12 ms·

Winamp Legacy player source code

717 points by gjvc 2y ago

interestica 2y ago
It's 2024. Was Winamp2 + plugin system just peak audio playback software?
- Suppafly 2y ago
  >Was Winamp2 + plugin system just peak audio playback software? Yes. You can tell it was peak too because later versions got worse instead of better.
grandpoobah 2y ago
You know what source code I'd like to see? ICQ and MSN and/or Windows Messenger.
- mihaaly 2y ago
  Uh oh! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iCPIUGnHQ8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iCPIUGnHQ8
  - rzzzt 2y ago
    This is a Worms sound effect as well, right? Does it come from a sound library? (I feel like I have watched a video about this at some point, but if there isn't one, there should be.) Edit: HN search gives me this short thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11289591 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11289591
  - rincebrain 2y ago
    My local grocery store's registers made that noise when they had an error. You can imagine how fast my head whipped around the first time I heard it.
- niutech 2y ago
  ICQ source code is here: https://github.com/mailru/icqdesktop.deprecated https://github.com/mailru/icqdesktop.deprecated
quinnharley 2y ago
[dead]
yason 2y ago
This is the license equivalent of a specific automotive spare part for an old car where the dealer asks $1300 for it just to say they don't want to stock and sell those. "Yeah, it's available, sure, but...you don't want it."
aantix 2y ago
Back in the summer of 1999 while I was in college, we were the first house to use MP3's at our parties. Most houses used a CD disc shuffler which usually consisted of a bunch of scratched and smudged discs, so their music skipped all the time. We went all digital. We were ahead of our time. The parties were in the basement. We'd lock the computer up in a spare bedroom - ran the wires and speakers out to the main basement area. We used Winamp on shuffle. Hours of music without a single skip, without us having to babysit the music. Thank-you Winamp for the great memories.
- happyweasel 2y ago
  > Back in the summer of 1999 [..] > We went all digital. We were ahead of our time. Well I had a DAT recorder in 1993. Even a DAT walkman.
  - mihaaly 2y ago
    I guess I am not too far from the truth saying the CD (1982) is digital too. : ) I assume what they mean is no physical media (storage) before the DAC, or something like that.
stuaxo 2y ago
For anyone who wants to support a proper legacy I recommend backing the WACUP project. It's based on the winamp3 code, that Winamp did open source, and then the closed source parts are being re implemented.
zadler 2y ago
Lot of fun looking at an old battle worn codebase like this.
johndhi 2y ago
Simply reading the word "Winamp" brings back a nostalgia for me almost like smelling the perfume of an old girlfriend. Spent so many hours looking at my custom Winamp skin and playing songs I'd downloaded from god-knows-where...
Asmod4n 2y ago
If you want a free copy of the SHOUTcast server software, they illegally share that code in their repo ..
- saylisteins 2y ago
  looks like both are owned by a company called Radionomy src : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radionomy#List_of_properties_formerly_owned_by_Radionomy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radionomy#List_of_properties_f...
- stonethrowaway 2y ago
  Hit that download button while it hasn’t been force-push cleared.
  - saylisteins 2y ago
    Even if it's force pushed, it's too late as long as there are forks. See: - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41060102 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41060102 - https://github.com/WinampDesktop/winamp/issues/19#issuecomment-2372037868 https://github.com/WinampDesktop/winamp/issues/19#issuecomme...
- EMIRELADERO 2y ago
  Here it is from a snapshot before removal: https://github.com/WinampDesktop/winamp/tree/3ab19235a69d96ba0d3d3d32428ea6e7afef6478/Src/Plugins/DSP/sc_serv3 https://github.com/WinampDesktop/winamp/tree/3ab19235a69d96b...
  - chinathrow 2y ago
    There is even a full (code, data) GeoIP copy in there. https://github.com/WinampDesktop/winamp/tree/3ab19235a69d96ba0d3d3d32428ea6e7afef6478/Src/Plugins/DSP/sc_serv3/GeoIP https://github.com/WinampDesktop/winamp/tree/3ab19235a69d96b...
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
lofaszvanitt 2y ago
The only music player that wasn't annoying. Just did its job with a streamlined interface, without the clutter and clunky graphics that competitors thought was the way to go.
- ThrowawayTestr 2y ago
  Checkout Tray Player if want a minimalist music player for Windows.
- sumtechguy 2y ago
  > without the clutter and clunky graphics Wasnt one of the fun things with that player putting random skins on it? Or am I thinking of a different one?
  - 77pt77 2y ago
    Yes. And also fancy graphical visualizations of the music.
    - s1mplicissimus 2y ago
      oh heck yeah, that was fun times!
  - panzi 2y ago
    Yes, but the skins didn't rearrange anything (as opposed to some other players). It was just a different "texture". See: https://skins.webamp.org/ https://skins.webamp.org/
    - thedoctor_o 2y ago
      There were winamp3 / modern 5.x skins which were freeform in nature so could be all sorts of shapes or not depending on what the skinner wanted it to be like. With 5.x still supporting the fixed form classic / 2.x skins as webamp & its skin museum support.
- 2y ago
voidfunc 2y ago
Bizarre license reeks of a company that doesn't know what to do with their own highly regarded software but is desperate for the community to give them free improvements that they can later monetize.
- pushedx 2y ago
  my guess is that they don't even know how to build it
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
pessimizer 2y ago
Why did people start talking about open source in this thread? This is almost the opposite of open source, and doesn't claim to be open source. It's restrictive to the point where you should just treat it as an official source leak. It's even called "collaborative" by which they clearly mean that if you want to work on the software, you're free to send them a pull request. You're also free to compile it yourself, as long as you don't distribute it (modified or not) in any way. Nothing wrong with this, but I don't understand why people started arguing about open source. Because you get to look at the source?
adzm 2y ago
Maybe finally this can help clarify how their WASABI interface thing works for the visualization plugins
initramfs 2y ago
If you're just looking for a repository to steal, https://github.com/hatonthecat/CloneThisRepository https://github.com/hatonthecat/CloneThisRepository
pelagicAustral 2y ago
This by long distance the most chaotic open sourcing of a piece of software I have ever seen in my life...
blendergeek 2y ago
Everyone is commenting on the distribution terms. But the Contributions section is just as bizzare. > Waiver of Rights: You waive any rights to claim authorship of the contributions or to object to any distortion, mutilation, or other modifications of the contributions. I waive the right to claim that I authored my contributions? Wait, what? Why would I ever contribute to this project under this license?
- necovek 2y ago
  With European copyright law, these so called "moral" rights are not transferrable: you can always claim authorship and even revoke a license if it was used in a morally reprehensible way that harms your name as an author.
jarebear6expepj 2y ago
Please also add the source for the Linux Alpha version that briefly showed face.
- thedoctor_o 2y ago
  They're very unlikely to have that as I don't remember it falling under the remit of things to be collated when things were sold from aol to what now calls itself "winamp" - they primarily got a stripped down 5.666 & what's offered is their iterations though aspects of what was winamp3 would be within the gen_ff plug-in.
jijji 2y ago
it looks like they are using mpg123 for the actual mp3 decoding
phendrenad2 2y ago
Cool, I guess. But WinAmp is in the category of software that is easy to write, but benefits hugely from the network effect. Nobody would care about WinAmp if it weren't for the huge number of skins the community created for it.
phito 2y ago
I don't really care about the whole licensing thing, but some of the people in the issues section are being quite immature about it.
Karellen 2y ago
Oooh, a legacy version of winamp? Might as well clone the repo, that'll be a pretty small download, from before when software got all bloated ... 750Mb later: WTF? [tippety tappety clickedy clackedy] Oh.... they vendored everything, including a bunch of external x86 binaries. 32- and 64-bit. FFS. But also - I sure hope they got the licensing correct for those parts...
suarezvictor 2y ago
The license sucks
timvdalen 2y ago
What happened here? Did someone buy the rights to the original Winamp? The linked site doesn't look very related to the original Winamp.
- stefanos82 2y ago
  Here you go https://about.winamp.com/press/article/winamp-open-source-code https://about.winamp.com/press/article/winamp-open-source-co...
  - itslennysfault 2y ago
    Thanks for sharing. Wonder if they've ever heard of color contrast. Dark blue on dark blue is not very readable. Had to highlight the article to read it.
    - stefanos82 2y ago
      Coincidentally, I thought it was this bug that bit you; it was reported a couple of days ago https://github.com/mui/material-ui/issues/43823 https://github.com/mui/material-ui/issues/43823
