"To be sure, the alternatives don't have Apple's muscle with the
media industry. This translates into a lack of a movie/TV download
service to be seriously competitive with the likes of what iTunes
can provide. Despite this drawback, there are still some great open
source alternatives to iTunes for those who are more interested in
software freedom than software convenience.
"Songbird -- Without question, this is one of my favorite open
source alternatives to iTunes. Despite still being under heavy
development, today's Songbird application is cross platform and
easy to use. And for those who have an iPod or MTP device such as a
Creative Zen, it’s a smart match from the start.
"On the flip side, however, newer iPod Nanos and the iPod Touch
are not currently working with Songbird. Hopefully this will change
in the future, but I tend to think it'll be a ways off."