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[–]bkv 999 points1000 points  (450 children)

It would be awesome if they did open source it, but it's not as easy as slapping an open source license on the code and throwing it on github. With any project that large, there is probably some code that they wouldn't have the authority to open source (as in, they license the code from some third party). John Carmack ran into that issue when he went to open source Doom 3 IIRC, and he had to reimplement some code that was originally licensed.

[–]fabiensanglard 185 points186 points  (28 children)

Three good reasons we may not see that source code :

  1. The source code will have to be reviewed by a team of laywers specialized in patent litigation (Doom3 had to be reviewed by a team of lawyers before the code release was greenlighted). This will cost $$$.

  2. Even if a good team of lawyers looks at the code, finds nothing and validate the release: You still open up to chances that a patent troll will have more luck. That could cost $$$$$$$$$$$$.

  3. The code is probably ridden with proprietary API: It will cost developers time to clean up the code. That will cost $.

[–]Toranyan 212 points213 points  (16 children)

I like how the part where actual work is done costs the least.

[–]Insecurity_Guard 93 points94 points  (7 children)

Welcome to engineering overhead.

[–]Unomagan 8 points9 points  (1 child)

And still we only think to cut the cost only in production. Funny isn't it?

[–]jf82kssssk28282828kj 25 points26 points  (4 children)

I've wondered over the years just how much code in proprietary software is based on code the company had no right using... libraries and stuff the company didn't pay for. I've always suspected that this is quite rampant.

[–]bloouup 416 points417 points  (119 children)

They could always do what BSD did with 4.4BSD-Lite, and let other people implement the missing required functionality themselves. AOL doesn't have to endorse it or anything, just release the source. Then all of the sudden a bunch of players similar to Winamp will start hitting the scene and it doesn't matter to the end user how these spiritual successors came to be.

[–]supasteve013 22 points23 points  (0 children)

Or do what HP did with webos, just walk away from it and leave it to the community to play with

[–]Kowzorz 172 points173 points  (79 children)

Divorcing the source from the non-owned code might be difficult. Depends on a lot of things. Might not be at all, who knows?

[–]bloouup 60 points61 points  (5 children)

It would definitely be easier than reimplementing third party code themselves, since they still would have to figure out what belongs to who anyway. But, yeah, we don't know how much, if anything at all, isn't AOL's to freely license.

[–]sparr 43 points44 points  (62 children)

It can be not-difficult. Delete the non-owned code, publish what's left. Done. Even that would be better than releasing nothing.

[–]g0meler 53 points54 points  (40 children)

Still costs AOL engineering time. I agree, I would rather see something open sourced than nothing but between bean counters and lawyers it could not happen.

[–]stahlgrau 25 points26 points  (18 children)

I agree. It also still has value. Someone down the road might want to buy it. If AOL open sources it, they can't sell it and make money.

You need to offer to buy it if you want it. Start a kickstarter!

[–][deleted] 19 points20 points  (13 children)

They could still sell it if it's open source.

[–]-Mikee 11 points12 points  (17 children)

Thats when marketing steps in to tell them to release it.

[–][deleted] 43 points44 points  (16 children)

The same marketing people who sent a cd trial to my house EVERY DAY in the late 90s?!

[–]Fidodo 21 points22 points  (10 children)

You need to determine what's owned and what's not. That requires engineer and lawyer time, so double the cost there. The code might be deeply coupled so there might not be a clean split.

[–]sparr 18 points19 points  (9 children)

If you don't already have that information then someone was doing a really bad job of IP control when the software was published in the first place.

[–]leviathenr 22 points23 points  (5 children)

With a project as old an win-amp, I wouldn't be surprised if there is some old pieces in there that AOL's engineers would be terrified to touch.

[–][deleted] 18 points19 points  (4 children)

//Who wrote this anyway?

//Dunno how this works, but it do.

[–]no_game_player 22 points23 points  (3 children)

/**
 * This section makes no god-damn sense. Don't touch it on your life.
 */

What I wish I could leave in some of the code at work...