    - shrikant 2y ago
      I'm not seeing that colour combination -- are you sure you don't have Dark Reader or some such add-on enabled..?
      - itslennysfault 2y ago
        Nah, I'm on my work computer. No browser add ons. Just standard chrome in dark mode. Clicking the light/dark toggle on the page (as some others suggested) does fix it. Here is a screenshot of what I see if you're curious: https://imgur.com/a/eRchEn7 https://imgur.com/a/eRchEn7
      - reportgunner 2y ago
        I also don't see the bugged light mode until I allow 3rd party scripts on the website in uBO
jollyllama 2y ago
Awesome, that's far more interesting than the new implementation, which doesn't include the batch media transcoding for exports to mp3 players.
ndiddy 2y ago
I'm curious how they expect people to contribute to the project. Section 4 of the license says "Contribution to Project: You are encouraged to contribute improvements, enhancements, and bug fixes back to the project. Contributions must be submitted to the official repository and will be reviewed and incorporated at the discretion of the maintainers." However, the restrictions in Section 5 ban forking the code or distributing modified versions. This means that the standard Github "fork the repo, make your changes in a branch, and send a pull request" workflow for submitting changes would violate the license.
- owaislone 2y ago
  I guess they mean "fork" in the broader Open Source sense when you fork something to create your own version of it and take it on a different path or do things differently like like NeoVim forked Vim. GitHub uses the term "fork" merely to create a copy of the repo for contributions.
  - lifthrasiir 2y ago
    The problem here is, of course, that the definition of "forking" is missing from the license. It is evident that two reasonable definitions for "forking" exist in this context (however you feel about Github's takeover of the term) and will continue to confuse potential contributors until fixed.
- londons_explore 2y ago
  They expect people to simply ignore the license. And most people will. And they won't set their lawyers on any contributors. And the world will go on.
  - heyoni 2y ago
    That’s not good enough. You can’t put out an open source project and expect to control the community around it to that degree.
    - 2y ago
rollcat 2y ago
Eh, here we go again, there's yet-another custom license, "Winamp Collaborative License (WCL) Version 1.0". Quick skim: > No Distribution of Modified Versions: You may not distribute modified versions of the software, whether in source or binary form. > No Forking: You may not create, maintain, or distribute a forked version of the software. It's basically "look but do not touch". I don't see why this was necessary for something that's basically abandonware by now, and is mostly of historical interest.
- jjordan 2y ago
  Lawyers.
qrush 2y ago
This really whips the llama's ass
eminence32 2y ago
Open sourcing is always good, because maybe you can learn some things by reading it. Also, Winamp Legacy is a fairly important piece of software, so having an archive of its source is a great thing. But the restrictions on the source are interesting. To quote the license file: * No Distribution of Modified Versions: You may not distribute modified versions of the software, whether in source or binary form. * No Forking: You may not create, maintain, or distribute a forked version of the software. * Official Distribution: Only the maintainers of the official repository are allowed to distribute the software and its modifications. I'm guessing the "No Forking" clause means I can't release my own media player based on this source code, but the language is curious because they explicitly welcome contributions and for a project hosted on Github the standard way to do that is to "fork" the project into your own account.
- panzi 2y ago
  Yeah, I wouldn't call that an open source license. It's something like Microsoft's "shared source", as I expected/feared.
- somat 2y ago
  It's not open source. however I like it. I wish closed source licenses were more of a thing. as it is, our software tends to fall under two two extremes very liberal open source. closed build artifact only. with very little in the middle. I think a "here is the copyrighted(with all that implies) source for you to compile on your machine" software distribution would be a great middle ground. but it is a thing you normally only see on large screwball enterprise contracts. because the normal practice of here is the compiled build artifact really sucks when trying to trouble shoot why it is not working on your machine.
- sidewndr46 2y ago
  This license prohibits maintenance. If the official copy had a single bit that prevents it from compiling on your local machine, you cannot make that change. Only the "maintainers of the official repository" are permitted to do that.
- bastardoperator 2y ago
lucideer 2y ago
"source code is open" implies "open source", and the License refers to itself as a "copyleft" license, but it's a newly minted license - IANAL does anyone know if this is open source or another Elastic type situation?
- justinclift 2y ago
  It's definitely not Open Source as it has pretty restrictive terms. :(
gjvc 2y ago
see also see https://winamp.com/player/legacy https://winamp.com/player/legacy and https://about.winamp.com/press/article/winamp-open-source-code https://about.winamp.com/press/article/winamp-open-source-co...
- bityard 2y ago
  The second link is a 404
  - mikestew 2y ago
    Probably this one: https://winamp.com/press/winamp-open-source-code https://winamp.com/press/winamp-open-source-code
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - gjvc 2y ago
    fixed
scblock 2y ago
Source-available but certainly not open source. "You are granted the right to view, access, and study the source code of the software. You are granted the right to Modify the software for private use only." "No Distribution of Modified Versions: You may not distribute modified versions of the software, whether in source or binary form." "No Forking: You may not create, maintain, or distribute a forked version of the software."
- dncornholio 2y ago
  Nobody said anything about open source
  - ryandrake 2y ago
    Yea this is just a case of a bad HN title. The source is clearly not open, even if though it is released. EDIT: looks like the title’s been corrected!
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - blue_cadet_3 2y ago
      They say the same thing in their blog post announcing it. https://winamp.com/press/winamp-open-source-code https://winamp.com/press/winamp-open-source-code
  - npteljes 2y ago
    Title is "Winamp Legacy player source code is now open". The usage of the word "open" in conjunction "source code" alludes to the long established "open source code" phrase, which implies a set of licenses, and the associated open source culture. A better choice for the title would have been "Winamp Legacy player source code is now available".
    - dncornholio 2y ago
      I agree but my statement still holds true. When something doesn't explicitly say "Open Source", it's not Open Source. This is a very old trick that i've learned decades ago..
papruapap 2y ago
man, at first glance doesnt look like a lot of work to add support to linux.
- racked 2y ago
  Care to elaborate on how you can see that? Eager to learn
- apricot 2y ago
  Does Linux really need another media player?
  - gdelfino01 2y ago
    I recently wend through the process of selecting a MP3 player software for my Linux laptop and after testing many settled on the Strawberry player. It is actually very good: https://www.strawberrymusicplayer.org/ https://www.strawberrymusicplayer.org/
  - ginko 2y ago
    It certainly needs Winamp.
aflukasz 2y ago
"We take DirectX 9 SDK (June 2010) from Microsoft, modify it and pack to archive. Run unpack_microsoft_directx_sdk_2010.cmd to unpack it." Nice. Wonder how long will this version work?
- chrsw 2y ago
  I was surprised you're allowed to this. But I also haven't read the license.
- toast0 2y ago
  Windows executables mostly work forever. Especially if they were widely distributed. If Winamp is broken on Windows N+1, it's Windows that is broken. If Winamp is broken on Wine, it's Wine that is broken.
  - AshamedCaptain 2y ago
    May have been true 20 years ago. But these days it is not hard to find a game which works in Wine but not Windows. And DirectX is often the reason.
    - babypuncher 2y ago
      I think this is largely only true with Windows games from the '90s using still-nascent 3D apis. Many of these games were broken on modern versions of Windows by the time Vista came out. Once you get to the early '00s, you can still find a lot of games that are broken, but the culprit is usually changes in hardware and driver behavior rather than Windows itself.
      - AshamedCaptain 2y ago
        No, not really. Even if you ignore DRM which practically makes ALL games from the XP-Vista era unplayable (which I ignore since that is often not better in Wine), just search around for the amount of workarounds that are required even when you apply these patches.
klaussilveira 2y ago
I can't comprehend such a restrictive license on abandonware. And from the the looks of it, not very well written abandonware.
- npteljes 2y ago
