Winamp Releases Source Code, Asks For Help Modernizing the Player
- Reference: 0175132207
- News link: https://it.slashdot.org/story/24/09/25/1854228/winamp-releases-source-code-asks-for-help-modernizing-the-player
- Source link:
The source code release includes build tools and associated libraries for the Windows app, allowing developers to provide bug fixes and new features. However, [3]the license prohibits distribution of modified software created from this code.
[1] https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/05/17/0022219/winamp-is-opening-up-its-source-code
[2] https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/software/winamp-releases-source-code-asks-for-help-modernizing-the-player/
[3] https://github.com/WinampDesktop/winamp/blob/community/LICENSE.md
Did it REALLY, though? (Score:4, Funny)
WinAmp wants to pretend that they opened their source code out of altruism, but the real motivation was that they were facing serious camelid abuse charges in the Hague.
Re: Did it REALLY, though? (Score:2)
Those Llamas were not dressed in a recognized military uniform and therefore are not protected by the Geneva Convention. Everything has been totally legal!
There was a time everyone used a mp3 player. (Score:1)
This is too little too late. I think Plex could do something interesting with it however.
Re: (Score:1)
Yeah, Plex's Plexamp is already pretty awesome. Maybe some of the equalizer animations could be pulled in :) [1]https://www.plex.tv/plexamp/ [www.plex.tv]
[1] https://www.plex.tv/plexamp/
Re: (Score:1)
Yeah, Plex's Plexamp is already pretty awesome
Do you still need a to run an entire server to play an mp3? That part kind of turned me off.
I wish someone would make a decent mp3 player for linux, however. I just use Elisa, even though it's very limited (that said, it's limited nature makes it work very well with touchscreen)
Re: (Score:2)
What is mp3?
Re: (Score:2)
It's what came out a bit after MP2.
WTF kind of source license is this shit (Score:5, Informative)
This is total crap. So, what... I do the work, then IF you accept it into your GH project, you'll claim copyright, then deny me the right to share what I did in the first place?
Fuck off.
[1]https://github.com/WinampDeskt... [github.com] : ...
4. Contributions
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.
Assignment of Rights: By submitting contributions, you agree that all intellectual property rights, including copyright, in your contributions are assigned to Winamp. You hereby grant Winamp a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to use, copy, modify, and distribute your contributions as part of the software, without any compensation to you.
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.
5. Restrictions
No Distribution of Modified Versions: You may not distribute modified versions of the software, whether in source or binary form.
Official Distribution: Only the maintainers of the official repository are allowed to distribute the software and its modifications.
6. No Sublicensing
Sublicensing is not allowed; section 5 makes it unnecessary.
[1] https://github.com/WinampDesktop/winamp/blob/community/LICENSE.md
Yeah definitely not open source in any way (Score:3)
Please do our work for us for free so we can profit from it.
Oh Awesome (Score:3)
I'd love to help rewrite Winamp so it's 64-bit native and supports WSAPI.
>> 5. Restrictions
> No Distribution of Modified Versions: You may not distribute modified versions of the software, whether in source or binary form.
> Official Distribution: Only the maintainers of the official repository are allowed to distribute the software and its modifications.
> 6.
Oh, nevermind.
Re: (Score:2)
I see nothing there that would preclude distribution of a patchfile.
Re: (Score:2)
I recall people doing something similar with qmail back in the day. Was so glad when I replaced qmail with postfix.
Re: (Score:2)
> This is total crap. So, what... I do the work, then IF you accept it into your GH project, you'll claim copyright
Wrong. As long as you submit the code they claim copyright, whether they accept it or not.
Shyeah, Right... (Score:4, Insightful)
To summarize: The "license" basically grants you no rights you didn't already have, and steals several from you. Notably:
You can't distribute compiled binaries,
You can't distribute your own source changes,
Any changes you hope to have distributed must be approved and distributed through Winamp,
All Your Code Are Belong To Us (Winamp asserts copyright ownership of your changes).
