Amarok Store

[Nikolaj Hald Nielsen]

Hi Pierre-Luc

This idea very much touches on something that I have been thinking
about for a while, and which I think is a very important prerequisite
for you project idea to actually succeed.

I would very much like to see a generic API to make content available
and allow music players/devices/whatever to integrate it. The API
would in essence work very much like the API that the Ampache server
currently uses to make its contents available to Amarok. This API uses
html REST like calls to allow Amarok ( or other clients ) to browse
the music stored by Ampache in a dynamic way.

If this was generalized enough, and support added to AMarok, adding a
new source of content would be a simple as adding the url of the
provider ( Sort of how adding an RSS feed to a reader works ).

For this to work  for your idea, the API would of course also have to
support downloading and purchasing, as well as information about the
provider and a lot of other fine details.

One thing though. If we add support for such an API to Amarok, any
music store or site could potentially implement it and have users add
it to Amarok. I do think however that it is fair to demand a small
commission from commercial stores if they want to be added to the
default install of Amarok. Magnatune already pays us a 10% commission
on sales, and we are already in talk with a few other stores willing
to enter a similar agreement. This might not be a lot of money
currently, but it helps keep the project moving and pay for travel and
conference costs and so on. In time, if it really takes off, it would
also allow the Amarok project to hire full time developers, thus
moving the project forwards even more.

In any case, I am currently trying to convince Creative Commons that
we should work together on such an API ( as they have a lot of sites
with content that it would make a lot of sense to make available this
way ), perhaps as a Goggle Summer of Code project. I still need
someone to actually pick ut he project ;-)

- Nikolaj


On Sun, Mar 8, 2009 at 4:19 AM, Pierre-Luc Auclair
<p-l.auclair at velourbain.qc.ca> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I've been thinking about launching a project like this for a while, but never
> really done anything up 'till now. So I decided I might as well put it on
> paper.
>
> Would any of you please read this page description and give me their ideas on
> it ?
>
> http://amarok-store.wikidot.com/project-description
>
> Thanks,
>
> Pierre-Luc
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