  I was a huge fan of Winamp back in the day, but the way they handled the software completely soured me towards it. Winamp 3 was a clusterfuck, Winamp 5 was fine but felt like bloat, and then it was passed around like a hot potato, then abandoned on and off, and then the open sourcing feels like it was also around for quite some time. And now it's not even that, just a meager source-available. I know they don't owe me anything, but I feel disappointed.
  - deciplex 2y ago
    One of the earlier examples of enshittification, before the process had been smoothed out and best practices established.
  - jb1991 2y ago
    You have to place some of the blame for latter Winamp versions on AOL who purchased Winamp from Frankel's team and messed with it so much he eventually resigned.
    - npteljes 2y ago
      I think selling it wasn't mandatory, and the consequences of selling are predictable, so some of the blame rest with the original decision-makers as well. But I find hard to care after so many years, if I have to be honest, they just messed with my darling too much, and I have long moved on.
      - thedoctor_o 2y ago
        It was either sell it & shoutcast or kill both off since aol in 2013 was changing & there's lots of other projects under them at that time which were killed off instead of what was thought to be a better option to keep it going elsewhere. Alas going to radionony which has ended up becoming llama group after some funny business stuff going on was a mistake though some of the other options that I was aware of at the time weren't great either. And I'm not defending aol either as there were things that I didn't like under their almost 15yr tenure of ownership but it was never condescending like this lot have been over the past 11yrs which their licensing terms have reinforced.
ChrisArchitect 2y ago
Further discussion about this "opening up" back in May: Winamp has announced that it is "opening up" its source code https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40383029 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40383029
abtinf 2y ago
They are either going to have to submit a ton of DMCA requests to GitHub and get their own repo taken down by GitHub, or they will be at risk of losing their copyright and will take it off GitHub themselves. Forking is a fundamental feature of GitHub. Forking policy may only be set on private repos, but this is a public repo. The license doesn’t permit forking. There are already 6 forks. Typically, copyright is not lost through selective enforcement (unlike trademark), but in this case the rights holder is making license violations both trivial and has full access to the list of violators. I suspect the courts will laugh them out of the room unless they vigorously defend their rights. In that case, I certainly wouldn’t want to deal with it if I was GitHub. It is a terrible user experience, where a user clicking one of the most popular buttons on the platform suddenly becomes a legal problem.
- dt3ft 2y ago
  410 forks currently.
- thomastjeffery 2y ago
  > In that case, I certainly wouldn’t want to deal with it if I was GitHub. It is a terrible user experience, where a user clicking one of the most popular buttons on the platform suddenly becomes a legal problem. As others have mentioned, GitHub has already covered that with their ToS. All public repos may be forked.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
abetusk 2y ago
A perversion of the term "open". The licensing terms do not allow redistribution or resale, which is a condition of "open source" (as it's commonly accepted). Note how the title nor the repository says "open source". I would have called this source available, not that "the source is now open".
- simoncion 2y ago
  The license claims that it's a copyleft license... but it cannot be one with the distribution restrictions demanded by the license. I hope that they either remove the claim that it is a copyleft license, or relax the distribution restrictions to something like "If you distribute modified versions of this Program, you may not call the modified versions Winamp.".
  - abetusk 2y ago
    I completely missed that. The license file also says that it's "free" and ensures that we have the "freedom to use it": """ The Winamp Collaborative License is a free, copyleft license for software and other kinds of works. It is designed to ensure that you have the freedom to use, Modify, and study the software, but with certain restrictions on the distribution of modifications to maintain the integrity and collaboration of the project. """ Looks like there's already pushback in the issues section [1] [2]. [0] https://github.com/WinampDesktop/winamp/blob/community/LICENSE.md https://github.com/WinampDesktop/winamp/blob/community/LICEN... [1] https://github.com/WinampDesktop/winamp/issues/16 https://github.com/WinampDesktop/winamp/issues/16 [2] https://github.com/WinampDesktop/winamp/issues/6 https://github.com/WinampDesktop/winamp/issues/6
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
thefourthchime 2y ago
I have a little history with Winamp. I wrote a popular plugin for it back in the day. This is the source code for Winamp 3, which is a total rewrite of winamp 2 in C++. In my opinion, it was overcomplicated and over-architected. The original source code by Justin Frankel in C.
- jb1991 2y ago
  Is Frankel's original code anywhere? I do recall him saying once that he preferred C++ over C but used C++ as simply C with classes. Frankel is a hero of mine.
  - mihaitodor 2y ago
    I think there was a copy of it buried somewhere in the comments here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29379346 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29379346
- thedoctor_o 2y ago
  What has been "provided" is the stripped down 5.666 source bundle given to radionomy when sold on from AOL & the end result of their iterations up to the 5.9.2 release. So it's made up of the however many years of the 1.x -> 2.x -> 5.x development process & however many different people hacked upon it in that time (aka a mess). Yes there's a large part of winamp3 in there which was already long since open sourced properly in the aol era (unlike this heavily restricted licensing terms) but from what I remember when making the code deliverable the dedicated winamp3 repository was never provided (assuming my memory from 11yrs ago is still good). -dro
zerkten 2y ago
Is there an official announcement or something else that accompanied this? I don't know the current state of their organization and the chain of ownership for the code.
factorialboy 2y ago
F yeahhhhh ... the player that never crashed, even if Windows OS crashed all around it This is more significant (to me) than the iPhone 16 launch, I'll pay for people who can port this to Linux (Gnome) and Mac OS.
- mdaniel 2y ago
  Barring the ton of licensing stupidity ongoing (maybe they'll fix it, who knows), as far as I know you could actually do that by forking the repo and then connecting your fork to bountysource. Open an issue for each target OS, set the amounts, and then publicize that fact on as many social media channels as you have access to However, I wanted to draw your attention to "are you asking the right question" because there's a very real chance that the things you actually love about Winamp would not carry over to any such ports, since it's not "recompile and get the Winamp on Windows experience" - they would be Gnome and macOS apps, behaving similar to other such apps
  - elpocko 2y ago
    Bountysource is long dead.
ilrwbwrkhv 2y ago
One of the best pieces of software ever made. Will devour its code. Hopefully new startups like Slack can learn from it too.
opan 2y ago
Not open source, not free software. Restrictions in license found here for those curious: https://github.com/WinampDesktop/winamp/blob/community/LICENSE.md#5-restrictions https://github.com/WinampDesktop/winamp/blob/community/LICEN...
f1shy 2y ago
I was expecting to see some comment about the quality of the code. How clean (or not) it is. I was personaly hopping a much more ordered and clean codebase.
mihaitodor 2y ago
Wish they bothered to preserve the commit history... Can't imagine anything sensitive in there that they couldn't share.
- thedoctor_o 2y ago
  That'd mean they'd have to do more work then necessary & there'd at most only ever be what went back to the stripped down 5.666 code deliverable they got after it was sold on from AOL at the start of 2014 (was looked into but determined not worth the hassle when that was being sorted out at the time). -dro
  - mihaitodor 2y ago
    I see... Fair enough. Thanks for the background!
JosephRedfern 2y ago
There is some pretty creative swearing throughout this codebase - very entertaining!
- anordal 2y ago
  I thought so, but that's what I came to the comment section to know ;-)
Linkd 2y ago
Are there any tools that can receive an entire code base like this, then analyze and answer questions about the code, structure, functionality?
- ing33k 2y ago
  Cursor can do it.
- wppick 2y ago
  Ya the one between your ears. Kidding! Maybe Sourcegraph Cody https://sourcegraph.com/cody https://sourcegraph.com/cody, or possibly Github copilot. I think Cody might handle the multiple files better, and allows you to pick from multiple models.
- watt 2y ago
  apparently folks are making tools to do this: https://martinfowler.com/articles/legacy-modernization-gen-ai.html https://martinfowler.com/articles/legacy-modernization-gen-a...
29athrowaway 2y ago
There is an open source clone of Winamp called XMMS. Sonique and Foobar2000 were also venerable players of that era.
- gapan 2y ago
