• jonasw@discuss.tchncs.de
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    5 months ago

    WinAmp making their source code ‘source available’ instead of open source, and then dropping this phrase:

    The release of the Winamp player’s source code will enable developers from all over the world to actively participate in its evolution and improvement.

    Yeah I don’t think so

    • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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      5 months ago

      Yup, as much as I like Grayjay, I’m not going to help development much because it’s “source available” instead of open source. There was an annoying bug I wanted fixed, and I was willing to go set up my dev environment and track it down, but they don’t seem interested in contributions, so I won’t make the effort.

      Likewise for WinAmp. The main benefit to it being “source available” is that I can recompile it and researchers can look for bugs. That’s it. They’re not going to get developers interested.

      • solrize@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        Even if they accept patches, contributing still sounds like a bad deal. It’s free labor for some company. FOSS at minimum means the right to fork, precisely what “source available” seeks to deny.

        Leaving aside the question of winamp vs comparable programs, does anyone even care about desktop music players any more? I’m a throwback and use command line players, but I thought the cool kids these days use phones for stuff like that.

        I understand there is some technical obstacle to porting Rockbox to Android, but idk what it is and haven’t tried to look into it.

        • sorghum@sh.itjust.works
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          5 months ago

          I look at ‘source available’ software as the right to review the code yourself to ensure there’s no malicious behavior, not for community development.

          • solrize@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            You mean if you build it yourself? I guess that is something, but it is still conceivable to sneak stuff in. Look at that xzlib backdoor from a few weeks ago.

          • xavier666@lemm.ee
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            5 months ago

            Is there any way to verify that the product in deployment is built from the same source? I’m guessing hash values but I still think it can be faked.

      • Veraxus@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        Yep. I will happily contribute to something with community ownership that I believe in. I will not, under any circumstances, provide free labor to a private entity.

    • yggstyle@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      It’s simple. They want the free labor provided by the community with the ability to keep all of the profits they can potentially reap from said labor.

    • xavier666@lemm.ee
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      5 months ago

      What are some projects which have “source available”? Can someone get the source and upload or will it violate some NDA? And what kind of licence is associated with this?

  • ace_garp@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    If you want a FOSS player that can use Winamp skins, it exists.

    Audacious is an open-source audio-player, that can display these 98,000 .wsz Winamp Classic skins, today.

  • solrize@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Is it important? It was a cool program 30 years ago but it’s just a playback UI right?

      • kirk781@discuss.tchncs.de
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        5 months ago

        The new one is just a web UI with options for streaming music. There were talks of the old original Winamp going open source though, which bought nostalgic memories to many. Eithercase, with so many music players on both Windows and Linux, I doubt Winamp would a niche case to fill.

          • Tanoh@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            It works quite fine, use it daily. Well, XMMS2 to be pedantic.

            Just some shellscripts bound to windows-keys to pause/play and load new files.

      • Plopp@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        I have the old one (5.x) installed and use it regularly. Is it still available for download anywhere? Would love for that one to be officially open sourced.

    • subignition@fedia.io
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      5 months ago

      It looks like their May 16th tweet stated source code would be made available to developers, and they are clearing up some ambiguity in this new one.

  • bulwark@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    And now I’m curious how Winamp actually makes money.

    **Edit

    Just went to the website, it’s a subscription Spotify knock off now. Still doesn’t explain who are the people that actually pay for this.

  • buddascrayon@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    It’s a little bit sad to me that Winamp collapsed just a year or two before smart phones really took off because it’s interface and customizability were pretty well suited to the app format of smart phones. And now that the code and design are owned by a company that’s being run by greedy morons there is likely never going to be anything resembling the original available for the phone app market.

    I just use VLC on my phone these days. It works, no bullshit ads, and no glitches.

    • ArcticAmphibian@lemmus.org
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      5 months ago

      VLC is always respectable. I’ve been using AIMP. It lets you import folders as playlists and there’s not an ad in sight, so it won me over.

