18 ms·

Winamp deletes entire GitHub source code repo after a rocky few weeks

433 points by dangle1 2y ago

theandrewbailey 2y ago
I was afraid something like this would happen. Glad I downloaded the enitre repo soon after it was opened.
- xingped 2y ago
  Any chance you could mirror it...?
Karellen 2y ago
Hah, called it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41645867 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41645867 > 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...
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
liquidpele 2y ago
I’ll just leave this here. https://webamp.org/ https://webamp.org/
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- shon 2y ago
  Complete with milkdrop and skins.. love it
- hedgehog 2y ago
  If someone extracted that so it could run on desktop, especially with support for SoundCloud and other services, I would enjoy using that. Running inside Tauri the resource footprint wouldn't even be that bad.
- jonathanlb 2y ago
  My holy grail would be Winamp on iPhone: one screen just for the classic player, another for the equalizer, one for the list of tracks, and one for the visualizer.
Calavar 2y ago
We've lost a lot with the deletion of this repo. Not the code - that's already out in the ether - but the absurdist comedy of the issues, pull requests, and commit history of trying to piecemeal delete third party non-FOSS software.
- abbbi 2y ago
  sorry, but this was a real shitshow. I dont understand: wtf makes people think spamming an repo in the way they did is in any way useful?
  - Calavar 2y ago
    The meme/troll issues were edgy teen style humor and not that funny, but the legitimate ones that tried to gently explain what rebase does and went completely ignored were funny because they felt surreal and hyperreal at the same time. Office-Space-esque comedy.
    - delfinom 2y ago
      The troll issues are exactly why my OSS group does not use GitHub at all. It's become a toxic platform for quite awhile.
      - armada651 2y ago
        That's just the reality of any platform that doesn't gatekeep who gets to participate. Eventually assholes are going to join, that's simply unavoidable.
        andrewstuart2 2y ago
        Sure, but then there's also the reality that people who don't want to deal with assholes and trolls will pack up and leave. So IMO it's best to combat it and not normalize it, so that we can have more nice things.
flatline 2y ago
A little glimpse into what a lot of proprietary code bases look like - or at least did a couple decades ago.
sureIy 2y ago
I don't really understand why people complained. The source is open, if don't want to contribute, don't. Just because something doesn't fit a specific definition it doesn't mean it's not worth of existence.
- belthesar 2y ago
  The source wasn't open though, it was available, and it was provided in a sense that fully showcased that they did not understand what they were doing. Everything from licenses that were fully unenforceable and non-compliant with Github's license agreement to illegally distributing proprietary code to fundamentally misunderstanding how to use git. It's one thing to provide a source available codebase. That's a choice, and it's fine for various definitions of fine. What they did was legally put themselves in hot water with the inclusion of proprietary dependencies, misrepresent what their intentions were, and likely irrevocably damage their reputation to a small, but vocal minority, who likely have a sizeable overlap with folks that know what Winamp is/was. It's okay if none of that matters to you, or if it doesn't resonate with you, but the things that were done were comically awful in terms of sharing a codebase.
  - lukeschlather 2y ago
    Describing this as "comically awful" seems strange. In terms of building a good open source project, they did a bad job. However they did a good job making the source available. Also given all the dependencies they may have (whether intentionally or not) followed the best path to make sure that the source would be useful. They ended up looking bad and exposing themselves to legal trouble, but I'm not sure this was awful, and they might even have known exactly what they were doing.
    - tiahura 2y ago
      [flagged]
    - johnnyanmac 2y ago
      Do people really not understand how bad this could be from a legal perspective. Licenses are a contract and they broke several contracts. >They ended up looking bad and exposing themselves to legal trouble, but I'm not sure this was awful For a company, I can't think of anything less awful than purposefully choosing to expose oneself to legal trouble. I'd say that qualifies as "comically awful". >they might even have known exactly what they were doing. In what way? Are they going bankrupt (so nothing to sue for) and just want to send out readable source on the way out, without enough care to strip out copyright and list dependencies? That's certainly a hail Mary, but I think that move does more damage to the community than goodwill.
VonGuard 2y ago
This is a cautionary tale for preservationists. My current preservation project is still not open because we are very slowly reviewing the code to make sure we don't accidentally include any IP when we open the source code. The real things that get you are similar to what happened here: codecs, graphics libraries, and a really big one to look out for is fonts. It'd be great if there was a scanner that could detect this stuff, but unfortunately, the scanning tools out there tend to go the other way like Black Duck: they detect open source code, not closed source.
- HPsquared 2y ago
  I suppose it could be done, like those plagiarism databases used for academic work. Security would need to be tighter though. It's a hard thing if the source code needs to be protected I suppose.
- londons_explore 2y ago
  The thing is, the vast majority of graphics libraries from 1992 the IP owner no longer cares about, and the code usually has nearly zero commercial value. I wish more were brave enough to just publish it with an open license, and then if the owner complains you take it down and rewrite. Any damages for distributing 30 year old source code are hopefully in the single-digit-dollars range anyway.
  - Loudergood 2y ago
    The problem is you'll get crushed by legal fees in the meantime.
    - londons_explore 2y ago
      but if courts gave out damages of $10 for this sort of offence (taking into account the very low commercial value of the IP stolen), then very few people would even bother pursuing it in court.
      - 2y ago
flamt 2y ago
Here is a mirror of the repo, as of the last commit before it was deleted: https://git.cbraaten.dev/AtRiskRepos/winamp https://git.cbraaten.dev/AtRiskRepos/winamp Also here is a git bundle file which can be cloned from: https://litter.catbox.moe/dwhadv.bundle https://litter.catbox.moe/dwhadv.bundle
- sph 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - sangnoir 2y ago
    > If possible and willing to risk deletion, try to upload it on Github as well; You could have easily done this yourself, under your GitHub account in the time it took you to compose your reply (with fewer keystrokes at least). GP seems content with their self-hosted mirror.
    - gacklecackle 2y ago
      [flagged]
    - sph 2y ago
      I am away from my keyboard, is this an acceptable excuse for you? It would have taken fewer keystrokes not to compose such a hostile response, while I was just offering a suggestion to OP.
      - sangnoir 2y ago
        I think your request was tainted by the dig at the longevity of their self-hosted mirror. Your suggestion not only requires time on mirror operator's part, but puts their GitHub account at risk (no matter how low you consider that risk to be). From what I can see thus far - you care more for a GitHub mirror than GP - who went through the deliberate effort of setting up the mirror away from GitHub. Edit: changed word choice to be more charitable.
      - deleted 2y ago
Circlecrypto2 2y ago
Dang... The conversations must've been really entertaining.
fsflover 2y ago
Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41662105 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41662105 Winamp contained modified GPL code, violating the GPL (github.com/winampdesktop) 18 points by mepian 19 days ago | 6 comments
- dang 2y ago
  Thanks! Macroexpanded: Winamp contained modified GPL code, violating the GPL - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41662105 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41662105 - Sept 2024 (6 comments) Winamp removed "No forking" restriction from license - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41650355 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41650355 - Sept 2024 (12 comments) Winamp Legacy player source code - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41636804 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41636804 - Sept 2024 (328 comments)
- bscphil 2y ago
  I can't see the original issue, but it's interesting that the title chooses to highlight the fact that the GPL code was modified. Actually, under the GPL, this fact is immaterial. If the Winamp player contained any GPL code at all, modified or not, then it is a derivative work of that GPL code and anyone receiving a copy of Winamp is entitled to demand the full corresponding source be provided under a GPL license.
  - kccqzy 2y ago
    The original issue was complaining about libdiscid which is under the LGPL license not GPL. With that license, linking to an unmodified library in proprietary software is fine. What's not fine is to link to a modified library without releasing the source code for that modification. (Of course here the modification is extremely simple so some concludes this is a nothing burger.) The original poster likely knew the LGPL difference and that's why everyone became fixated on finding the modifications to the library rather than the fact of linking itself.
    - hulitu 2y ago
      > Of course here the modification is extremely simple so some concludes this is a nothing burger But still a modification.
abbbi 2y ago
shares some insights: https://arstechnica.com/civis/threads/winamp-really-whips-open-source-coders-into-frenzy-with-its-source-release.1503409/page-2#post-43214470 https://arstechnica.com/civis/threads/winamp-really-whips-op...
soulofmischief 2y ago
Don't redistribute this software, but we're gonna redistribute some close-source software out of carelessness. Rules for thee, not for me.
whalesalad 2y ago
[flagged]
arp242 2y ago
The trolling was ridiculous. I don't blame them. It was pretty clear that with "fork" they meant "don't create a WinAmp-ng fork" and not a "fork" in the "send a patch" GitHub sense. It's fine to point out "hey, I think your custom written license may need a bit of work!", but the amount of vitriol and hate over it (including on HN) was just ridiculous. It was one of those moments I was embarrassed to be posting here. And yes, they could have done better, sure. But instead of bringing in someone in the community you just chased them away. Well done everyone. Good job. Excellent result. A story to tell the grandchildren.
- abbbi 2y ago
  exactly.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  The forking was bizarre and I agree with your take on it ("forking" with no other changes is not "distribution" except in the most obtuse way). But the licensing issues with what 3rd party software they threw in there was a pretty serious issue. It was probably inevitable they'd take it down and redo it even without the drama.
  - freedomben 2y ago
    Agreed it probably was inevitable, but I would be surprised if the "redo" part even happens now. Why would it? They spent their time/money giving us a gift, and we mainly just mocked them because the gift had imperfections. I wouldn't blame them for adopting a "go f*k yourself" attitude.
    - beachy 2y ago
      If it was inevitable that it was going to get taken down then it was never a gift in the first place.
      - freedomben 2y ago
        Presumably it (would have) been re-uploaded after a scrub.
squarefoot 2y ago
And here's another story to add to the book "How to shoot yourself in the foot by not knowing how the Internet and software licenses work", should anyone write that one day. Also, from one ArsTechnica link posted later in this story, one former dev told that the 4 WA Legacy developers were fired and soon he left too, so I guess they presumably had either no one or very few resources who knew that code and were in the best position to audit it before public release. This is not just shooting oneself in the foot; it rather looks like dancing on a landmine.
- dyauspitr 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - Phrodo_00 2y ago
    It's not clear their license was open source, actually. OSI Makes free distribution the first part of the definition of open source, as well the ability to create derived works[1]. Their rule against forking might clash against that. [1] https://opensource.org/osd https://opensource.org/osd
    - llm_trw 2y ago
      > It’s all downsides with entitled shutins getting their rare drama fix >> It's not clear their license was open source, actually. OSI Makes free distribution the first part of the definition of open source, as well the ability to create derived works[1]. Their rule against forking might clash against that. Thank you for your satirical post to highlight the type of person OP was mocking.
  - Crestwave 2y ago
    Here's a statement from the co-author of Winamp, Justin Frankel: > 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. https://www.askjf.com/index.php?q=7357s https://www.askjf.com/index.php?q=7357s And here's a statement from one of the recent maintainers of Winamp: > I worked at Winamp till this February. I was the one that suggested the we'd open-source all the player code that belonged to us (so stripping all the Dolby, Intel IPP, etc stuff that wasn't owned by Winamp), so that the community was free to do whatever it wanted with it. I envisioned something à la DOOM GPL release. Amongst ourselves we joked about seeing enthusiasts create a Winamp-for-your-smart-fridge or Linux port. That would have been pretty cool. Instead that proposal was repeatedly ignored by management which couldn't be convinced that this decades-old spaghetti code had nothing more than historical value. "Why would we give our IP away ?! We paid for that". As if VLC, Foobar2000, etc didn't exist ... https://arstechnica.com/civis/threads/winamp-really-whips-open-source-coders-into-frenzy-with-its-source-release.1503409/page-2#post-43214470 https://arstechnica.com/civis/threads/winamp-really-whips-op... But sure. All the pushback is totally from "entitled shutins". Definitely people who have never even used Winamp and just want to manufacture outrage. Uh huh.
mikeortman 2y ago
It's wild to nitpick the licensing like this. I get why its conter-intuitive and in violation of Github's guidelines, but it's winamp, folk. It has no intrinsic value these days to update or fork outside of giving people the opportunity to learn from the tricks they had to do to make stuff work. There are solutions significantly better and open source today. 'Canceling' winamp in 2024 was not on my life's bucket list after the year 2000. There is hypocrisy here around internet archive, it's totally OK to store copy-write content on the archive, but its not OK when a company does so on their own.
- fluoridation 2y ago
  >It's wild to nitpick the licensing like this. It's not a nitpick, the library was self-contradictory. It claimed to be copyleft while not allowing distributing modified copies by anyone other than the rights holder. >There is hypocrisy here around internet archive, it's totally OK to store copy-write content on the archive, but its not OK when a company does so on their own. That's right, because it was the company that broke their contract with their vendor by making publicly available source code when they didn't have permission to do that. If that software vendor has a problem with the IA they can issue a DMCA request.
pelorat 2y ago