  Yep, I still use XMMS. There is also qmmp[1] for a Qt based player. And I think Audacious[2] still has a classic winamp interface, although it's not the default anymore. [1] https://qmmp.ylsoftware.com/ https://qmmp.ylsoftware.com/ [2] https://audacious-media-player.org/ https://audacious-media-player.org/
  - hexagonwin 2y ago
    Just curious, but on which OS are you running XMMS on?
    - gapan 2y ago
      https://www.salixos.org/ https://www.salixos.org/ It's not installed by default, but it's in the repos.
- the__alchemist 2y ago
  I still use Foobar. Ideal/timeless software.
davidpfarrell 2y ago
The best thing we can do for the future of the project is to NOT engage with the project at this time ... Even just cloning the project into your private workspace to review / compile is giving more engagement than their current licensing stance warrants. I'll check again when an HN post comes out stating they've changed their licensing stance - Until then, closing this tab and forgetting about it ...
- lacedeconstruct 2y ago
  The author justin frankel (also wrote reaper the DAW absolute legend) had this to say about it > Question: Now that WinAMP's source has been officially released, do you have any desire to hack new badass features in? Answer: If I did have any desire, it would be extinguished by the license terms, lol. The terms are completely absurd in the way they are written, e.g. "You may not create, maintain, or distribute a forked version of the software." So arguably making any changes would be considered "creating a forked version." But even taking these terms as they are likely intended (which is slightly more permissive than how they are written), they are terrible. No thank you.
  - zeratax 2y ago
    where is this quote from?
    - protimewaster 2y ago
      Looks like it's from his "Ask Justin Frankel" website: https://www.askjf.com/index.php?q=7357s https://www.askjf.com/index.php?q=7357s
johnchristopher 2y ago
Which winamp is it ? Version 2 ? Version 3 with the wasabi (?) engine ? Or version 5 ?
- aeyes 2y ago
  5.9.2 https://github.com/WinampDesktop/winamp/blob/community/Src/Winamp/buildType.h#L6 https://github.com/WinampDesktop/winamp/blob/community/Src/W...
nicholashead 2y ago
I remember hanging out in #mpeg3 on EFNet many many years ago and becoming an acquaintance of Justin Frankel while he was working on this. I had made a skin and even a few tray icons for him to use in the app, and some of them are in here. I can't remember 100% which ones were mine, but the punchlabel one definitely was. My name is in the credits too: https://github.com/WinampDesktop/winamp/blob/0695744fd658c42b372b7cb61584544c20e1c2ea/Src/Winamp/credits.cpp#L144 https://github.com/WinampDesktop/winamp/blob/0695744fd658c42...
- DisposableMike 2y ago
  I wonder if you would have linked this credits page had you been assigned the title "BREAST EXAMINER" OR "NUDE SCENES" like some others, haha
thrashwerk 2y ago
What a load of BS. This is just a poor attempt at open-source-washing. They rolled their own license but couldn't be bothered to read GitHub's ToS. "collaborative" license, "opened to the community", "enabling the entire community to participate in its development", "global collaboration" but you have to grant them perpetual rights and waive your own, you're not even allowed to fork lol. Seems like they're only looking for unpaid workers.
- trickstra 2y ago
  Is there even any development happening on Winamp? What would these unpaid workers do? If they can't touch the code, not even test it, then the only thing this repo could serve is reporting bugs, but will anyone fix them? I feel like this whole release is just a PR stunt to remind us that winamp still exists. They don't actually want any help, nor do they want to give anything to the community. They just want to get into gossip, so the spectacular chaos with releasing certificates and 3rd-party proprietary code actually helps for publicity.
  - thedoctor_o 2y ago
    They dumped the prior dev team over a year ago (the ones that added the nft plug-in & fanzone crap) & it is mostly a ploy to get a free dev team as was speculated when the whole "source available" thing got announced 4 months ago (but they seem to have left it to the night before to do anything hence the complete mess that's been going on). The license was always going to be restrictive & focused on what only benefits them as they would never want any clones, etc to be able to make use of it. Also the terms when I look at it from an ex plug-in dev stance seem to prevent any new / updated plug-ins from being built with the plug-in api headers which afaict would fall under their license & surplanting the prior one (no idea if they've changed the in-file stuff or not as I cannot look at their code to avoid issues with work my own player).
sunshadow 2y ago
According to the license, this repo is not that different than me just extracting the source code from the binaries. Pass.
synergy20 2y ago
sorry but why does old winamp code still matter? there are plenty open source audio libraries these days along with different open source players.
- acuozzo 2y ago
  It's a fun diversion to browse around old codebases, especially those of software you once used extensively.
- airhangerf15 2y ago
  It's still one of the best simple media players (sadly). If it had better HiDPI support, it'd still be my go to on Windows (if I still used Windows). I wonder if anyone there still has the source to the failed Linux Alpha. It crashed all the time, but it did exist, for a very short while.
prmoustache 2y ago
Can't we just let it die?
comprev 2y ago
The source code itself appears to come from a cracked version [0] supplied by deadbeef\n\n\ cracked by rOn\n\n\ 32kb cool intro by lone"; [0] https://github.com/WinampDesktop/winamp/blob/community/Src/Winamp/ABOUT.cpp#L1013 https://github.com/WinampDesktop/winamp/blob/community/Src/W... Edit: Apparently it's an Easter Egg! Credit to bri3d for research
- benmmurphy 2y ago
  its probably an easter egg
  - sionisrecur 2y ago
    Yes, by the cracker team not by the Winamp devs.
    - thedoctor_o 2y ago
      Those names were some of the original devs & they're the ones who put it in the easter egg on the about dialog that it relates to as a hacker-like joke. The source code is what aol sold on as a stripped down copy of 5.666 & then what radionomy/audiovalley/llama group iterated on afterwards. As much as I dislike what now calls itself "winamp", it's nothing nefarious & you can find old 2.x installs with that about easter egg text. -dro
- skandl 2y ago
  Weird, how does that even work? Does cracked mean its' been decompiled? It's strange because it includes other stuff like build scripts, etc that wouldn't be in released binaries..
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- bri3d 2y ago
  This is a weird Easter Egg that's been compiled into real, genuine, uncracked Winamp release builds for a very long time. The actual compiled binary ends up with the same text you see linked there scrambled using XOR (you can see that on the other side of the #if 0) to avoid it appearing in the binary's strings verbatim. It's unfortunately hard to find stuff from the Old Internet anymore (I recall this being discussed at length on the original Winamp forums), but there are some references to it here: https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/366648-winamp-51/page/2/#comment-586468937 https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/366648-winamp-51/page/2/#... There's a screenshot of the exact text from the source here: https://eeggs.com/items/45636.html https://eeggs.com/items/45636.html And someone getting really confused about it on Reddit here: https://www.reddit.com/r/winamp/comments/caukeo/installed_winamp_via_ninite_and_its_cracked/ https://www.reddit.com/r/winamp/comments/caukeo/installed_wi...
dfedbeef 2y ago
Finally I can play MP3s on my desktop computer
momentsinabox 2y ago
Haven't thought about converting FLAC files to mp3 in a while. Hell yeah Winamp
- theandrewbailey 2y ago
  Why convert? Winamp plays FLAC natively.
sionisrecur 2y ago
Funny, the latest commit is "Removing code which is not open"[0], which means they are infringing on someone else's licensing terms by keeping it in the git history. [0] https://github.com/WinampDesktop/winamp/commit/0a4b7d32d090696e5aab8de9c61dda9dab76aabf https://github.com/WinampDesktop/winamp/commit/0a4b7d32d0906...
- srockets 2y ago
  Based on https://github.com/WinampDesktop/winamp/issues/11 https://github.com/WinampDesktop/winamp/issues/11 it's their own code, just a different service they didn't decide to release the source for.
  - thedoctor_o 2y ago
    llama group / "winamp" don't own shoutcast anymore as that was all sold off a year or so ago to azerion as part of changing audiovalley into llama group. -dro
    - saylisteins 2y ago
      looks like both are under the same parent company Src: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radionomy#List_of_properties_formerly_owned_by_Radionomy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radionomy#List_of_properties_f...
      - thedoctor_o 2y ago
        The history section just above the prior properties section is what's now the case with winamp & shoutcast under unrelated organisations nowadays. Though it's all a bit murky as radionomy & audiovalley were the same top people. -dro
        efilife 2y ago
        What does -dro mean?
metflex 2y ago
Is there any chance or an already existing fork to build for apple silicon mac!?