Agreement To Be Forgotten (you can't claim any authorship for any of your contributions).
The "license" says that, "You may make, run, and propagate Covered works that you do not Convey, without conditions, so long as your License otherwise remains in force." However, the term Convey is defined as, "any kind of propagation that enables other parties to make or receive copies," which pretty much covers any distribution, in whole or in part, in any form. Hell, it may even cover forking the repo.
In short, I'd recommend avoiding this.
How quaint (Score:2)
While I certainly remember the days when you needed an entire PC to play MP3s, I don't feel any nostalgia for them. And I'm saying that as someone who had a barebones 90MHz Pentium PC in the trunk of my '96 Toyota Camry, to play MP3s. Nowadays, my phone is my music player, and I think most of the younger folks don't even bother with locally stored music collections anymore, since streaming has become so ubiquitous.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, I am unclear why you would even want to run something like winamp today. Does it hav any useful feature that you wouldn't find on say xmms, windows media player, or vlc?
Re: (Score:1)
Yes it supports plugins that have many features you can't find anywhere else.
Not open source (Score:3)
> The source code release includes build tools and associated libraries for the Windows app, allowing developers to provide bug fixes and new features. However, the license prohibits distribution of modified software created from this code.
Go fuck yourself!
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, that's rather bullshit, isn't it?
Horrifyingly poor management (Score:3)
It seems they don't really know how version control systems work because not only did they include a HUGE about of binaries in the initial repo. So now if you clone the repo it downloads 2.7GiB of bullshit . That's not all because they released Dolby's proprietary source code . The fix for their mistake was to add a commit to "remove" the code which is idiotic because well that's not how version control systems work! Don't take my word for it, [1]you can check it out here. [github.com]
I'm not surprised in the least that they want people to help them (for free without reward) because they are clearly helpless.
[1] https://github.com/WinampDesktop/winamp/commit/0003d3d743e5d0d4e4049e59ab92c86d142722a8
First It Was NFT's (Score:2)
Now it's trying to pass itself off as open-source as if it's hip.
This makes Functional Source Licensing look good. At least it has a two-year roll-over on codebase.
Audacious (Score:2)
Whereas I wouldn't mind the Winamp of old being properly ported to run under Linux, the Windows version works more-or-less under WINE, and quite frankly I've been using [1]Audacious [audacious-...player.org] for a while now, and have come to rather like it.
[1] https://audacious-media-player.org/
Re: (Score:2)
If you want a "winamp clone" on Linux, try QMMP. I think it might even take winamp theme files, but the default works well enough for me that I've never tried.
Modernizing doesn't happen randomly (Score:2)
"Modernizing" (whatever they mean by that) generally refers to an overhaul of the UI. UIs are hard to re-imagine, and if you look at open source software in general, the UIs typically focus on function, not beauty or elegance. If it's a spiffy new UI they want, they'll need to *hire* talented UI / UX people who know what they are doing, and who are firm in their resolve to make the UI consistent and usable. The fact that they are trying to outsource this to volunteer developers, already means they aren't wi
Modernize? (Score:3, Insightful)
Does it still play mp3s? Leave it alone.
the fate of modern software (Score:3)
But ChatGPT could provide song suggestions and of course upload your playback history to the cloud to share with friends and any marketing agency willing to pay for the data.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes.
Winamp is peak music player. Any "improvement" will actually be enshittification .
At most, make it work with the music stream services du jour . Otherwise, leave it as it is.
Re: (Score:1)
Nonsense! I want the UI to become at least four times as large, with huge, widely spaced, bland and sterile corporate UI styling consisting of flat areas with optionally rounded corners, but none of that 3D-effect-button nonsense and ideally, none of those ugly, cluttering shadows. If it doesn't look like some Apple rip-off, despite Apple's current style having become tired and dated several years ago, you're not trying hard enough and should remove even more detail and character. It must be bland , I tell
Re: (Score:2)
Winamp! Now with ads. Location tracking. And the cloud.