Without Open Source software, Amazon.com would not exist. Their infrastructure would kill a Windows server infrastructure. They never could have afforded the licenses they needed to scale their infrastructure in the Windows world back in the early days of 96 and 97. So why does Amazon treat Linux users like 2nd class citizens?
I just bought the New Sons of Bill album (which is freaking amazing). Prior to today, downloading the album to my computer involved downloading a file which I then opened with a command line utility which would read the file and pull my new purchase down to my computer. The official Amazon Music Linux client hasn’t worked for about 2 years. Thankfully the open source community provided several tools to get our music purchases from Amazon to your local computer.
Today, when I tried to download my purchase I got an error message. The definition file I used to get apparently no longer exists. The error message stated that album downloads are not supported on Linux and that I had to download each song individually. WTF? If I’m not getting the same service as the Windows or Mac user why am I paying the same price? Then, when I tried to download the songs individually, I was forced to “register” my computer. The songs aren’t DRMed, or weren’t anyway. Nothing downloaded to my computer, so I’m guessing registering just put a cookie on my PC. A cookie that will get automatically deleted when I close my browser, BTW.
Apple won’t let me buy music from iTunes, and Amazon apparently couldn’t care less if I do. So screw them both. I’ve bought my last MP3 from Amazon.com. When they start to treat Linux users with a little bit of respect I’ll be back.
Maybe.
{ 6 } Comments
Would sounds good except: how are you going to get music? You’ll have to break.
Google sells music. And there is always The Pirate Bay…
You think Amazon is a coherent organization, with software standards? Please, don’t! I interviewed with them a few months ago and the interviewer said, “well, whatever technology you want to use, really.”
They have no coherent position on software, they have no single software-stack, they have no clue. They’re not about software: they’re about sales. Which means that they’re incoherent about what they’re doing, they have very little investment in software, they don’t care that they build the best – they just see a job and want it to be done-ish.
Want to use Perl, Java, Ruby, SQL Server, MySQL, Oracle? They’ll give it to you.
They have no CIO worth a damn, and they are schizophrenic in their software development.
It’s basic market economics. Most buyers are on Windows or Mac. They don’t lose much money by not actively supporting Linux, and it costs them money to develop for another platform.
David – I had 10 interviews for a sales job with the Cloud Services group last year. They aren’t any more organized on the sales side.
Cencio – The basic economics of the open source world say you give back to the community. Since they seem to have gone all browser based now and dumped the client software, how much harder could it really be to support Linux? Macs are basically a pretty face on BSD.
Amazon do it for one single thing on their mind: SALES. Or should i say MONOPOLY too.