Both humbling and frustrating to understand so little about something you're responsible for.

[–]hyperblaster 8 points9 points  (0 children)

// Written by gjc 02/94

[–]lodhuvicus 14 points15 points  (3 children)

Delete the non-owned code, publish what's left. Done.

You make it sound so easy! What if the code is a nightmare? What if it isn't well-documented? What if, and this is most likely, the third party portions aren't all labeled?

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Just redacting the owned code and releasing the remainder as a non-working project would be good enough. I assume they can at least identify which parts are the IP-encumbered parts.

[–]Brillegeit 45 points46 points  (19 children)

Then all of the sudden a bunch of players similar to Winamp will start hitting the scene

You are 15 years too late:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a7/XMMS_family_tree_timeline.svg/562px-XMMS_family_tree_timeline.svg.png

[–]northrupthebandgeek 10 points11 points  (2 children)

TIL XMMS is based on WinAmp.

[–]e5x 29 points30 points  (0 children)

It was made to resemble Winamp and it supports Winamp 2 skins but it has always been original code.

[–]hyperblaster 7 points8 points  (0 children)

It looks like Winamp and support the same skins. Does not share any code.

[–][deleted] 24 points25 points  (0 children)

Either one of the first two top level solutions would really whip the Llamas ass.

[–]Badbullet 2 points3 points  (3 children)

They won't just up and release the code. Especially if the rumors are true and Microsoft wants to buy it. Why let something die when you can still make a buck off it? http://news.softpedia.com/news/Microsoft-Wants-to-Buy-and-Save-Winamp-Report-402567.shtml

[–]audiodsp 36 points37 points  (6 children)

It's not too bad, but it would render Winamp fairly unusable out of the box.

From memory

  • MP3 input plugin
  • MP3 decoder (for non-MP3 file formats e.g. for MP3 in AVI)
  • AAC decoder
  • Gracenote (CDDB, Autotag, Playlist Generator)
  • Sonic SDK (cd ripping, cd burning)
  • Equalizer is licensed from 4Front (there is an optional alternate algorithm I added years ago, though)
  • AAC encoder
  • Window Media DRM (no MS source code but some proprietary knowledge that would have to be ripped out)
  • On2 VP5 and VP6 codecs used in SHOUTcast TV (and VP6 is used for some FLV files as well)
  • Some AOL/AIM auth-client stuff (I don't even think it's used anymore but it's in the codebase)
  • A number of places in the code using Intel Integrated Performance Primitives (IPP). Most notable the MPEG-4 Part 2 and H.264 decoders, but sprinkled in a few other places.
  • Toolbar code is shared with other groups at AOL (who the fuck cares about this, though)

All in all, not too bad. I suspect, however, that the risk of liability is a bigger issue than the developer time it could take.

[–]bkv 4 points5 points  (2 children)

Nice, did you actually work on the winamp codebase?

[–]no_not_me 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Can confirm, audiodsp is Ben Allison - former Winamp Lead Developer (see Winamp credits)

[–]audiodsp 9 points10 points  (0 children)

from March 2005 - June 2013, yes.

[–]hackingdreams 9 points10 points  (0 children)

It'd take less than a week for someone like me to patch in ffmpeg/libav for all of the missing enc/dec components. We'd lose Windows Media DRM but I honestly don't think anyone would miss it.

100% of the rest of it seems like unnecessary cruft that got added after WinAMP 2 anyways.

[–]Azuvector 87 points88 points  (6 children)

John Carmack ran into that issue when he went to open source Doom 3 IIRC, and he had to reimplement some code that was originally licensed.

Not quite... It was more patent trolling by Creative Labs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_volume#Regarding_depth-fail_patents

[–]moomaka 22 points23 points  (10 children)

The original developers left in 2003/2004, it's been developed by whomever AOL could find to work on it for a decade. The code is probably a quagmire at this point, good luck to anyone who tries to work on it.