Plenty of people have copies of the source and the release was just a novelty really. There's no point in anyone actually forking, building and releasing new versions of Winamp as it has been surpassed by other "real" OSS players eons ago. Let's face it, the release was mostly for Internet historians.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  Given the license, I suppose so. It'd only be for a tinkerer who loved WinAnp but wanted to fix some nitpick in the player. Can't do much more than that. The bad faith interpretation is that this was an attempt to make use of previous goodwill to get some free labor to at the very least fix some bugs for them, or at most add in requested features to try to get it back on the map.
bitbasher 2y ago
Anyone have a mirror of it?
- 6c696e7578 2y ago
  See this one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41861376 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41861376
jbverschoor 2y ago
Tech and gaming communities are the most toxic ones ever
jfvinueza 2y ago
The article mentions how deeply compressed the files we played were back then, but I'm pretty sure nowadays it's even worse.
- EmilyHughes 2y ago
  Not at all. Any song on youtube uploaded in the last 5-10 years is as good as a 320 kbit mp3. Why would it be with the bandwidth anyone has to today?
  - hedgehog 2y ago
    Even limiting the scope to MP3 at the same bitrates modern encoders are much better than what we had back in the 90s.
  - jccalhoun 2y ago
    I think the poster is confusing/conflating dynamic range compression with file compression
  - shiroiushi 2y ago
    Obviously you've never listened to SiriusXM. But seriously, the poster is probably complaining about how most modern music is heavily compressed in dynamic range, so that it sounds better on crappy earbud headphones and smartphone speakers.
moomin 2y ago
This, btw, is why open sourcing proprietary software rarely happens: you actually have to go to a fair amount of careful effort to get it right. If you don’t, you end up with this debacle.
- fsflover 2y ago
  Or maybe you just shouldn't break the law.
  - BSDobelix 2y ago
    >shouldn't break the law. What law? The law of the Gnu?
    - fsflover 2y ago
      https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41662105 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41662105
      - BSDobelix 2y ago
        [flagged]
        chx 2y ago
        Ah you misunderstand. All free software licenses grant you additional rights on top of copyright law. These rights allow you to make copies of the software given certain conditions. If you violate them then they do not apply and only copyright law applies so any copies you made are illegal.
        BSDobelix 2y ago
        >copyright law applies First that's not true and even if that would be only true in the US. Since the US is not THE "law" you cant say that. Also: >Under the current law, works created on or after January 1, 1978, have a copyright term of life of the author plus seventy years after the author's death. https://www.copyright.gov/what-is-copyright/ https://www.copyright.gov/what-is-copyright/ So when Gates dies and i violate Microsofts License 7 years later i can have DOS 6.22 for free and redistribute it right?
francisofascii 2y ago
This story is analogous to a landowner and a group of neighborhood kids. The landowner allows the kids to play baseball in his field, but then the kids complain the grass is not cut, they are playing late into the evening, a few kids vandalize damage his flower bed, and his lawyers tell him he will be sued if he doesn't make all these safety changes, and so the landowner says screw it and puts up a fence.
- jrflowers 2y ago
  Rather in this analogy the landowner didn’t own all of the field and somehow the kids get blamed for him failing to keep track of what he does and does not own.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- timeon 2y ago
  Problem with analogies is that they are all made up.
- solidsnack9000 2y ago
  Sort of. In this case, as other posters have mentioned, the "landlord" did some questionable things.
  - francisofascii 2y ago
    Agreed. How about the "landlord" expected the kids to cut the grass and weed the gardens house for use of the field, and only allowed them access on certain days and times.
    - account42 2y ago
      More like the landlord wanted the kids to cut the grass for free so he gave them permission to look at the grass but not touch it and explicitly forbid playing on the grass. Oh and it turns out he doesn't even own all the land.
AdmiralAsshat 2y ago
Good job, team. Companies are sure to open source their legacy proprietary applications now after that warm reception.
- jraph 2y ago
  They didn't open source anything though. They shared some code under some restrictive license.
  - zizee 2y ago
    The "chilling" effect is still the same.
    - jraph 2y ago
      I hope companies will also recognize that by actually open sourcing their stuff and be more careful, things will go better. Of course the childish comments that seem to have been posted on github were probably not great, I think people should be respectful, so maybe the additional lesson here is that github, by trying hard to become a social network and not focusing on being a code host and issue tracker, succeeded in being a social network, with the whole package, attracting this kind of shitty behavior, and that's one more reason to avoid it now. You wouldn't upload your code on a social network, would you? If you don't want cooperation or forks, a zip anywhere will do.
    - consteval 2y ago
      Right, and what we're "chilling" is using software in a way not consistent with its license. That's good, IMO. Don't steal IP and you don't have to worry about getting caught for stealing IP. FYI: simply hiding the code doesn't fix the issue - disgruntled employees and whistleblowers do exist.
      - zizee 2y ago
        Given the wide variety of views expressed in this HN discussion, it's clear there isn't consensus on how this is being interpreted, so I think you're wrong in claiming that there is only one type of behaviour being discouraged. That said, I'm just as a casual observer lying in bed with the flu, I probably should just shut up until I know more the situation.
paweladamczuk 2y ago
"Proprietary packages from Intel and Microsoft were also seemingly included in the release's build tools" Can anyone speak to this? To me, it's the most interesting bit in this article. Does this mean Winamp developers had access to libraries of Intel/MS that are not publicly available?
- kapep 2y ago
  It would assume it's about packages that are publicly available but their license forbids redistribution.
- Woovie 2y ago
  From my understanding they received code with contracts that forbid you from distribution.
- LauraMedia 2y ago
  Could this be the random installers that were present in a folder of the repo? They had some C++ installers and I think a random Intel driver in there...
mococa 2y ago
Once on the internet, always on the internet.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
lolinder 2y ago
> In seeking to remove offending files with a simple deletion instead of a rebase, Winamp kept it available to those who know Git mechanics "Those who know Git mechanics" in this case is talking about extremely simple Git mechanics. Those who know more advanced Git mechanics would know that even a rebase is not sufficient to solve the problem of having pushed up secrets. Aside from the obvious problem of all the forks and previously-cloned copies, the offending commits will still also be available on GitHub (at least until the next garbage collection), they'll just have the message "This commit does not belong to any branch on this repository, and may belong to a fork outside of the repository." Any links that include the old hash will still be available online and will still turn up the code you tried to delete.
- speedyjay 2y ago
