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Songbird is a discontinued music player originally released in early 2006 with the stated mission "to incubate Songbird, the first Web player, to catalyze and champion a diverse, open Media Web".[3]
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Songbird 2.0.0 on Windows 7
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| Developer(s) | Pioneers of the Inevitable aka POTI Inc. |
|---|---|
| Initial release | 8 February 2006; 18 years ago (2006-02-08) |
| Final release |
2.2.0, Build 2453 |
| Preview release | None [±] |
| Operating system |
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| Platform |
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| Available in | 98 languages[2] |
| Type | Media player |
| License | GNU GPLv2 with exceptions; Android client closed source |
| Website | getsongbird |
Songbird utilizes the cross-platform frameworks Mozilla XULRunner and GStreamer media framework. Songbird runs on Windows and macOS. In 2012, an Android version and an iOS version were released. Songbird at one point also supported Solaris and Linux, but this support was dropped. As a result, users forked Songbird and created a Windows, Mac, and Linux compatible derivative under the name Nightingale.
Songbird announced on 14 June 2013 that it would stop all operations and shut down by 28 June. The company was unable to fund further business operations and as a result, all operations and associated services were discontinued.[4]
Users can add features and change functionality in Songbird by installing extensions. Extensions are similar to the Extensions for the Firefox browser and can be easily ported.[5] Community coded extensions are available on Songbird's addons support page. Known community designed extensions are: Qloud Tagging & Search, eMusic Integration, iTunes Importer, Artist Tracker, Library File Organizer, Audioscrobbler Notifier, Wikipedia Artist Display, SHOUTcast Radio Directory, UnPlug, Adblock Plus, Taglib metadata handler, ChatZilla, and FoxyProxy.
Skins are referred to as "feathers" in Songbird and give users and artists the ability to change the look of Songbird via an extension which generates a default skin. Using CSS (and optionally XUL), and an image manipulation program such as PhotoshoporGIMP, users are then able to make Songbird look however they want.
Songbird was founded by Rob Lord and developed by Pioneers of the Inevitable (with members who previously developed for both Winamp[6] and the Yahoo! Music Engine).
In January 2010, Philips announced they would ship a personalized version of Songbird with some of their line of portable audio/video players.[7]
On 2 April 2010, it was announced that official Linux support would end with Songbird version 1.7.2. POTI Inc. would instead focus on its Windows and Mac OS X versions of Songbird, providing only unofficial support for Linux releases.
Sometime during late 2012 or early 2013, Songbird's public SVN was taken down, along with their wiki and other source code related utilities. A survey later sent out via Twitter by Songbird suggested that POTI was closing the desktop player source code, planning to later sell an updated version, fixing many outstanding bugs and feature requests by users who had been ignored for years.[8]
| Color | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Red | Old release |
| Yellow | Unreleased, internal milestone |
| Green | Current release |
| Blue | Future release |
| Version | Release date | Codename | Significant changes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.1 | 8 February 2006 | Hilda | |
| 0.1.1 | 22 February 2006 |
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| 0.2 RC1 | 26 September 2006 | ||
| 0.2 | 17 October 2006 |
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| 0.2.5 | 28 February 2007 |
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| 0.3 | 30 October 2007 | Bowie | |
| 0.3.1 | 6 November 2007 |
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| 0.4 | 27 December 2007 | Cher |
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| 0.5 | 26 March 2008 | Dokken |
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| 0.6 | 13 June 2008 | Eno |
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| 0.6.1 | 25 June 2008 |
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| 0.7 | 20 August 2008 | Fugazi |
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| 1.0 | 2 December 2008 | Genesis |
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| 1.1.1 | 10 March 2009 | Hendrix | |
| 1.1.2 | 9 April 2009 | Hootie |
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| 1.2 | 18 June 2009 | Isan |
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| 1.3 | — | Jackson 5 |
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| 1.4 | December 2009 | Kanye |
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| 1.4.3 | 23 December 2009 | KoЯn |
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| 1.5 | — | Led Zeppelin |
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| 1.6.0 | — | Madonna |
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| 1.7.0 | — | Nirvana |
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| 1.7.2 | 3 June 2010 | NOFX |
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| 1.8.0 | 2 September 2010 | Orbital |
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| 1.9.3 | 9 February 2011 | Pink Floyd |
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| 1.10.1 | 1 November 2011 | Qbert |
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| 1.10.2 | 25 January 2012 |
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| 1.10.3 | 22 May 2012 |
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| 2.0.0 | 8 June 2012 |
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| 2.1 | 31 October 2012 |
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| 2.2 | 15 February 2013 |
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