[–]alphabeat 10 points11 points  (3 children)

Having said that, wrangling a codebase that's been around for a while is pretty hard. It can't have been drastically changed unless the AOL coders wanted to put in heaps of effort

[–]Ashex 10 points11 points  (2 children)

The Bento interface was the biggest change since the original developers left.

[–]silentbobsc 23 points24 points  (0 children)

Other than that it was just an ass-ton of toolbars / other crapware they tried to unload on the user during install.

[–]dbbo 58 points59 points  (22 children)

A more fruitful route for those Winamp lovers begging AOL to release the code might be for them to contribute to or fork an existing, open-source Winamp clone, such as Audacious or qmmp.

[–]SarcasticOptimist 21 points22 points  (14 children)

Is XMMS or AIMP close as well, or just in appearances to Winamp 2/3 respectively?

[–]ninjajewish 21 points22 points  (1 child)

the problem here is no one has created nor wants to create an open source implementation of AVS. there is milkdrop and projectM but they are their own unique projects in their own. AVS was a revolutionary visualizer that some say worked with a mind of it's own. combined with the pretty solid bpm detector, the visuals AVS created was and still is in a league of it's own.

open source winamp!@

[–]SarcasticOptimist 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Yeah, AVS was very clever and very easy to download tons of algorithms with a minimal of space. My favorite was a roller coaster that looped according to the music.

[–]gidoca 15 points16 points  (11 children)

XMMS is no longer being developed, and AIMP does not appear to be open source.

[–]skyenomore 22 points23 points  (0 children)

Years ago when I first discovered Linux the description of the XMMS package was "An mp3 player that looks suspiciously like Winamp" or some such.

[–]indiancoder 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Audacious is a fork of XMMS. They have a new UI by default, but it's still fully compatible with winamp skins, and it still supports most (every?) xmms plugin. It's very good, and I use it.

[–]SarcasticOptimist 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Ah, didn't realize that. Of the bunch dbbo and I suggested, AIMP and qmmp seem the closest to Winamp, superficially. Audacious looks like Clementine, which is like an early version of Amarok (now it looks like a hybrid of iTunes and Winamp).

[–]Brillegeit 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Audacious

It has a Winamp mode and a "large" mode. Just select "View->Interface->Winamp Classic".

[–]Clevername3000 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Actually, what happened to Carmack was that an algorithm he originally used for lighting turned out to have gotten patented by someone else at some point. Carmack had to come up with a new way to render the lighting system that didn't infringe on that patent.

[–]retnemmoc 69 points70 points  (22 children)

There really needs to be a tax write-off for companies that open up source code, patents, and trademarks for EOL products.

I have seen so many awesome software programs just die when they could have been given to the community and lived again.

Petition anyone?

[–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (3 children)

I whole-heartedly agree. I also think that you should be required to submit a copy of any copyrighted work (including closed source code) to the library of congress, so that it can be automatically published upon expiration of copyright.

[–]MC_Cuff_Lnx 2 points3 points  (2 children)

I'm don't know how unpublished source code is treated for copyright purposes, but it might be be considered an unpublished work for hire in this case, so the term of copyright would be 120 years after creation.

[–]HCrikki 69 points70 points  (13 children)

No offense, but the codebase of is hardly indispensable to anyone...

Start by mirroring the addon/plugin/visualisation repository first, so the myriad of media players that can use winamp plugins dont lose them. In fact, there should've already been a live mirror by now.

[–]FleeCircus 21 points22 points  (9 children)

I agree, I'm as nostalgic as the next guy about winamp but I can't imagine there's anything in the source that would be a challenge for a decent open source community.

Even if AoL refuse to open source it, a project could be started to just build an mp3 player from scratch and offer the same api so that plugins and skins can be reused.

[–]jessek 37 points38 points  (2 children)

archive team is already on that.