  > offending commits will still also be available on GitHub (at least until the next garbage collection), No. Forever. Literally forever. GitHub does not run garbage collection, like, ever. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4367977/how-to-remove-a-dangling-commit-from-github/4368673#4368673 https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4367977/how-to-remove-a-... Dangling commit from 14 years ago : https://github.com/nylen/connectbot/commit/1cd775d https://github.com/nylen/connectbot/commit/1cd775d There is only one way to delete data on github permanently and that's to request it from github support. Still, you would have better luck just deleting your repository and starting over from scratch, deleting your history locally and pushing from a pristine state.
  - leni536 2y ago
    Hmm, do they count dangling commits towards your quota?
  - account42 2y ago
    Which makes sense because just being orphaned within git doesn't mean that there aren't any external references from PRs or just comments that people expect to be able to view. And of course for actual secrets (as in passwords/keys/etc.) having deleting them from GitHub is not going to help you anyway as others could have made local copies that you have no control over.
AndyNemmity 2y ago
Plutono just did too. I've been trying to find any information on the topic, and haven't found anything.
fithisux 2y ago
They should have asked help from the community to clean it and maintain it properly.
pxc 2y ago
People are talking about the issues opened on GitHub as 'trolling' but honestly the license Winamp chose is itself an insult. From the license text via the Internet Archive: > The Winamp Collaborative License is a free, copyleft license also from that license text: > 5. Restrictions > No Distribution of Modified Versions: You may not distribute modified versions of the software, whether in source or binary form. Which means that the Winamp Collaborative License is neither free nor copyleft. What copyleft actually is: > Copyleft is a general method for making a program (or other work) free (in the sense of freedom, not “zero price”), and requiring all modified and extended versions of the program to be free as well. https://www.gnu.org/licenses/copyleft.en.html https://www.gnu.org/licenses/copyleft.en.html Releasing proprietary software is whatever. 'Shared source' and similar dilutions are one level of bullshit. Abusing and diluting the language of the free software movement is a step beyond that. This kind of 'open-source' is actively harmful to an exceptional degree and absolutely deserves to drown in ridicule. A lot of the mocking issues were unfocused or low-effort, but I can't really complain about their function or intent.
tdiff 2y ago
I believe some people understimate how much huge number of companies dont care about OSS licenses and do what they want internally. Winamp was simply unfortunate to unveil it.
weinzierl 2y ago
Someone found a prehistoric hand axe on their property. They realize it must have been one of the nicest hand axes of its time. They decide to donate it to a museum, so everyone can appreciate that marvel of human civilization. Being an extraordinarily nice axe, its original creator must surely have taken proper care of it and kept it clean, but over the years it clearly accumulated some dirt and a few modifications. Not wanting to damage an important historic artifact, the finder decides to leave the patina alone and donates the axe as found. The museum requires the donor to add an exhibit label. Unfortunately, the finder being Belgian and speaking only French, there is a severe misunderstanding about the purpose of the axe. On the day the exhibit is first shown to the public, hell breaks loose. People threaten to sue because the dirty prehistoric axe is against all regulations that apply to contemporary axes. Some attempts are made to remove the dirt, but only in a way that preserves the dirt, which enrages the other camp even more. Ultimately, the exhibit is withdrawn from the museum, but luckily many had a chance to make copies and 3D copies that they keep safely in their private collections.
- mort96 2y ago
  Isn't it more apt to say that the people who donated the axe to the museum were the same people who originally made it, and that the axe was illegal when it was made as well as today? I may totally have missed details here, I haven't paid attention much, so please do correct me if I'm wrong
  - weinzierl 2y ago
    This is a good question and I have to admit that I have not thoroughly researched it. My understanding is that the original creators (Justin Frankel and Dmitry Boldyrev, later Nullsoft) the people who spoiled it (AOL) and the finder (Radionomy = Llama Group) are separate entities. Most of the blame should be with the people who spoiled it, and while it doesn't excuse their deeds they are unsurprising from a historical context. The current owners of Winamp share some blame too, but I see it more in the neglect of due diligence when they acquired Winamp and less in the release of the source. Arguably I see more incompetence (which, of course, is no defense against punishment) than malice in the later. Finally, that the original authors kept the Winamp source clean is a reasonable and likely assumption, but as far as I know there is no 100% way to be sure.
racked 2y ago
It's a shame the GitHub repository got attacked by the kind of sexually frustrated perpetually-teenage crowd you normally see on 4chan. On the other hand, Radionomy's clear incompetence over the years sours me. Having the IP for all those years and laying it to waste, culminating in a half-assed attempt to open source it. It pains me to say as their intentions may be good at least in part, but one has to let Darwin get his way too.
childintime 2y ago
When I try to search for Winamp on Github (without a login), I am blocked: Whoa there! You have exceeded a secondary rate limit. Please wait a few minutes before you try again; in some cases this may take up to an hour. Regular github browsing is ok, searches result in the above. For 4 hours now (without other any activity). Github is making it personal.
Communitivity 2y ago
This is possibly why a number of Fortune 500 and government organizations avoid GPL like the plague. This whole debacle 'won' one battle for GPL licensing but set the war (and their stated ultimate goals) back by a significant amount. This event is a big topic among the devs where I work. It's reignited the 'we should make sure our policies state no use of GPL licensed code or libraries without the exception' (use of binary executables is unavoidable). In any online population, some people like to build the world (Aces), some like to rule the world (Kings/Queens), some like to watch the world burn (Jokers), and some spend all their time fire-fighting (Jacks). Corollary: There will always be jokers.
- troad 2y ago
  > This is possibly why a number of Fortune 500 and government organizations avoid GPL like the plague. This being, in turn, a fantastic reason to use the GPL for your code.
  - Communitivity 2y ago
    I thought one of the goals for the FOSS movement was to increase adoption of FOSS software by corporations. How is corporations avoiding GPL code a reason to use GPL when creating new software?
    - troad 2y ago
      The FOSS movement is not a monolith. There are many individuals and organisations pursuing many different goals, many of which are at odds with or even antithetical to the goals pursued by Fortune 500 companies. The kind of company that won't touch the GPL with a ten-foot pole is not the kind of company that's looking to be a good participant in the FOSS space. The purpose or merit of appeasing them by switching to a non-copyleft license like MIT is not at all clear to me. Some of the most powerful people in the world are not entitled to the free labour of under-employed hackers building cool things in their spare time without any expectation of reciprocating, which is the only significant thing that the GPL mandates which MIT does not. "We'd use this, were it not for the GPL" = "we'd use this, were it not for the obligation to give our improvements back", which is a massive red flag. Fear of the GPL boils down to the simple fact that these entities don't care about FOSS, they just want to build their proprietary castles on top of public beaches.

