I gave Songbird two tries, and saw improvement and thought it had potential. It never reached a point where it could challenge Rhythmbox, but I was interested in where it was going. I did think if it reached it goals it would be a serious contender.

Now we’ve lost that.

The comments on the blog generally echo my thoughts:

This sucks, but do what you think is best.

What you think is best is stupid, because there are at least a dozen media players for Windows that are at least as good as Songbird already. You are giving up on a community of passionate users hungry for a solid iTunes alternative for an already overcrowded platform. Good luck.

Lyrebird

A Linux fork / un-official port / something-or-another named Lyrebird has already been announced, but the fact that the official version will not support Linux already pushes this into “second-class citizen” status. I’ll be willing to give it a look down the road – you never know – but right now I’m filing Songbird-and-related stuff in the “dead” file.