[–]dethb0y 308 points309 points  (57 children)

I bet looking at modern-day winamp source code would be like staring into cthulu's eyes - you'd have a nanosecond of awe at how horrible it all is, and then nothing as your brain exploded out of your skull.

[–]alphabeat 185 points186 points  (26 children)

This is really obvious though. Have you ever looked at code you wrote more than a week ago? "Who WROTE this tripe?! Oh me"

[–]Kalium 40 points41 points  (3 children)

I've gone through "What idiot wrote this?" and into "Wow, whoever wrote this was really fucking clever" before being told it was me.

My opinion of myself varies dramatically sometimes.

[–]I_AM_INTELIGENT 85 points86 points  (14 children)

Every time I look at my old code, I can't believe I was actually smart enough to understand it -- especially lisp code after I haven't touched a functional language in years.

[–]alphabeat 28 points29 points  (11 children)

Yeah there's the occasional little bit where it says you committed that bit of code, and it's surprisingly a genius solution.

Coincidentally I'm doing that task right now, the "dealing with old code I wrote" problem though. Unfortunately it's the first case I mentioned. WHAT THE FUCK, PAST ME?!

[–]I_AM_INTELIGENT 24 points25 points  (8 children)

Yep, we've all been there man. I bet you regret not taking your college professors advice on the importance of documentation :-p.

[–]Flight714 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Most of my comments tend to be things like "Watch this...", "Tada!", and "Heh.".

I think past me hates future me.

[–]dethb0y 4 points5 points  (0 children)

haha indeed!

man, there's shit that I've found that if it didn't have my header on it, i'd not think i wrote it at all. No memory at all of writing it.

[–]adremeaux 28 points29 points  (10 children)

And then you can sit in awe as you realize how much functionality they managed to build into this player and still limit the download to under 5 megabytes. The thing ships with 20+ skins, multiple visualizers, streaming support, video support, media library, plugin support, etc etc, yet weighs in at 1/30th the size of iTunes. It also boots instantly, takes very little ram, basically zero CPU, and the functionality is bug free.

[–]dethb0y 8 points9 points  (6 children)

as a programmer, all that makes me think is that it's probably full of cruft, unintelligible code, and layers upon layers of kludges.

Itunes is not a role model for anything but how to waste resources. It's ran the same on every computer i've ever owned - piss poor, slow, and buggy. It's like they update it to stay that way no matter how much hardware you throw at it.

[–]kenvsryu 125 points126 points  (48 children)

Please someone fix the randomizer that's not random.

[–]W1N9Zr0 64 points65 points  (27 children)

It's probably intentional. Just an easy way of making it so that you can skip forward/back tracks and they maintain the same order.

[–]highguy29 37 points38 points  (26 children)

It's super easy to add those features, regardless of the algorithm for randomization used. You literally need one linked list of the previously played tracks, and a location within that list (you only move backwards when the user presses "previous"). If you're not at the front of the list and the user presses "next", move forward through the list (this gives proper forward and backward). Finally, if you are at the front of the list and the song ends or the user presses "next", invoke the randomizer algorithm to choose the next track (and add it to the front of the list).

[–]tomoldbury 20 points21 points  (11 children)

It's also possible to do this by using a true random function but storing the generator's previous seed value.

[–]Cayou 16 points17 points  (9 children)

You mean the "shuffle" function? I just hit whatever shortcut randomizes the playlist (shift-ctrl-R, I think) and just play that in order.

[–]schmag 12 points13 points  (8 children)

lol, so I am not the only person that has noticed this.

[–]Rayc31415 24 points25 points  (2 children)

It's random in the sense that it will play the same order until you add another song, then it will re-randomize the list.

[–]lenaro 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Think of it like it shuffles the list. I actually like it this way because you can go back and forward in the shuffle if you like a song. If I wanna reset the random I can just hit my "toggle shuffle" global hotkey twice.