433 points by dangle1 2y ago

theandrewbailey 2y ago

I was afraid something like this would happen. Glad I downloaded the enitre repo soon after it was opened.

xingped 2y ago
Any chance you could mirror it...?

Karellen 2y ago

Hah, called it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41645867 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41645867 > 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...

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

liquidpele 2y ago

I’ll just leave this here. https://webamp.org/ https://webamp.org/

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
shon 2y ago
Complete with milkdrop and skins.. love it
hedgehog 2y ago
If someone extracted that so it could run on desktop, especially with support for SoundCloud and other services, I would enjoy using that. Running inside Tauri the resource footprint wouldn't even be that bad.
jonathanlb 2y ago
My holy grail would be Winamp on iPhone: one screen just for the classic player, another for the equalizer, one for the list of tracks, and one for the visualizer.

Calavar 2y ago

We've lost a lot with the deletion of this repo. Not the code - that's already out in the ether - but the absurdist comedy of the issues, pull requests, and commit history of trying to piecemeal delete third party non-FOSS software.

abbbi 2y ago
sorry, but this was a real shitshow. I dont understand: wtf makes people think spamming an repo in the way they did is in any way useful?
- Calavar 2y ago
  The meme/troll issues were edgy teen style humor and not that funny, but the legitimate ones that tried to gently explain what rebase does and went completely ignored were funny because they felt surreal and hyperreal at the same time. Office-Space-esque comedy.
  - delfinom 2y ago
    The troll issues are exactly why my OSS group does not use GitHub at all. It's become a toxic platform for quite awhile.
    - armada651 2y ago
      That's just the reality of any platform that doesn't gatekeep who gets to participate. Eventually assholes are going to join, that's simply unavoidable.
      - andrewstuart2 2y ago
        Sure, but then there's also the reality that people who don't want to deal with assholes and trolls will pack up and leave. So IMO it's best to combat it and not normalize it, so that we can have more nice things.

flatline 2y ago

A little glimpse into what a lot of proprietary code bases look like - or at least did a couple decades ago.

sureIy 2y ago

I don't really understand why people complained. The source is open, if don't want to contribute, don't. Just because something doesn't fit a specific definition it doesn't mean it's not worth of existence.

belthesar 2y ago
The source wasn't open though, it was available, and it was provided in a sense that fully showcased that they did not understand what they were doing. Everything from licenses that were fully unenforceable and non-compliant with Github's license agreement to illegally distributing proprietary code to fundamentally misunderstanding how to use git. It's one thing to provide a source available codebase. That's a choice, and it's fine for various definitions of fine. What they did was legally put themselves in hot water with the inclusion of proprietary dependencies, misrepresent what their intentions were, and likely irrevocably damage their reputation to a small, but vocal minority, who likely have a sizeable overlap with folks that know what Winamp is/was. It's okay if none of that matters to you, or if it doesn't resonate with you, but the things that were done were comically awful in terms of sharing a codebase.
- lukeschlather 2y ago
  Describing this as "comically awful" seems strange. In terms of building a good open source project, they did a bad job. However they did a good job making the source available. Also given all the dependencies they may have (whether intentionally or not) followed the best path to make sure that the source would be useful. They ended up looking bad and exposing themselves to legal trouble, but I'm not sure this was awful, and they might even have known exactly what they were doing.
  - tiahura 2y ago
    [flagged]
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    Do people really not understand how bad this could be from a legal perspective. Licenses are a contract and they broke several contracts. >They ended up looking bad and exposing themselves to legal trouble, but I'm not sure this was awful For a company, I can't think of anything less awful than purposefully choosing to expose oneself to legal trouble. I'd say that qualifies as "comically awful". >they might even have known exactly what they were doing. In what way? Are they going bankrupt (so nothing to sue for) and just want to send out readable source on the way out, without enough care to strip out copyright and list dependencies? That's certainly a hail Mary, but I think that move does more damage to the community than goodwill.

VonGuard 2y ago

This is a cautionary tale for preservationists. My current preservation project is still not open because we are very slowly reviewing the code to make sure we don't accidentally include any IP when we open the source code. The real things that get you are similar to what happened here: codecs, graphics libraries, and a really big one to look out for is fonts. It'd be great if there was a scanner that could detect this stuff, but unfortunately, the scanning tools out there tend to go the other way like Black Duck: they detect open source code, not closed source.

HPsquared 2y ago
I suppose it could be done, like those plagiarism databases used for academic work. Security would need to be tighter though. It's a hard thing if the source code needs to be protected I suppose.
londons_explore 2y ago
The thing is, the vast majority of graphics libraries from 1992 the IP owner no longer cares about, and the code usually has nearly zero commercial value. I wish more were brave enough to just publish it with an open license, and then if the owner complains you take it down and rewrite. Any damages for distributing 30 year old source code are hopefully in the single-digit-dollars range anyway.
- Loudergood 2y ago
  The problem is you'll get crushed by legal fees in the meantime.
  - londons_explore 2y ago
    but if courts gave out damages of $10 for this sort of offence (taking into account the very low commercial value of the IP stolen), then very few people would even bother pursuing it in court.
    - 2y ago

flamt 2y ago

Here is a mirror of the repo, as of the last commit before it was deleted: https://git.cbraaten.dev/AtRiskRepos/winamp https://git.cbraaten.dev/AtRiskRepos/winamp Also here is a git bundle file which can be cloned from: https://litter.catbox.moe/dwhadv.bundle https://litter.catbox.moe/dwhadv.bundle

sph 2y ago
[flagged]
- sangnoir 2y ago
  > If possible and willing to risk deletion, try to upload it on Github as well; You could have easily done this yourself, under your GitHub account in the time it took you to compose your reply (with fewer keystrokes at least). GP seems content with their self-hosted mirror.
  - gacklecackle 2y ago
    [flagged]
  - sph 2y ago
    I am away from my keyboard, is this an acceptable excuse for you? It would have taken fewer keystrokes not to compose such a hostile response, while I was just offering a suggestion to OP.
    - sangnoir 2y ago
      I think your request was tainted by the dig at the longevity of their self-hosted mirror. Your suggestion not only requires time on mirror operator's part, but puts their GitHub account at risk (no matter how low you consider that risk to be). From what I can see thus far - you care more for a GitHub mirror than GP - who went through the deliberate effort of setting up the mirror away from GitHub. Edit: changed word choice to be more charitable.
    - deleted 2y ago