717 points by gjvc 2y ago

interestica 2y ago

It's 2024. Was Winamp2 + plugin system just peak audio playback software?

Suppafly 2y ago
>Was Winamp2 + plugin system just peak audio playback software? Yes. You can tell it was peak too because later versions got worse instead of better.

grandpoobah 2y ago

You know what source code I'd like to see? ICQ and MSN and/or Windows Messenger.

mihaaly 2y ago
Uh oh! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iCPIUGnHQ8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iCPIUGnHQ8
- rzzzt 2y ago
  This is a Worms sound effect as well, right? Does it come from a sound library? (I feel like I have watched a video about this at some point, but if there isn't one, there should be.) Edit: HN search gives me this short thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11289591 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11289591
- rincebrain 2y ago
  My local grocery store's registers made that noise when they had an error. You can imagine how fast my head whipped around the first time I heard it.
niutech 2y ago
ICQ source code is here: https://github.com/mailru/icqdesktop.deprecated https://github.com/mailru/icqdesktop.deprecated

quinnharley 2y ago

[dead]

yason 2y ago

This is the license equivalent of a specific automotive spare part for an old car where the dealer asks $1300 for it just to say they don't want to stock and sell those. "Yeah, it's available, sure, but...you don't want it."

aantix 2y ago

Back in the summer of 1999 while I was in college, we were the first house to use MP3's at our parties. Most houses used a CD disc shuffler which usually consisted of a bunch of scratched and smudged discs, so their music skipped all the time. We went all digital. We were ahead of our time. The parties were in the basement. We'd lock the computer up in a spare bedroom - ran the wires and speakers out to the main basement area. We used Winamp on shuffle. Hours of music without a single skip, without us having to babysit the music. Thank-you Winamp for the great memories.

happyweasel 2y ago
> Back in the summer of 1999 [..] > We went all digital. We were ahead of our time. Well I had a DAT recorder in 1993. Even a DAT walkman.
- mihaaly 2y ago
  I guess I am not too far from the truth saying the CD (1982) is digital too. : ) I assume what they mean is no physical media (storage) before the DAC, or something like that.

stuaxo 2y ago

For anyone who wants to support a proper legacy I recommend backing the WACUP project. It's based on the winamp3 code, that Winamp did open source, and then the closed source parts are being re implemented.

zadler 2y ago

Lot of fun looking at an old battle worn codebase like this.

johndhi 2y ago

Simply reading the word "Winamp" brings back a nostalgia for me almost like smelling the perfume of an old girlfriend. Spent so many hours looking at my custom Winamp skin and playing songs I'd downloaded from god-knows-where...

Asmod4n 2y ago

If you want a free copy of the SHOUTcast server software, they illegally share that code in their repo ..

saylisteins 2y ago
looks like both are owned by a company called Radionomy src : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radionomy#List_of_properties_formerly_owned_by_Radionomy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radionomy#List_of_properties_f...
stonethrowaway 2y ago
Hit that download button while it hasn’t been force-push cleared.
- saylisteins 2y ago
  Even if it's force pushed, it's too late as long as there are forks. See: - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41060102 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41060102 - https://github.com/WinampDesktop/winamp/issues/19#issuecomment-2372037868 https://github.com/WinampDesktop/winamp/issues/19#issuecomme...
EMIRELADERO 2y ago
Here it is from a snapshot before removal: https://github.com/WinampDesktop/winamp/tree/3ab19235a69d96ba0d3d3d32428ea6e7afef6478/Src/Plugins/DSP/sc_serv3 https://github.com/WinampDesktop/winamp/tree/3ab19235a69d96b...
- chinathrow 2y ago
  There is even a full (code, data) GeoIP copy in there. https://github.com/WinampDesktop/winamp/tree/3ab19235a69d96ba0d3d3d32428ea6e7afef6478/Src/Plugins/DSP/sc_serv3/GeoIP https://github.com/WinampDesktop/winamp/tree/3ab19235a69d96b...

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

lofaszvanitt 2y ago

The only music player that wasn't annoying. Just did its job with a streamlined interface, without the clutter and clunky graphics that competitors thought was the way to go.

ThrowawayTestr 2y ago
Checkout Tray Player if want a minimalist music player for Windows.
sumtechguy 2y ago
> without the clutter and clunky graphics Wasnt one of the fun things with that player putting random skins on it? Or am I thinking of a different one?
- 77pt77 2y ago
  Yes. And also fancy graphical visualizations of the music.
  - s1mplicissimus 2y ago
    oh heck yeah, that was fun times!
- panzi 2y ago
  Yes, but the skins didn't rearrange anything (as opposed to some other players). It was just a different "texture". See: https://skins.webamp.org/ https://skins.webamp.org/
  - thedoctor_o 2y ago
    There were winamp3 / modern 5.x skins which were freeform in nature so could be all sorts of shapes or not depending on what the skinner wanted it to be like. With 5.x still supporting the fixed form classic / 2.x skins as webamp & its skin museum support.
2y ago

voidfunc 2y ago

Bizarre license reeks of a company that doesn't know what to do with their own highly regarded software but is desperate for the community to give them free improvements that they can later monetize.

pushedx 2y ago
my guess is that they don't even know how to build it

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

pessimizer 2y ago

Why did people start talking about open source in this thread? This is almost the opposite of open source, and doesn't claim to be open source. It's restrictive to the point where you should just treat it as an official source leak. It's even called "collaborative" by which they clearly mean that if you want to work on the software, you're free to send them a pull request. You're also free to compile it yourself, as long as you don't distribute it (modified or not) in any way. Nothing wrong with this, but I don't understand why people started arguing about open source. Because you get to look at the source?

adzm 2y ago

Maybe finally this can help clarify how their WASABI interface thing works for the visualization plugins

initramfs 2y ago

If you're just looking for a repository to steal, https://github.com/hatonthecat/CloneThisRepository https://github.com/hatonthecat/CloneThisRepository

pelagicAustral 2y ago

This by long distance the most chaotic open sourcing of a piece of software I have ever seen in my life...

blendergeek 2y ago

Everyone is commenting on the distribution terms. But the Contributions section is just as bizzare. > Waiver of Rights: You waive any rights to claim authorship of the contributions or to object to any distortion, mutilation, or other modifications of the contributions. I waive the right to claim that I authored my contributions? Wait, what? Why would I ever contribute to this project under this license?

necovek 2y ago
With European copyright law, these so called "moral" rights are not transferrable: you can always claim authorship and even revoke a license if it was used in a morally reprehensible way that harms your name as an author.

jarebear6expepj 2y ago

Please also add the source for the Linux Alpha version that briefly showed face.

thedoctor_o 2y ago
They're very unlikely to have that as I don't remember it falling under the remit of things to be collated when things were sold from aol to what now calls itself "winamp" - they primarily got a stripped down 5.666 & what's offered is their iterations though aspects of what was winamp3 would be within the gen_ff plug-in.

jijji 2y ago

it looks like they are using mpg123 for the actual mp3 decoding

phendrenad2 2y ago

Cool, I guess. But WinAmp is in the category of software that is easy to write, but benefits hugely from the network effect. Nobody would care about WinAmp if it weren't for the huge number of skins the community created for it.

phito 2y ago

I don't really care about the whole licensing thing, but some of the people in the issues section are being quite immature about it.

