Help us keep the music flowing - Rokvember 2009 - Amarok joins Software Freedom Conservancy

The Amarok Team has never fully rested during the winter, nor did we rest during this hot working summer, and we still won't rest now! It's this time of the year again: The time where a lot of people are keen on sitting in warm houses rather then going out to chase after falling leaves and stormy winds. The time when lots of code is committed and Amarok sees again a lot of changes and improvements. If you are in the warm part of the globe maybe cold weather, snow and ice won't affect you, but you will for sure see effects of this season reflected in Amarok development. It's Roktober!

Oh, wait, it's already November! Rokvember! We really have been incredibly busy and totally missed that month apparently...

At this point we are usually summing up our efforts as well as our spendings. Another year has passed since last October, and we have been working throughout it. All in all a very busy year, where we have released so many new and improved versions: 2.0 beta 2 aka "Nujalik", 2.0 beta 3 "Ataksak", 2.0 RC1 "Narwhal", which culminated in Amarok 2.0 "In the Beginning" in early December, The work continued with the Amarok Team attending FOSDEM in Brussels, CeBit in Hannover, OpenExpo in Bern and still working on the code: we released 2.0.1.1 "Magellan" and security fixes, 2.0.2 "Only Time will tell", 2.1. beta 1 "Nuliajuk", shortly followed by 2.1 beta 2 and Amarok 2.1 "Let There Be Light" in June.

We focused our efforts during the development sprint in Berlin, changed our version control system from SVN to Git, and geared up to another level of speed in development. More than one hundred commits in the first 24 hours when we opened trunk for the next series is self-explaining! And we never rested, represented Amarok at LinuxTag in Berlin, gathered most of the developers in Gran Canaria for the Desktop Summit in July, brainstormed on more improvements and features and the results were there: Amarok 2.1.1 "Oceania", 2.2 beta 1 "Crystal Clear", 2.2 beta 2 "Red Dawn", 2.2 RC1 "Sunset Door" and, finally, Amarok 2.2 "Sunjammer" on October 1st. In between that we represented Amarok at FrosCon in Bonn/Sankt-Augustin and another OpenExpo in Winterthur, Switzerland, allowing people to check out developer previews at our booths.

Attending conferences, representing the development team at booths and giving talks at various events involves some real money in traveling and accommodation, which we are gathering from our donors and sponsors. Also thanks to that money we were able to organize our first Amarok development sprint this year, which was a huge success. Our server costs are needed to resist the download pressure when we release and write to inform you about the work in progress.

So again a productive year comes to its end, and we also need to restock our funds. We did our very best delivering new versions of your favorite music player, now it is your turn to show some love to the Amarok Team, and make it possible to continue to rock greatly also next year! With your support we are sure we will make Amarok even better than it is now :) We are aiming to raise 10.000$ for the coming year.

The Amarok Team is also proud to announce that it has joined the Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC). As a legally registered 501(c)(3) charity in the United States, working together with the SFC will allow donors to give tax-deductible donations, and increase the transparency in the spending of Amarok's funds. By entering into a fiscal sponsorship with the SFC, the Amarok project will be able to provide firm support for its US-based developers, showcasing the increasingly global nature of the project.

The partnership with the SFC is mutually complementary with the Amarok project's relationship to the KDE e.V., as it continues to support the Amarok team's activities in Europe and elsewhere in the world. Amarok has always been, and always will be, a part of the KDE community.

Head over to the donate button on your left to support Amarok and help us make it an even better music player!