Circlecrypto2 2y ago

Dang... The conversations must've been really entertaining.

fsflover 2y ago

Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41662105 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41662105 Winamp contained modified GPL code, violating the GPL (github.com/winampdesktop) 18 points by mepian 19 days ago | 6 comments

dang 2y ago
Thanks! Macroexpanded: Winamp contained modified GPL code, violating the GPL - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41662105 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41662105 - Sept 2024 (6 comments) Winamp removed "No forking" restriction from license - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41650355 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41650355 - Sept 2024 (12 comments) Winamp Legacy player source code - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41636804 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41636804 - Sept 2024 (328 comments)
bscphil 2y ago
I can't see the original issue, but it's interesting that the title chooses to highlight the fact that the GPL code was modified. Actually, under the GPL, this fact is immaterial. If the Winamp player contained any GPL code at all, modified or not, then it is a derivative work of that GPL code and anyone receiving a copy of Winamp is entitled to demand the full corresponding source be provided under a GPL license.
- kccqzy 2y ago
  The original issue was complaining about libdiscid which is under the LGPL license not GPL. With that license, linking to an unmodified library in proprietary software is fine. What's not fine is to link to a modified library without releasing the source code for that modification. (Of course here the modification is extremely simple so some concludes this is a nothing burger.) The original poster likely knew the LGPL difference and that's why everyone became fixated on finding the modifications to the library rather than the fact of linking itself.
  - hulitu 2y ago
    > Of course here the modification is extremely simple so some concludes this is a nothing burger But still a modification.

abbbi 2y ago

shares some insights: https://arstechnica.com/civis/threads/winamp-really-whips-open-source-coders-into-frenzy-with-its-source-release.1503409/page-2#post-43214470 https://arstechnica.com/civis/threads/winamp-really-whips-op...

soulofmischief 2y ago

Don't redistribute this software, but we're gonna redistribute some close-source software out of carelessness. Rules for thee, not for me.

whalesalad 2y ago

[flagged]

arp242 2y ago

The trolling was ridiculous. I don't blame them. It was pretty clear that with "fork" they meant "don't create a WinAmp-ng fork" and not a "fork" in the "send a patch" GitHub sense. It's fine to point out "hey, I think your custom written license may need a bit of work!", but the amount of vitriol and hate over it (including on HN) was just ridiculous. It was one of those moments I was embarrassed to be posting here. And yes, they could have done better, sure. But instead of bringing in someone in the community you just chased them away. Well done everyone. Good job. Excellent result. A story to tell the grandchildren.

abbbi 2y ago
exactly.
johnnyanmac 2y ago
The forking was bizarre and I agree with your take on it ("forking" with no other changes is not "distribution" except in the most obtuse way). But the licensing issues with what 3rd party software they threw in there was a pretty serious issue. It was probably inevitable they'd take it down and redo it even without the drama.
- freedomben 2y ago
  Agreed it probably was inevitable, but I would be surprised if the "redo" part even happens now. Why would it? They spent their time/money giving us a gift, and we mainly just mocked them because the gift had imperfections. I wouldn't blame them for adopting a "go f*k yourself" attitude.
  - beachy 2y ago
    If it was inevitable that it was going to get taken down then it was never a gift in the first place.
    - freedomben 2y ago
      Presumably it (would have) been re-uploaded after a scrub.

squarefoot 2y ago

And here's another story to add to the book "How to shoot yourself in the foot by not knowing how the Internet and software licenses work", should anyone write that one day. Also, from one ArsTechnica link posted later in this story, one former dev told that the 4 WA Legacy developers were fired and soon he left too, so I guess they presumably had either no one or very few resources who knew that code and were in the best position to audit it before public release. This is not just shooting oneself in the foot; it rather looks like dancing on a landmine.

dyauspitr 2y ago
[flagged]
- Phrodo_00 2y ago
  It's not clear their license was open source, actually. OSI Makes free distribution the first part of the definition of open source, as well the ability to create derived works[1]. Their rule against forking might clash against that. [1] https://opensource.org/osd https://opensource.org/osd
  - llm_trw 2y ago
    > It’s all downsides with entitled shutins getting their rare drama fix >> It's not clear their license was open source, actually. OSI Makes free distribution the first part of the definition of open source, as well the ability to create derived works[1]. Their rule against forking might clash against that. Thank you for your satirical post to highlight the type of person OP was mocking.
- Crestwave 2y ago
  Here's a statement from the co-author of Winamp, Justin Frankel: > 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. https://www.askjf.com/index.php?q=7357s https://www.askjf.com/index.php?q=7357s And here's a statement from one of the recent maintainers of Winamp: > I worked at Winamp till this February. I was the one that suggested the we'd open-source all the player code that belonged to us (so stripping all the Dolby, Intel IPP, etc stuff that wasn't owned by Winamp), so that the community was free to do whatever it wanted with it. I envisioned something à la DOOM GPL release. Amongst ourselves we joked about seeing enthusiasts create a Winamp-for-your-smart-fridge or Linux port. That would have been pretty cool. Instead that proposal was repeatedly ignored by management which couldn't be convinced that this decades-old spaghetti code had nothing more than historical value. "Why would we give our IP away ?! We paid for that". As if VLC, Foobar2000, etc didn't exist ... https://arstechnica.com/civis/threads/winamp-really-whips-open-source-coders-into-frenzy-with-its-source-release.1503409/page-2#post-43214470 https://arstechnica.com/civis/threads/winamp-really-whips-op... But sure. All the pushback is totally from "entitled shutins". Definitely people who have never even used Winamp and just want to manufacture outrage. Uh huh.

mikeortman 2y ago

It's wild to nitpick the licensing like this. I get why its conter-intuitive and in violation of Github's guidelines, but it's winamp, folk. It has no intrinsic value these days to update or fork outside of giving people the opportunity to learn from the tricks they had to do to make stuff work. There are solutions significantly better and open source today. 'Canceling' winamp in 2024 was not on my life's bucket list after the year 2000. There is hypocrisy here around internet archive, it's totally OK to store copy-write content on the archive, but its not OK when a company does so on their own.

fluoridation 2y ago
>It's wild to nitpick the licensing like this. It's not a nitpick, the library was self-contradictory. It claimed to be copyleft while not allowing distributing modified copies by anyone other than the rights holder. >There is hypocrisy here around internet archive, it's totally OK to store copy-write content on the archive, but its not OK when a company does so on their own. That's right, because it was the company that broke their contract with their vendor by making publicly available source code when they didn't have permission to do that. If that software vendor has a problem with the IA they can issue a DMCA request.

pelorat 2y ago

Plenty of people have copies of the source and the release was just a novelty really. There's no point in anyone actually forking, building and releasing new versions of Winamp as it has been surpassed by other "real" OSS players eons ago. Let's face it, the release was mostly for Internet historians.

johnnyanmac 2y ago
Given the license, I suppose so. It'd only be for a tinkerer who loved WinAnp but wanted to fix some nitpick in the player. Can't do much more than that. The bad faith interpretation is that this was an attempt to make use of previous goodwill to get some free labor to at the very least fix some bugs for them, or at most add in requested features to try to get it back on the map.

bitbasher 2y ago

Anyone have a mirror of it?

