Amazon is bad at open source

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.