Just a quick heads up to any KDE users. You may want to blacklist the Amarok 2.1.80 “upgrade” if you listen to Last.FM
Users who “upgrade” to this version will be locked out of Last.FM streams until they pay Last.FM for a “premium” account.
As near as I can tell, KDE wasn’t forced to do this, they must have went along willingly as the last version of Amarok continues to work just fine if you still have it installed, I’m typing this as I’m listening to a Last.FM stream on my laptop which didn’t get the “upgraded” package.
It’s sad that KDE is continuing to support a service which is now coated in server side paywalls and DRM. It would be nice if they could have just stuck to free software ideals and chose to remove the Last.FM plugin and salt the Earth of these parasites. Oh well.
I could have understood if Last.FM said “Third parties can keep using our service provided that they place the same ‘Buy this track’ link that our client has”. Near as I can figure, Last.FM’s only gripe was that they are losing those click pennies when you use other clients.