6c696e7578 2y ago
See this one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41861376 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41861376

jbverschoor 2y ago

Tech and gaming communities are the most toxic ones ever

jfvinueza 2y ago

The article mentions how deeply compressed the files we played were back then, but I'm pretty sure nowadays it's even worse.

EmilyHughes 2y ago
Not at all. Any song on youtube uploaded in the last 5-10 years is as good as a 320 kbit mp3. Why would it be with the bandwidth anyone has to today?
- hedgehog 2y ago
  Even limiting the scope to MP3 at the same bitrates modern encoders are much better than what we had back in the 90s.
- jccalhoun 2y ago
  I think the poster is confusing/conflating dynamic range compression with file compression
- shiroiushi 2y ago
  Obviously you've never listened to SiriusXM. But seriously, the poster is probably complaining about how most modern music is heavily compressed in dynamic range, so that it sounds better on crappy earbud headphones and smartphone speakers.

moomin 2y ago

This, btw, is why open sourcing proprietary software rarely happens: you actually have to go to a fair amount of careful effort to get it right. If you don’t, you end up with this debacle.

fsflover 2y ago
Or maybe you just shouldn't break the law.
- BSDobelix 2y ago
  >shouldn't break the law. What law? The law of the Gnu?
  - fsflover 2y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41662105 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41662105
    - BSDobelix 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - chx 2y ago
        Ah you misunderstand. All free software licenses grant you additional rights on top of copyright law. These rights allow you to make copies of the software given certain conditions. If you violate them then they do not apply and only copyright law applies so any copies you made are illegal.
        BSDobelix 2y ago
        >copyright law applies First that's not true and even if that would be only true in the US. Since the US is not THE "law" you cant say that. Also: >Under the current law, works created on or after January 1, 1978, have a copyright term of life of the author plus seventy years after the author's death. https://www.copyright.gov/what-is-copyright/ https://www.copyright.gov/what-is-copyright/ So when Gates dies and i violate Microsofts License 7 years later i can have DOS 6.22 for free and redistribute it right?

francisofascii 2y ago

This story is analogous to a landowner and a group of neighborhood kids. The landowner allows the kids to play baseball in his field, but then the kids complain the grass is not cut, they are playing late into the evening, a few kids vandalize damage his flower bed, and his lawyers tell him he will be sued if he doesn't make all these safety changes, and so the landowner says screw it and puts up a fence.

jrflowers 2y ago
Rather in this analogy the landowner didn’t own all of the field and somehow the kids get blamed for him failing to keep track of what he does and does not own.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
timeon 2y ago
Problem with analogies is that they are all made up.
solidsnack9000 2y ago
Sort of. In this case, as other posters have mentioned, the "landlord" did some questionable things.
- francisofascii 2y ago
  Agreed. How about the "landlord" expected the kids to cut the grass and weed the gardens house for use of the field, and only allowed them access on certain days and times.
  - account42 2y ago
    More like the landlord wanted the kids to cut the grass for free so he gave them permission to look at the grass but not touch it and explicitly forbid playing on the grass. Oh and it turns out he doesn't even own all the land.

AdmiralAsshat 2y ago

Good job, team. Companies are sure to open source their legacy proprietary applications now after that warm reception.

jraph 2y ago
They didn't open source anything though. They shared some code under some restrictive license.
- zizee 2y ago
  The "chilling" effect is still the same.
  - jraph 2y ago
    I hope companies will also recognize that by actually open sourcing their stuff and be more careful, things will go better. Of course the childish comments that seem to have been posted on github were probably not great, I think people should be respectful, so maybe the additional lesson here is that github, by trying hard to become a social network and not focusing on being a code host and issue tracker, succeeded in being a social network, with the whole package, attracting this kind of shitty behavior, and that's one more reason to avoid it now. You wouldn't upload your code on a social network, would you? If you don't want cooperation or forks, a zip anywhere will do.
  - consteval 2y ago
    Right, and what we're "chilling" is using software in a way not consistent with its license. That's good, IMO. Don't steal IP and you don't have to worry about getting caught for stealing IP. FYI: simply hiding the code doesn't fix the issue - disgruntled employees and whistleblowers do exist.
    - zizee 2y ago
      Given the wide variety of views expressed in this HN discussion, it's clear there isn't consensus on how this is being interpreted, so I think you're wrong in claiming that there is only one type of behaviour being discouraged. That said, I'm just as a casual observer lying in bed with the flu, I probably should just shut up until I know more the situation.

paweladamczuk 2y ago

"Proprietary packages from Intel and Microsoft were also seemingly included in the release's build tools" Can anyone speak to this? To me, it's the most interesting bit in this article. Does this mean Winamp developers had access to libraries of Intel/MS that are not publicly available?

kapep 2y ago
It would assume it's about packages that are publicly available but their license forbids redistribution.
Woovie 2y ago
From my understanding they received code with contracts that forbid you from distribution.
LauraMedia 2y ago
Could this be the random installers that were present in a folder of the repo? They had some C++ installers and I think a random Intel driver in there...

mococa 2y ago

Once on the internet, always on the internet.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

lolinder 2y ago

> In seeking to remove offending files with a simple deletion instead of a rebase, Winamp kept it available to those who know Git mechanics "Those who know Git mechanics" in this case is talking about extremely simple Git mechanics. Those who know more advanced Git mechanics would know that even a rebase is not sufficient to solve the problem of having pushed up secrets. Aside from the obvious problem of all the forks and previously-cloned copies, the offending commits will still also be available on GitHub (at least until the next garbage collection), they'll just have the message "This commit does not belong to any branch on this repository, and may belong to a fork outside of the repository." Any links that include the old hash will still be available online and will still turn up the code you tried to delete.

speedyjay 2y ago
> offending commits will still also be available on GitHub (at least until the next garbage collection), No. Forever. Literally forever. GitHub does not run garbage collection, like, ever. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4367977/how-to-remove-a-dangling-commit-from-github/4368673#4368673 https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4367977/how-to-remove-a-... Dangling commit from 14 years ago : https://github.com/nylen/connectbot/commit/1cd775d https://github.com/nylen/connectbot/commit/1cd775d There is only one way to delete data on github permanently and that's to request it from github support. Still, you would have better luck just deleting your repository and starting over from scratch, deleting your history locally and pushing from a pristine state.
- leni536 2y ago
  Hmm, do they count dangling commits towards your quota?
- account42 2y ago
  Which makes sense because just being orphaned within git doesn't mean that there aren't any external references from PRs or just comments that people expect to be able to view. And of course for actual secrets (as in passwords/keys/etc.) having deleting them from GitHub is not going to help you anyway as others could have made local copies that you have no control over.

