directly to page content

Proposal | reboot10

The intersection of Free software and Free Culture

Integrating Free Content in Amarok 2

The Free Software and Free Culture movements have much in common, but used to scarcely interact. Amarok2 is bringing Creative Commons licensed and Public Domain content to more users by making it easy to discover new music, benefiting users and artists alike.

Based on the successful integration of the Creative Commons based music store Magnatune.com in previous version of the Free Software music manager Amarok ( Amarok.kde.org ), we are expanding this concept to include many other services, many of which, such as Magnatune.com, Jamendo.org and Libirvox.org, are Based on either Creative Commons licenses or provide their content in the Public domain.

This is a talk I have given at several European conferences already. It focuses on how this interaction between free software and free culture will benefit both communities, and how this is already happening. It also explains how Amarok 2 is trying to create an open "marketplace" for content where anyone can participate on equal term, as a counterweight to proprietary offerings.

The next major version of Amarok will be available on Linux, Mac and Windows, vastly expanding the potential audience of the integrated content.

Speaker Bio:

Nikolaj Hald Nielsen is an independent Free software developer. He integrated the Magnatune.com music store into Amarok 1.4.4 and is working on expanding this work to include other services. He is currently doing freelance work for Magnatune.com who also sponsors him part time to work on Amarok.