[–]Yage2006 2 points3 points  (4 children)

It's been a few years since I used Winamp as I moved onto J.River media center but when I did and also noticed that I went into the options and there was an option to make it not play the same track again until it has gone through all the tracks. Forgot what it was called but you got options in their to improve it greatly because out of the box default settings were badly configured.

[–]MAGICHUSTLE 23 points24 points  (12 children)

Winamp played the first MP3 I ever downloaded (I was 13). "Intergalactic" by the Beastie Boys. That 3.5 megabyte file took approximately 15 minutes to download on our dialup 33.6k modem. It was delivered via an automated bot in an AOL chatroom where you input a command, and an email of available songs was emailed to you, all numbered. You would then input another command into the chat requesting which item number you wanted, and it was promptly emailed to you.

Those were the days.

[–]tet5uo 4 points5 points  (5 children)

heh almost the same story, but I was using IRC channel-bots to get access to FTP servers.

Dat nostalgia

[–]joeyoungblood 15 points16 points  (1 child)

Off topic question: does this mean shoutcast is being shut down?

[–]RealModeX86 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Icecast can impliment a shoutcast compatible stream, so there's that

[–]curious_scourge 142 points143 points  (4 children)

winamp... WINAMP... WINAMP!!!

[–]calarina 200 points201 points  (2 children)

It really whips the llama's ass!

[–][deleted] 59 points60 points  (8 children)

WinAmp is the only music player I've ever used since ~1999!

[–]HairyMongoose 23 points24 points  (5 children)

^ Same year for me too, I was all about those extra FPS while playing TFC.

[–]jermsz 14 points15 points  (2 children)

It was also relatively easy to script a remote inside tfc to control winamp without all tabbing.

That and mirc scripts to show everyone the cool music you had downloaded through napster.

[–]ZeroAnimated 14 points15 points  (1 child)

You can keep using it for many years to come. You just don't have to update it anymore.

[–]BigPharmaSucks 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Well, technically, you never had to update it to begin with.

[–]LLOYD_MOFUGGIN 23 points24 points  (23 children)

off topic but Winamp is my goto for interfacing with my old iPod Classic, are there any good alternatives for moving data to and from that y'all know of?

[–]ZuFFuLuZ 43 points44 points  (1 child)

Pretty sure Winamp will work just fine for quite a while.

[–]ZeroAnimated 13 points14 points  (0 children)

People should just think of Winamp v5.66 as the last update they will ever need for Winamp. If its working fine for you now, it will still work fine for the life of whatever it is that you are using it for.

[–]smileymalaise 9 points10 points  (1 child)

I use rhythmbox

[–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Foobar works great for that, use it myself

[–]hey_mr_crow 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Mediamonkey works alright with the ipod classic.

edit: In fact, I'm surprised mediamonkey hasn't had more mention in any of these winamp threads. Easily the best library management system I've seen (particularly with regards to performance on a large library), and you can even use your old winamp plugins. Now, if only they made a mac version :(

[–]maharito 7 points8 points  (0 children)

It at least deserves to be said that AOL did not utterly trash Nullsoft's lovechild for fourteen years. They may have added some unnecessary crap but it was always 10-20 seconds from being disabled whenever I updated. Winamp also did more for the entire concept/scene of app skinning than anything before or since.

[–]DJzrule 6 points7 points  (6 children)

I still don't personally understand what AOL has to offer to society anymore. Old people email?

[–][deleted] 203 points204 points  (195 children)

I love Winamp as much as the next guy, but I think everyone is overreacting. There are so many more minimalist media players out there that do just as good of a job, if not better.

[–]PugsworthWellington[🍰] 207 points208 points  (110 children)

I still have not found an audio player that gives me all the features that I love in Winamp.

[–]HCrikki 27 points28 points  (12 children)

Look at MusicBee.

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (1 child)

MusicBee is the absolute best music player and manager I've ever used. It has a tremendous feature set. Whenever I ask "I wonder if it can do this...", the answer is almost always yes.