Karellen 2y ago

Oooh, a legacy version of winamp? Might as well clone the repo, that'll be a pretty small download, from before when software got all bloated ... 750Mb later: WTF? [tippety tappety clickedy clackedy] Oh.... they vendored everything, including a bunch of external x86 binaries. 32- and 64-bit. FFS. But also - I sure hope they got the licensing correct for those parts...

suarezvictor 2y ago

The license sucks

timvdalen 2y ago

What happened here? Did someone buy the rights to the original Winamp? The linked site doesn't look very related to the original Winamp.

stefanos82 2y ago
Here you go https://about.winamp.com/press/article/winamp-open-source-code https://about.winamp.com/press/article/winamp-open-source-co...
- itslennysfault 2y ago
  Thanks for sharing. Wonder if they've ever heard of color contrast. Dark blue on dark blue is not very readable. Had to highlight the article to read it.
  - stefanos82 2y ago
    Coincidentally, I thought it was this bug that bit you; it was reported a couple of days ago https://github.com/mui/material-ui/issues/43823 https://github.com/mui/material-ui/issues/43823
  - shrikant 2y ago
    I'm not seeing that colour combination -- are you sure you don't have Dark Reader or some such add-on enabled..?
    - itslennysfault 2y ago
      Nah, I'm on my work computer. No browser add ons. Just standard chrome in dark mode. Clicking the light/dark toggle on the page (as some others suggested) does fix it. Here is a screenshot of what I see if you're curious: https://imgur.com/a/eRchEn7 https://imgur.com/a/eRchEn7
    - reportgunner 2y ago
      I also don't see the bugged light mode until I allow 3rd party scripts on the website in uBO

jollyllama 2y ago

Awesome, that's far more interesting than the new implementation, which doesn't include the batch media transcoding for exports to mp3 players.

ndiddy 2y ago

I'm curious how they expect people to contribute to the project. Section 4 of the license says "Contribution to Project: You are encouraged to contribute improvements, enhancements, and bug fixes back to the project. Contributions must be submitted to the official repository and will be reviewed and incorporated at the discretion of the maintainers." However, the restrictions in Section 5 ban forking the code or distributing modified versions. This means that the standard Github "fork the repo, make your changes in a branch, and send a pull request" workflow for submitting changes would violate the license.

owaislone 2y ago
I guess they mean "fork" in the broader Open Source sense when you fork something to create your own version of it and take it on a different path or do things differently like like NeoVim forked Vim. GitHub uses the term "fork" merely to create a copy of the repo for contributions.
- lifthrasiir 2y ago
  The problem here is, of course, that the definition of "forking" is missing from the license. It is evident that two reasonable definitions for "forking" exist in this context (however you feel about Github's takeover of the term) and will continue to confuse potential contributors until fixed.
londons_explore 2y ago
They expect people to simply ignore the license. And most people will. And they won't set their lawyers on any contributors. And the world will go on.
- heyoni 2y ago
  That’s not good enough. You can’t put out an open source project and expect to control the community around it to that degree.
  - 2y ago

rollcat 2y ago

Eh, here we go again, there's yet-another custom license, "Winamp Collaborative License (WCL) Version 1.0". Quick skim: > No Distribution of Modified Versions: You may not distribute modified versions of the software, whether in source or binary form. > No Forking: You may not create, maintain, or distribute a forked version of the software. It's basically "look but do not touch". I don't see why this was necessary for something that's basically abandonware by now, and is mostly of historical interest.

jjordan 2y ago
Lawyers.

qrush 2y ago

This really whips the llama's ass

eminence32 2y ago

Open sourcing is always good, because maybe you can learn some things by reading it. Also, Winamp Legacy is a fairly important piece of software, so having an archive of its source is a great thing. But the restrictions on the source are interesting. To quote the license file: * No Distribution of Modified Versions: You may not distribute modified versions of the software, whether in source or binary form. * No Forking: You may not create, maintain, or distribute a forked version of the software. * Official Distribution: Only the maintainers of the official repository are allowed to distribute the software and its modifications. I'm guessing the "No Forking" clause means I can't release my own media player based on this source code, but the language is curious because they explicitly welcome contributions and for a project hosted on Github the standard way to do that is to "fork" the project into your own account.

panzi 2y ago
Yeah, I wouldn't call that an open source license. It's something like Microsoft's "shared source", as I expected/feared.
somat 2y ago
It's not open source. however I like it. I wish closed source licenses were more of a thing. as it is, our software tends to fall under two two extremes very liberal open source. closed build artifact only. with very little in the middle. I think a "here is the copyrighted(with all that implies) source for you to compile on your machine" software distribution would be a great middle ground. but it is a thing you normally only see on large screwball enterprise contracts. because the normal practice of here is the compiled build artifact really sucks when trying to trouble shoot why it is not working on your machine.
sidewndr46 2y ago
This license prohibits maintenance. If the official copy had a single bit that prevents it from compiling on your local machine, you cannot make that change. Only the "maintainers of the official repository" are permitted to do that.
bastardoperator 2y ago

lucideer 2y ago

"source code is open" implies "open source", and the License refers to itself as a "copyleft" license, but it's a newly minted license - IANAL does anyone know if this is open source or another Elastic type situation?

justinclift 2y ago
It's definitely not Open Source as it has pretty restrictive terms. :(

gjvc 2y ago

see also see https://winamp.com/player/legacy https://winamp.com/player/legacy and https://about.winamp.com/press/article/winamp-open-source-code https://about.winamp.com/press/article/winamp-open-source-co...

bityard 2y ago
The second link is a 404
- mikestew 2y ago
  Probably this one: https://winamp.com/press/winamp-open-source-code https://winamp.com/press/winamp-open-source-code
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- gjvc 2y ago
  fixed

scblock 2y ago

Source-available but certainly not open source. "You are granted the right to view, access, and study the source code of the software. You are granted the right to Modify the software for private use only." "No Distribution of Modified Versions: You may not distribute modified versions of the software, whether in source or binary form." "No Forking: You may not create, maintain, or distribute a forked version of the software."

dncornholio 2y ago
Nobody said anything about open source
- ryandrake 2y ago
  Yea this is just a case of a bad HN title. The source is clearly not open, even if though it is released. EDIT: looks like the title’s been corrected!
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - blue_cadet_3 2y ago
    They say the same thing in their blog post announcing it. https://winamp.com/press/winamp-open-source-code https://winamp.com/press/winamp-open-source-code
- npteljes 2y ago
  Title is "Winamp Legacy player source code is now open". The usage of the word "open" in conjunction "source code" alludes to the long established "open source code" phrase, which implies a set of licenses, and the associated open source culture. A better choice for the title would have been "Winamp Legacy player source code is now available".
  - dncornholio 2y ago
    I agree but my statement still holds true. When something doesn't explicitly say "Open Source", it's not Open Source. This is a very old trick that i've learned decades ago..

papruapap 2y ago

man, at first glance doesnt look like a lot of work to add support to linux.

racked 2y ago
Care to elaborate on how you can see that? Eager to learn
apricot 2y ago
Does Linux really need another media player?
- gdelfino01 2y ago
  I recently wend through the process of selecting a MP3 player software for my Linux laptop and after testing many settled on the Strawberry player. It is actually very good: https://www.strawberrymusicplayer.org/ https://www.strawberrymusicplayer.org/
- ginko 2y ago
  It certainly needs Winamp.

aflukasz 2y ago

"We take DirectX 9 SDK (June 2010) from Microsoft, modify it and pack to archive. Run unpack_microsoft_directx_sdk_2010.cmd to unpack it." Nice. Wonder how long will this version work?

chrsw 2y ago
I was surprised you're allowed to this. But I also haven't read the license.
toast0 2y ago
Windows executables mostly work forever. Especially if they were widely distributed. If Winamp is broken on Windows N+1, it's Windows that is broken. If Winamp is broken on Wine, it's Wine that is broken.
- AshamedCaptain 2y ago
  May have been true 20 years ago. But these days it is not hard to find a game which works in Wine but not Windows. And DirectX is often the reason.
  - babypuncher 2y ago
    I think this is largely only true with Windows games from the '90s using still-nascent 3D apis. Many of these games were broken on modern versions of Windows by the time Vista came out. Once you get to the early '00s, you can still find a lot of games that are broken, but the culprit is usually changes in hardware and driver behavior rather than Windows itself.
    - AshamedCaptain 2y ago
      No, not really. Even if you ignore DRM which practically makes ALL games from the XP-Vista era unplayable (which I ignore since that is often not better in Wine), just search around for the amount of workarounds that are required even when you apply these patches.

klaussilveira 2y ago

I can't comprehend such a restrictive license on abandonware. And from the the looks of it, not very well written abandonware.

