11.04 Banshee – Why Was Banshee Chosen as the Default Music Player?

11.04banshee

What are the reasons for Banshee replacing Rhythmbox in Ubuntu 11.04?

I don't want your opinion on which is best nor why. I want to know what the reasoning was behind the decision.

Best Answer

dv3500a's answer has links to the information. Here is an informative video from Gabriel Burt's talk at GUADEC that might give you some information that gives you an overview of some of the things that are nice in Banshee. Here are the slides.

I was at the session and here are some of the highlights:

  • The ability to change UIs from netbook to "normal". (It's handy to have one media player for both form factors)
  • A vibrant community of contributors (see the slides for numbers) who is willing to work with us closely.
  • An easy way to hack on extensions.
  • Follows the GNOME schedule.
  • Polished device support, including syncing of playlists to devices.
  • Video library support (though this is new and not very polished, maybe we'll hide it for 11.04)

Banshee has a bunch of other great features, but these were the ones we mostly discussed at this session.

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