So, all that claptrap about Banshee being the better player has been proven false. Just like the “space saving” and “Rhythmbox doesn’t scale” fallacies. At least in this case, there is a token effort by Mr. Shields to link to the Rhythmbox page. We take what small victories we can.

Here is a thread on the Rhythmbox development mailing list where they discuss being replaced, including the developer’s thoughts:

> Is it true that the ubuntu team wants to replace rhythmbox with banshee 
> on 9.10 version?
> I love your product and i don’t understand the motivations, could you 
> explain me if any?
> Has Banshee some features than Rhytm has not? Something thant you 
> couldn’t add quickly to your player before the 9.10 release?

This is true.  I can’t find any real information about the motivations behind
it.  The outcome of the decision process (whatever it was, I wasn’t involved in
any way and I don’t know how it worked) seems to be that if certain features
are implemented in banshee by some deadline, then banshee will replace
rhythmbox in the default ubuntu install.  There doesn’t appear to be any
consideration for changes made to rhythmbox during that period.

The only solid information I can find is here:
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/583933.  This links to a set of bugs that I assume
must all be fixed for the replacement to go ahead.  I can’t predict whether they’re
going to make it.

I don’t have much to say about this issue personally.  I would have liked to
have been involved in the process, and I like to think I would have had some
constructive input, but ultimately it’s ubuntu’s decision.  They should ship
whatever software they feel best satisfies the goals of the ubuntu desktop.

Well, I can tell you the motivations behind it. “Get mono in there”. That’s it. Period. Now the justifications for this have moved among:

1. Rhythmbox is bigger-on-CD than Banshee would be.
2. Rhythmbox development has stopped.
3. Rhythmbox doesn’t scale
4. Banshee is wanted / Rhythmbox  isn’t wanted by the users
5. Banshee is the better application

All of which are clear lies, with the exception of #5, which is purely subjective.

It seems we are settling on the “best-of-breed” as the ultimate justification. This is a good stop if you are on Team Mono, because you can call any application the “best-of-breed” so long as you are the one that gets to decide what factors make it the “best-of-breed”.

I always chuckle around #4; Team Mono is forever chanting “pragmatism” and how “the user doesn’t care about freedom or principles”.  Yet it’s quite clear that the overwhelming majority of users do not want Banshee. So, do the users matter or not? It seems to me that how much they matter is in direct proportion to how much they support you on any specific issue.

Seriously though

If you have the technical bent, show some love to Rhythmbox and take a look at the Developers page. There is a thing called “gnome-love” bugs that are specifically identified as being suitable for newcomers to the project:

Marking a bug with this keyword means that you’re willing to help someone fix the bug, or that it should be fixable by a beginner without any help. This should ONLY be set by a maintainer or people familiar with the code base, and ONLY when it looks like a project suitable for a new developer looking for a task.

There are currently 32 bugs on the list. Maybe there’s one you can take on? Maybe there’s one I can take on?