Comment 41 for bug 528910

Bruce you're not forced or locked into just using the U1MS. You don't like it? Don't use it. Problem fixed.

I think people need to be more conscious that this is a first go at doing something no other free operating system does AFAIK - selling media. People want copyright-restricted media. It would be awesome if everything was CC/GPL but that's not how the world works. The U1MS aims to give people quick, integrated access to music. You don't have to use it (you can buy your music however you like, just as you don't have to use vim) but it's an option for you.

This makes Ubuntu a lot nicer for users that expect an integrated marketplace. They expect to be able to quickly try and buy music/TV/movies/etc because Apple have done a great job on monopolising and spreading it. Again, this feature is arriving because there is clearly huge demand for it.

Format wise, yes, OGG/FLAC would be immense but we're not in a world where 99.9% of devices can play OGG. There's a reason portable digital music devices are popularly called "MP3 players". MP3 rules the market so naturally the "base" format for all commercial non-DRM stores is MP3 (or AAC if your store is heavily linked to a certain fruit-branded device). Canonical can hardly demand that 7digital transcode terabytes of media into OGG at this stage.

And as for the initial point 4 (why is it called U1MS), I'll refer you back to the point that these are early days. I believe (though I cannot say for certain - I'm not a employee of Canonical) 7digital is just the first partner. They don't sell everything and in time it would be best (and most fair) if the U1MS actually sourced its music from multiple vendors, offering people the best prices for media.

I've talked about people here trying to be considerate toward Canonical but I'd just like to ask Canonical to be considerate of its users too. Don't use this as a get rich quick scheme. Open it up to other media vendors other than 7digital so we get the best prices and the widest possible selection of media. You have the possibility to "do iTunes right", that is without the massive lock-in that Apple has its users in. Please don't go exclusive with 7d or you might find vendors writing their own plugins that bypass you completely.