AndyNemmity 2y ago

Plutono just did too. I've been trying to find any information on the topic, and haven't found anything.

fithisux 2y ago

They should have asked help from the community to clean it and maintain it properly.

pxc 2y ago

People are talking about the issues opened on GitHub as 'trolling' but honestly the license Winamp chose is itself an insult. From the license text via the Internet Archive: > The Winamp Collaborative License is a free, copyleft license also from that license text: > 5. Restrictions > No Distribution of Modified Versions: You may not distribute modified versions of the software, whether in source or binary form. Which means that the Winamp Collaborative License is neither free nor copyleft. What copyleft actually is: > Copyleft is a general method for making a program (or other work) free (in the sense of freedom, not “zero price”), and requiring all modified and extended versions of the program to be free as well. https://www.gnu.org/licenses/copyleft.en.html https://www.gnu.org/licenses/copyleft.en.html Releasing proprietary software is whatever. 'Shared source' and similar dilutions are one level of bullshit. Abusing and diluting the language of the free software movement is a step beyond that. This kind of 'open-source' is actively harmful to an exceptional degree and absolutely deserves to drown in ridicule. A lot of the mocking issues were unfocused or low-effort, but I can't really complain about their function or intent.

tdiff 2y ago

I believe some people understimate how much huge number of companies dont care about OSS licenses and do what they want internally. Winamp was simply unfortunate to unveil it.

weinzierl 2y ago

Someone found a prehistoric hand axe on their property. They realize it must have been one of the nicest hand axes of its time. They decide to donate it to a museum, so everyone can appreciate that marvel of human civilization. Being an extraordinarily nice axe, its original creator must surely have taken proper care of it and kept it clean, but over the years it clearly accumulated some dirt and a few modifications. Not wanting to damage an important historic artifact, the finder decides to leave the patina alone and donates the axe as found. The museum requires the donor to add an exhibit label. Unfortunately, the finder being Belgian and speaking only French, there is a severe misunderstanding about the purpose of the axe. On the day the exhibit is first shown to the public, hell breaks loose. People threaten to sue because the dirty prehistoric axe is against all regulations that apply to contemporary axes. Some attempts are made to remove the dirt, but only in a way that preserves the dirt, which enrages the other camp even more. Ultimately, the exhibit is withdrawn from the museum, but luckily many had a chance to make copies and 3D copies that they keep safely in their private collections.

mort96 2y ago
Isn't it more apt to say that the people who donated the axe to the museum were the same people who originally made it, and that the axe was illegal when it was made as well as today? I may totally have missed details here, I haven't paid attention much, so please do correct me if I'm wrong
- weinzierl 2y ago
  This is a good question and I have to admit that I have not thoroughly researched it. My understanding is that the original creators (Justin Frankel and Dmitry Boldyrev, later Nullsoft) the people who spoiled it (AOL) and the finder (Radionomy = Llama Group) are separate entities. Most of the blame should be with the people who spoiled it, and while it doesn't excuse their deeds they are unsurprising from a historical context. The current owners of Winamp share some blame too, but I see it more in the neglect of due diligence when they acquired Winamp and less in the release of the source. Arguably I see more incompetence (which, of course, is no defense against punishment) than malice in the later. Finally, that the original authors kept the Winamp source clean is a reasonable and likely assumption, but as far as I know there is no 100% way to be sure.

racked 2y ago

It's a shame the GitHub repository got attacked by the kind of sexually frustrated perpetually-teenage crowd you normally see on 4chan. On the other hand, Radionomy's clear incompetence over the years sours me. Having the IP for all those years and laying it to waste, culminating in a half-assed attempt to open source it. It pains me to say as their intentions may be good at least in part, but one has to let Darwin get his way too.

childintime 2y ago

When I try to search for Winamp on Github (without a login), I am blocked: Whoa there! You have exceeded a secondary rate limit. Please wait a few minutes before you try again; in some cases this may take up to an hour. Regular github browsing is ok, searches result in the above. For 4 hours now (without other any activity). Github is making it personal.

Communitivity 2y ago

This is possibly why a number of Fortune 500 and government organizations avoid GPL like the plague. This whole debacle 'won' one battle for GPL licensing but set the war (and their stated ultimate goals) back by a significant amount. This event is a big topic among the devs where I work. It's reignited the 'we should make sure our policies state no use of GPL licensed code or libraries without the exception' (use of binary executables is unavoidable). In any online population, some people like to build the world (Aces), some like to rule the world (Kings/Queens), some like to watch the world burn (Jokers), and some spend all their time fire-fighting (Jacks). Corollary: There will always be jokers.

troad 2y ago
> This is possibly why a number of Fortune 500 and government organizations avoid GPL like the plague. This being, in turn, a fantastic reason to use the GPL for your code.
- Communitivity 2y ago
  I thought one of the goals for the FOSS movement was to increase adoption of FOSS software by corporations. How is corporations avoiding GPL code a reason to use GPL when creating new software?
  - troad 2y ago
    The FOSS movement is not a monolith. There are many individuals and organisations pursuing many different goals, many of which are at odds with or even antithetical to the goals pursued by Fortune 500 companies. The kind of company that won't touch the GPL with a ten-foot pole is not the kind of company that's looking to be a good participant in the FOSS space. The purpose or merit of appeasing them by switching to a non-copyleft license like MIT is not at all clear to me. Some of the most powerful people in the world are not entitled to the free labour of under-employed hackers building cool things in their spare time without any expectation of reciprocating, which is the only significant thing that the GPL mandates which MIT does not. "We'd use this, were it not for the GPL" = "we'd use this, were it not for the obligation to give our improvements back", which is a massive red flag. Fear of the GPL boils down to the simple fact that these entities don't care about FOSS, they just want to build their proprietary castles on top of public beaches.