      • buddascrayon@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        OMG, I CANT BELIEVE I FORGOT TO TAKE OUT THE APOSTROPHE WHEN I VOICE TO TEXT MY COMMENT!!! IM THE ABSOLUTE WORST!

  • Norgur@fedia.io
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    5 months ago

    I mean… What contribution would this code actually be to the audio player world at this point?

    • FuryMaker@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Same… I’ve had Foobar set up the way I like for about a decade now.

      Been wanting to flip to the x64 version, but USF components (N64 music) doesn’t play.

      • InterSynth@r.nf
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        5 months ago

        Why would you want to switch? Legitimate question. 32-bit version seems to be working just fine, I doubt a music player needs the extra juice a 64-bit version provides.

        • FuryMaker@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          Same reason for switching every other app to 64-bit I suppose; logical evolution.

          I absolutely don’t need to though. Especially for something light weight like a music player.

          • errer@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            For me it’s more future-proofing: there’s a chance 32-bit support may be dropped by either the Foobar dev or windows itself at some point.

  • dinckel@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Even outside of this obviously either clueless or AI-fabricated post, I’m still not convinced that it’ll be OSS, in the way that we expect it to be. The phrasing used in announcement leads me to believing that they’ll use some license, that allows them draconian control over the source. It’ll be “open” as in being able to see it, but not really fork, or meaningfully contribute.

    • Johanno@feddit.de
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      5 months ago

      Reverse engineer it.

      Make an open source version that does the same.

      Ai now makes it possible, since ai generated content is not copyright able

      • Trainguyrom@reddthat.com
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        5 months ago

        There’s countless desktop music players out there, so there’s no real need to reverse engineer it

        • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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          5 months ago

          And it’s not a particularly interesting application anyway. I’d only want to hack on it for nostalgia, and if there are any barriers to doing that, I’ll just use a different app.

  • cmhe@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Maybe someone can explain to me why Winamp is still so popular?

    I have used Winamp 2, 3 and 5 around 2000ish, and it was a fine player, but nothing really special. After Winamp I think I switched to MediaMonkey, which IMO was easier to manage my music collection. Then I used VirtualDJ, which supported cross fading between music with synchronized beats. I think I also used foobar2000 a bit.

    Winamp was an okayish player, but there was much more powerful software around at that time. It this just nostalgics or is there really something that people miss today that Winamp provided or still provides?

    • xavier666@lemm.ee
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      5 months ago
      • Better interface than Windows Media player
      • 100s of cool and edgy skins
      • Nice looking graphic equalizer
      • Nice music visualizer
      • Easy to make playlists
      • Tiny looking player which gelled with the early-mid 2000s vibe

      And most importantly, it really whips the Llama’s ass. TBH, there aren’t a lot of serious reasons. It was just slightly better than the default music player. I personally feel the skins played a significant part.

    • Getting6409@lemm.ee
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      5 months ago

      I don’t think it’s actually still popular, but I’m just talking out of my ass here. I remember it made some waves a few months ago about finally having a new release after so long, and my feeling was a shitload of nostalgia brought it back into the internet spotlight, regardless of how many people are actually using it.

      I gave it a spin again, purely for nostalgia. I could find no compelling reason to use it over my actual preferred player, foobar

    • s_s@lemmy.one
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      5 months ago

      It’s still popular because it was popular.

      Also, it was simple and modular.

      It was largely succeeded by monolithic and enshittified versions of iTunes, which have zero appeal these days. So it’s still remembered fondly for not enshittifying and not trying to build a walled garden.

  • Lojcs@lemm.ee
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    5 months ago

    Why would they call the open version ‘openllama’? Isn’t llama that ai model?

    Edit: Thanks for the downvotes people, I’m sorry for not knowing a meme in a language that’s not my native from before I was born

  • pyre@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    talk about burying the lede. the title should’ve been: WINAMP STILL EXISTS (also not going open source)