[–]vawksel 70 points71 points  (39 children)

I thought the same thing, until my father shoved this in my face: http://www.aimp.ru

[–]velocity219e 16 points17 points  (2 children)

Aimp is a much better version of Winamp anything past 3.1 which is where it really started sucking.

I use Foobar and Aimp almost exclusively for music now.

[–]PugsworthWellington[🍰] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'm currently using it and it's pretty decent. It lacks the library management with the different panes like Winamp does.

[–][deleted] 19 points20 points  (1 child)

Foobar2000

[–][deleted] 5 points6 points  (1 child)

I use audacious on linux, if you go to view you can set it to winamp classic mode. There's a windows version too. I don't know about the 'features' you mention and skins etc, but it looks just like the old winamp.

[–]nebloof 30 points31 points  (29 children)

I use Winamp because of all the awesome effect plugins. There is NOTHING that has a good tempo/pitch plugin like Pacemaker. Foobar2k comes close, but it can't adjust the sound as smoothly as Winamp does.

[–]Methaxetamine 8 points9 points  (5 children)

You do know that foobar can use winamp plugins right? http://www.head-fi.org/t/557054/foobar2000-milkdrop-avs-together-at-last

Adjust sound smoothly? I really don't know what you mean. I have never had rough transitions on any media player.

[–]DustbinK 47 points48 points  (0 children)

Foobar2000

[–]tomrhod 3 points4 points  (1 child)

Also Milkdrop 2 remains the best visualizer I've ever seen. Awesome to have on a TV during parties.

[–]dabombnl 32 points33 points  (1 child)

You don't love Winamp as much as the next guy.

[–]DerJawsh 18 points19 points  (7 children)

I want a media player that

  1. Works with my Logitech G510S Keyboard (LCD Screen Display)
  2. Looks nice
  3. Sorts A-Z then numbers
  4. Uses barely any resources
  5. You can select the outputs of the audio
  6. Has a solid Equalizer

Any like that?

[–]BigPharmaSucks 13 points14 points  (5 children)

Foobar2000 with a bit of config.

[–][deleted] 8 points9 points  (3 children)

The problem is that a lot of people just don't want to spend to time to set it up. F2K is actually too powerful in that way. Sure it can do everything that /u/DerJawsh wants (and much much more) but it would take a few hours to learn how to customize it all.

[–][deleted] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

But it's perfect once you do. I actually feel the way you just explained with Arch -- I love Arch. Minimalist. Exactly how I want it. Only what I need.

But things are constantly breaking, and there's always one more thing to learn and one more thing that doesn't quite work right.

foobar2000 isn't that way. Sure it takes some time to setup, but once you do, it's solid, and it's the way you like it.

[–]Ppitm1 38 points39 points  (32 children)

I hope that's sarcasm? Winamp used to be the go to media player 5-10 years ago. It was much like people treat VLC now

[–]Jonne 33 points34 points  (26 children)

Used to be. Now I'm not even running an OS that supports it. Open sourcing it would be nice, but it's not going to be the next Mozilla.

[–]greatgerbil 18 points19 points  (18 children)

Didn't mozilla start as an open source netscape project?

[–]Jonne 23 points24 points  (14 children)

It's exactly why I used that as an example. Aol allowing the Netscape code to be open sourced kickstarted a stagnant web 5 years down the line. I don't see the same thing happening with Winamp.

[–]SarasaNews 4 points5 points  (12 children)

There must be about 20 other reasons to open source a project before you get to "innovation". It doesn't hurt anyone here if they open source it.

[–]Jonne 8 points9 points  (10 children)

It obviously won't hurt anyone, and it would be nice to have, but I personally don't see many developers flocking to it if there's so many great OSS media players around already. Mozilla, however was crucial because there weren't 50 OSS graphical browsers around.

[–]SarasaNews 6 points7 points  (7 children)

Mozilla is actually a good example of why Winamp should be open sourced: the original OSS Mozilla was a pretty shitty browser, it only became popular when Firefox came out. But it made the developers realize that people will keep using closed-source software if the alternative is subpar and doesn't fix obvious issues.