npteljes 2y ago
I was a huge fan of Winamp back in the day, but the way they handled the software completely soured me towards it. Winamp 3 was a clusterfuck, Winamp 5 was fine but felt like bloat, and then it was passed around like a hot potato, then abandoned on and off, and then the open sourcing feels like it was also around for quite some time. And now it's not even that, just a meager source-available. I know they don't owe me anything, but I feel disappointed.
- deciplex 2y ago
  One of the earlier examples of enshittification, before the process had been smoothed out and best practices established.
- jb1991 2y ago
  You have to place some of the blame for latter Winamp versions on AOL who purchased Winamp from Frankel's team and messed with it so much he eventually resigned.
  - npteljes 2y ago
    I think selling it wasn't mandatory, and the consequences of selling are predictable, so some of the blame rest with the original decision-makers as well. But I find hard to care after so many years, if I have to be honest, they just messed with my darling too much, and I have long moved on.
    - thedoctor_o 2y ago
      It was either sell it & shoutcast or kill both off since aol in 2013 was changing & there's lots of other projects under them at that time which were killed off instead of what was thought to be a better option to keep it going elsewhere. Alas going to radionony which has ended up becoming llama group after some funny business stuff going on was a mistake though some of the other options that I was aware of at the time weren't great either. And I'm not defending aol either as there were things that I didn't like under their almost 15yr tenure of ownership but it was never condescending like this lot have been over the past 11yrs which their licensing terms have reinforced.

ChrisArchitect 2y ago

Further discussion about this "opening up" back in May: Winamp has announced that it is "opening up" its source code https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40383029 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40383029

abtinf 2y ago

They are either going to have to submit a ton of DMCA requests to GitHub and get their own repo taken down by GitHub, or they will be at risk of losing their copyright and will take it off GitHub themselves. Forking is a fundamental feature of GitHub. Forking policy may only be set on private repos, but this is a public repo. The license doesn’t permit forking. There are already 6 forks. Typically, copyright is not lost through selective enforcement (unlike trademark), but in this case the rights holder is making license violations both trivial and has full access to the list of violators. I suspect the courts will laugh them out of the room unless they vigorously defend their rights. In that case, I certainly wouldn’t want to deal with it if I was GitHub. It is a terrible user experience, where a user clicking one of the most popular buttons on the platform suddenly becomes a legal problem.

dt3ft 2y ago
410 forks currently.
thomastjeffery 2y ago
> In that case, I certainly wouldn’t want to deal with it if I was GitHub. It is a terrible user experience, where a user clicking one of the most popular buttons on the platform suddenly becomes a legal problem. As others have mentioned, GitHub has already covered that with their ToS. All public repos may be forked.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

abetusk 2y ago

A perversion of the term "open". The licensing terms do not allow redistribution or resale, which is a condition of "open source" (as it's commonly accepted). Note how the title nor the repository says "open source". I would have called this source available, not that "the source is now open".

simoncion 2y ago
The license claims that it's a copyleft license... but it cannot be one with the distribution restrictions demanded by the license. I hope that they either remove the claim that it is a copyleft license, or relax the distribution restrictions to something like "If you distribute modified versions of this Program, you may not call the modified versions Winamp.".
- abetusk 2y ago
  I completely missed that. The license file also says that it's "free" and ensures that we have the "freedom to use it": """ The Winamp Collaborative License is a free, copyleft license for software and other kinds of works. It is designed to ensure that you have the freedom to use, Modify, and study the software, but with certain restrictions on the distribution of modifications to maintain the integrity and collaboration of the project. """ Looks like there's already pushback in the issues section [1] [2]. [0] https://github.com/WinampDesktop/winamp/blob/community/LICENSE.md https://github.com/WinampDesktop/winamp/blob/community/LICEN... [1] https://github.com/WinampDesktop/winamp/issues/16 https://github.com/WinampDesktop/winamp/issues/16 [2] https://github.com/WinampDesktop/winamp/issues/6 https://github.com/WinampDesktop/winamp/issues/6

deleted 2y ago

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thefourthchime 2y ago

I have a little history with Winamp. I wrote a popular plugin for it back in the day. This is the source code for Winamp 3, which is a total rewrite of winamp 2 in C++. In my opinion, it was overcomplicated and over-architected. The original source code by Justin Frankel in C.

jb1991 2y ago
Is Frankel's original code anywhere? I do recall him saying once that he preferred C++ over C but used C++ as simply C with classes. Frankel is a hero of mine.
- mihaitodor 2y ago
  I think there was a copy of it buried somewhere in the comments here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29379346 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29379346
thedoctor_o 2y ago
What has been "provided" is the stripped down 5.666 source bundle given to radionomy when sold on from AOL & the end result of their iterations up to the 5.9.2 release. So it's made up of the however many years of the 1.x -> 2.x -> 5.x development process & however many different people hacked upon it in that time (aka a mess). Yes there's a large part of winamp3 in there which was already long since open sourced properly in the aol era (unlike this heavily restricted licensing terms) but from what I remember when making the code deliverable the dedicated winamp3 repository was never provided (assuming my memory from 11yrs ago is still good). -dro

zerkten 2y ago

Is there an official announcement or something else that accompanied this? I don't know the current state of their organization and the chain of ownership for the code.

factorialboy 2y ago

F yeahhhhh ... the player that never crashed, even if Windows OS crashed all around it This is more significant (to me) than the iPhone 16 launch, I'll pay for people who can port this to Linux (Gnome) and Mac OS.

mdaniel 2y ago
Barring the ton of licensing stupidity ongoing (maybe they'll fix it, who knows), as far as I know you could actually do that by forking the repo and then connecting your fork to bountysource. Open an issue for each target OS, set the amounts, and then publicize that fact on as many social media channels as you have access to However, I wanted to draw your attention to "are you asking the right question" because there's a very real chance that the things you actually love about Winamp would not carry over to any such ports, since it's not "recompile and get the Winamp on Windows experience" - they would be Gnome and macOS apps, behaving similar to other such apps
- elpocko 2y ago
  Bountysource is long dead.

ilrwbwrkhv 2y ago

One of the best pieces of software ever made. Will devour its code. Hopefully new startups like Slack can learn from it too.

opan 2y ago

Not open source, not free software. Restrictions in license found here for those curious: https://github.com/WinampDesktop/winamp/blob/community/LICENSE.md#5-restrictions https://github.com/WinampDesktop/winamp/blob/community/LICEN...

f1shy 2y ago

I was expecting to see some comment about the quality of the code. How clean (or not) it is. I was personaly hopping a much more ordered and clean codebase.

mihaitodor 2y ago

Wish they bothered to preserve the commit history... Can't imagine anything sensitive in there that they couldn't share.

thedoctor_o 2y ago
That'd mean they'd have to do more work then necessary & there'd at most only ever be what went back to the stripped down 5.666 code deliverable they got after it was sold on from AOL at the start of 2014 (was looked into but determined not worth the hassle when that was being sorted out at the time). -dro
- mihaitodor 2y ago
  I see... Fair enough. Thanks for the background!

JosephRedfern 2y ago

There is some pretty creative swearing throughout this codebase - very entertaining!

anordal 2y ago
I thought so, but that's what I came to the comment section to know ;-)

Linkd 2y ago

Are there any tools that can receive an entire code base like this, then analyze and answer questions about the code, structure, functionality?

ing33k 2y ago
Cursor can do it.
wppick 2y ago
Ya the one between your ears. Kidding! Maybe Sourcegraph Cody https://sourcegraph.com/cody https://sourcegraph.com/cody, or possibly Github copilot. I think Cody might handle the multiple files better, and allows you to pick from multiple models.
watt 2y ago
apparently folks are making tools to do this: https://martinfowler.com/articles/legacy-modernization-gen-ai.html https://martinfowler.com/articles/legacy-modernization-gen-a...

29athrowaway 2y ago

There is an open source clone of Winamp called XMMS. Sonique and Foobar2000 were also venerable players of that era.

gapan 2y ago
Yep, I still use XMMS. There is also qmmp[1] for a Qt based player. And I think Audacious[2] still has a classic winamp interface, although it's not the default anymore. [1] https://qmmp.ylsoftware.com/ https://qmmp.ylsoftware.com/ [2] https://audacious-media-player.org/ https://audacious-media-player.org/
- hexagonwin 2y ago
  Just curious, but on which OS are you running XMMS on?
  - gapan 2y ago
    https://www.salixos.org/ https://www.salixos.org/ It's not installed by default, but it's in the repos.
the__alchemist 2y ago
I still use Foobar. Ideal/timeless software.

davidpfarrell 2y ago

The best thing we can do for the future of the project is to NOT engage with the project at this time ... Even just cloning the project into your private workspace to review / compile is giving more engagement than their current licensing stance warrants. I'll check again when an HN post comes out stating they've changed their licensing stance - Until then, closing this tab and forgetting about it ...

lacedeconstruct 2y ago
The author justin frankel (also wrote reaper the DAW absolute legend) had this to say about it > Question: Now that WinAMP's source has been officially released, do you have any desire to hack new badass features in? Answer: If I did have any desire, it would be extinguished by the license terms, lol. The terms are completely absurd in the way they are written, e.g. "You may not create, maintain, or distribute a forked version of the software." So arguably making any changes would be considered "creating a forked version." But even taking these terms as they are likely intended (which is slightly more permissive than how they are written), they are terrible. No thank you.
- zeratax 2y ago
  where is this quote from?
  - protimewaster 2y ago
    Looks like it's from his "Ask Justin Frankel" website: https://www.askjf.com/index.php?q=7357s https://www.askjf.com/index.php?q=7357s

johnchristopher 2y ago

Which winamp is it ? Version 2 ? Version 3 with the wasabi (?) engine ? Or version 5 ?

aeyes 2y ago
5.9.2 https://github.com/WinampDesktop/winamp/blob/community/Src/Winamp/buildType.h#L6 https://github.com/WinampDesktop/winamp/blob/community/Src/W...

nicholashead 2y ago

I remember hanging out in #mpeg3 on EFNet many many years ago and becoming an acquaintance of Justin Frankel while he was working on this. I had made a skin and even a few tray icons for him to use in the app, and some of them are in here. I can't remember 100% which ones were mine, but the punchlabel one definitely was. My name is in the credits too: https://github.com/WinampDesktop/winamp/blob/0695744fd658c42b372b7cb61584544c20e1c2ea/Src/Winamp/credits.cpp#L144 https://github.com/WinampDesktop/winamp/blob/0695744fd658c42...

DisposableMike 2y ago
I wonder if you would have linked this credits page had you been assigned the title "BREAST EXAMINER" OR "NUDE SCENES" like some others, haha

thrashwerk 2y ago

What a load of BS. This is just a poor attempt at open-source-washing. They rolled their own license but couldn't be bothered to read GitHub's ToS. "collaborative" license, "opened to the community", "enabling the entire community to participate in its development", "global collaboration" but you have to grant them perpetual rights and waive your own, you're not even allowed to fork lol. Seems like they're only looking for unpaid workers.

trickstra 2y ago
Is there even any development happening on Winamp? What would these unpaid workers do? If they can't touch the code, not even test it, then the only thing this repo could serve is reporting bugs, but will anyone fix them? I feel like this whole release is just a PR stunt to remind us that winamp still exists. They don't actually want any help, nor do they want to give anything to the community. They just want to get into gossip, so the spectacular chaos with releasing certificates and 3rd-party proprietary code actually helps for publicity.
- thedoctor_o 2y ago
  They dumped the prior dev team over a year ago (the ones that added the nft plug-in & fanzone crap) & it is mostly a ploy to get a free dev team as was speculated when the whole "source available" thing got announced 4 months ago (but they seem to have left it to the night before to do anything hence the complete mess that's been going on). The license was always going to be restrictive & focused on what only benefits them as they would never want any clones, etc to be able to make use of it. Also the terms when I look at it from an ex plug-in dev stance seem to prevent any new / updated plug-ins from being built with the plug-in api headers which afaict would fall under their license & surplanting the prior one (no idea if they've changed the in-file stuff or not as I cannot look at their code to avoid issues with work my own player).

sunshadow 2y ago

According to the license, this repo is not that different than me just extracting the source code from the binaries. Pass.

synergy20 2y ago

sorry but why does old winamp code still matter? there are plenty open source audio libraries these days along with different open source players.

acuozzo 2y ago
It's a fun diversion to browse around old codebases, especially those of software you once used extensively.
airhangerf15 2y ago
It's still one of the best simple media players (sadly). If it had better HiDPI support, it'd still be my go to on Windows (if I still used Windows). I wonder if anyone there still has the source to the failed Linux Alpha. It crashed all the time, but it did exist, for a very short while.

prmoustache 2y ago

Can't we just let it die?

comprev 2y ago

The source code itself appears to come from a cracked version [0] supplied by deadbeef\n\n\ cracked by rOn\n\n\ 32kb cool intro by lone"; [0] https://github.com/WinampDesktop/winamp/blob/community/Src/Winamp/ABOUT.cpp#L1013 https://github.com/WinampDesktop/winamp/blob/community/Src/W... Edit: Apparently it's an Easter Egg! Credit to bri3d for research

benmmurphy 2y ago
its probably an easter egg
- sionisrecur 2y ago
  Yes, by the cracker team not by the Winamp devs.
  - thedoctor_o 2y ago
    Those names were some of the original devs & they're the ones who put it in the easter egg on the about dialog that it relates to as a hacker-like joke. The source code is what aol sold on as a stripped down copy of 5.666 & then what radionomy/audiovalley/llama group iterated on afterwards. As much as I dislike what now calls itself "winamp", it's nothing nefarious & you can find old 2.x installs with that about easter egg text. -dro
skandl 2y ago
Weird, how does that even work? Does cracked mean its' been decompiled? It's strange because it includes other stuff like build scripts, etc that wouldn't be in released binaries..
deleted 2y ago
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bri3d 2y ago
This is a weird Easter Egg that's been compiled into real, genuine, uncracked Winamp release builds for a very long time. The actual compiled binary ends up with the same text you see linked there scrambled using XOR (you can see that on the other side of the #if 0) to avoid it appearing in the binary's strings verbatim. It's unfortunately hard to find stuff from the Old Internet anymore (I recall this being discussed at length on the original Winamp forums), but there are some references to it here: https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/366648-winamp-51/page/2/#comment-586468937 https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/366648-winamp-51/page/2/#... There's a screenshot of the exact text from the source here: https://eeggs.com/items/45636.html https://eeggs.com/items/45636.html And someone getting really confused about it on Reddit here: https://www.reddit.com/r/winamp/comments/caukeo/installed_winamp_via_ninite_and_its_cracked/ https://www.reddit.com/r/winamp/comments/caukeo/installed_wi...

dfedbeef 2y ago

Finally I can play MP3s on my desktop computer

momentsinabox 2y ago

Haven't thought about converting FLAC files to mp3 in a while. Hell yeah Winamp

theandrewbailey 2y ago
Why convert? Winamp plays FLAC natively.

sionisrecur 2y ago

Funny, the latest commit is "Removing code which is not open"[0], which means they are infringing on someone else's licensing terms by keeping it in the git history. [0] https://github.com/WinampDesktop/winamp/commit/0a4b7d32d090696e5aab8de9c61dda9dab76aabf https://github.com/WinampDesktop/winamp/commit/0a4b7d32d0906...

srockets 2y ago
Based on https://github.com/WinampDesktop/winamp/issues/11 https://github.com/WinampDesktop/winamp/issues/11 it's their own code, just a different service they didn't decide to release the source for.
- thedoctor_o 2y ago
  llama group / "winamp" don't own shoutcast anymore as that was all sold off a year or so ago to azerion as part of changing audiovalley into llama group. -dro
  - saylisteins 2y ago
    looks like both are under the same parent company Src: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radionomy#List_of_properties_formerly_owned_by_Radionomy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radionomy#List_of_properties_f...
    - thedoctor_o 2y ago
      The history section just above the prior properties section is what's now the case with winamp & shoutcast under unrelated organisations nowadays. Though it's all a bit murky as radionomy & audiovalley were the same top people. -dro
      - efilife 2y ago
        What does -dro mean?

metflex 2y ago

Is there any chance or an already existing fork to build for apple silicon mac!?