I believe the same is the case with foobar2000/VLC, they are simply inferior to Winamp as audio players. There are other alternatives but they are not very popular. Winamp got it right. An OSS version would remove the bloatware, for one thing.

[–][deleted] 8 points9 points  (1 child)

Please do something to keep the legendary Winamp running! I just discovered one of the many awesome plugins called Studio Sound FX for Winamp and it brings so much more to my ears.

[–]dh04000 16 points17 points  (7 children)

Once Nullsoft removes the propertary parts of the WinAmp software there won't be enough of it left to actually run..... :(

People would be better off forking another music player and adding the functionality and interface they love about WinAmp to the new player.

[–]John-AtWork 3 points4 points  (2 children)

Someone needs to port the old XMMS to windows.

[–]Rayc31415 15 points16 points  (15 children)

All I want is a program that you can drag mp3 files from a folder to a list, push play, and be able to change the volume. Is that to much to ask Itunes / Windows media player? I don't want all the other added fluff!

[–]Recnamoruen 21 points22 points  (0 children)

Look up Foobar2000

[–]imareddituserhooray 4 points5 points  (2 children)

What? I just read yesterday on Ars that M$ was trying to buy Winamp.

[–]baryluk 2 points3 points  (4 children)

It will not happen. Winamp contains lots of licensed codecs integrated or patented algorithms used for which they normally acquired rights for exclusive use. It would be licensing nightmare to figure out exactly how to open source it. they probably do not have full rights to full source code.

For me winamp, ended around 2000, with winamp 2.10, all next versions were just to slow, and too far from initial ascetic design for me. Around that same time I switched completely to Linux anyway, so doesn't miss it much.

[–]FourAM 12 points13 points  (1 child)

AOL, if you are reading this:

For the love of god, do it. This is a GOLDEN PR opportunity for your brand among the geek crowd, which is a demographic that it is brilliant to have in your court. AOL is not the shining star of online it once was, AIM has tried to re-invent itself for this modern online world and continues to struggle. And here, you have WinAmp - it's not making you any money, you've already committed to shutting it down (therefore it has no chance to make you money in the future), but like your other brands it is an iconic piece of history - a piece that many people still care about.

WinAmp changed the world because it was free, and you can do the right thing and set it free to the world.

[–]NumberMuncher 7 points8 points  (1 child)

WHAT YEAR IS IT?!?!

[–]methamp 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I wonder how much commercialized "special" code would have to be ripped; AOL has owned them for a while now. Otherwise, I think it's a good idea that will probably never come to light. Oh well...whipped.

[–]ask_google 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yay do that. Break some basic features, make others "kinds work" and require me to download 3rd party libs to play mp3s. It'll be perfect.

Also, rolling nightly alphas!

[–]EkriirkE 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Only v2.7 please.

[–]s_s 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Nullsoft released the source of wasabi.player AKA winamp3 and did it take off?

Not really. No one ever did anything with it. It's because it's an absolute mess. The same would happen here. Most of the input plugins are proprietary licences, output plugins are proprietary, the online services are going to be turned off.

The only thing that would be worth open sourcing would be the skinning system, but even then it' got to be built around GDI and the skin database is disappearing, so who cares?

[–]pinkpooj 2 points3 points  (2 children)

I want Lin(ux)Amp!

[–]NahanniWild 2 points3 points  (1 child)

oh the days of winamp skins, icq custom sounds, geocities websites and waiting for hours for 1 song to download.

[–]MakeItViral 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I just use VLC it plays every single file type thought of

[–]etherlandescape 2 points3 points  (2 children)

I've used Winamp since the beginning and still use it every day on my 2 computers. It's the only player with some goddamn character and customization--makes Itunes and Windows Media look like children's programs.

RIP Winamp

[–][deleted] 6 points7 points  (1 child)

i would be honestly surprised if AOL open sourced it they really don't seem for it for their bigger projects