[HN Gopher] Winamp source code leak
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Winamp source code leak
        
       Author : svlasov
       Score  : 383 points
       Date   : 2021-11-29 13:04 UTC (9 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (web.archive.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (web.archive.org)
        
       | rambojazz wrote:
       | Unfortunately the Archive link does not archive all the files in
       | the repo.
        
         | opless wrote:
         | Did you not check 'code -> download zip' ?
        
           | Sosh101 wrote:
           | Doesn't work
        
             | smcl wrote:
             | I thought so too, after I clicked I was shown a page saying
             | "Got an HTTP 302 response at crawl time" then about 10
             | seconds later Firefox prompted me to download "winamp-
             | main.zip"
        
             | fps_doug wrote:
             | Does work
        
               | echelon wrote:
               | Sorry for bringing the thread completely off topic, but
               | your username triggered a tinge of nostalgia for
               | something I haven't seen referenced or thought of in a
               | long while.
               | 
               | Is your username a reference to the mid-2000s pre-youtube
               | video series, "Pure Pwnage"?
               | 
               | That's right before the Internet became dominated by
               | platforms. EzBoard was taken over by phpBB, Invision,
               | etc. Blogs.
               | 
               | Sorry, I need to turn off the nostalgia. Fitting that
               | this happens in a Winamp thread, though.
        
               | smcl wrote:
               | I agree very era-appropriate username to be commenting on
               | this story! I have distinct memories of fps_doug leaping
               | around (crouch-jumping?) and screaming "I could dance all
               | day! BOOM headshot!" (and the other guy doing "uber
               | macro") in those videos though I couldn't for the life of
               | me tell you what happened in any of them
        
             | TehCorwiz wrote:
             | Just worked for me. Try again? Check ad-blocker settings?
        
             | opless wrote:
             | Try again, there's a redirect, and a very very slow
             | download after.
        
             | ale42 wrote:
             | Just worked for me after the redirection, but it's super
             | slow. Still downloading, I am at 210 MB, at a rate of
             | around 190 kB/s... Direct ZIP download link = https://web.a
             | rchive.org/web/20210418214109if_/https://codelo...
        
       | jugg1es wrote:
       | Winamp was my best friend during my teenage hallucinogen
       | experimentation phase.
        
       | 5040 wrote:
       | Winamp was still my music player of choice until a little over a
       | year ago when I finally made the switch to MusicBee.
        
         | vvpan wrote:
         | My hero. If I was not on Linux I feel like I'd be on the same
         | boat. On Linux I use mocp which is a console-based directory-
         | based player, so pretty much the same thing.
        
           | tomrod wrote:
           | Weirdly, mocp always led to memory leaks for me on Lubuntu.
           | 
           | These days I mostly listen to soma.fm (you can use mplayer
           | for their feeds[0]) or youtube in browser
           | 
           | [0] A small gist I am super proud of as I don't write much
           | bash: https://gist.github.com/tomrod/0b5caceec1a10acfb134aefb
           | 5fd85...
        
             | diimdeep wrote:
             | There is simple and pretty wrapper around mplayer, I like
             | it https://github.com/uschek/somafm#readme
        
               | tomrod wrote:
               | Thanks!
        
         | zerr wrote:
         | What are the reasons to switch from Winamp to something else?
        
           | Svperstar wrote:
           | I also switched to MusicBee. It has a very modern UI that
           | "just works" as they say. Everything included out of the box
           | no need to bother with plugins for me.
        
         | ChrisArchitect wrote:
         | curious, as Winamp still my player of choice and does its job
         | extremely well, but checked out MusicBee just now in case
         | something I missed and saw the iTunes clone interface and
         | closed immediately.
        
       | tombert wrote:
       | Honest question, as someone who actually used Winamp back in
       | ~2004: why would you want to use it now?
       | 
       | I have some nostalgia for it, sure, but what exactly does it
       | actually offer you that something like VLC doesn't? It seems like
       | it plays my music and videos competently enough, and I don't know
       | anyone who actually uses Shoutcast anymore.
       | 
       | This isn't a passive aggressive dig or anything, I would actually
       | like to know.
        
         | theandrewbailey wrote:
         | I use it because I never stopped using it. I love the classic
         | gray on black modular UI (it looks like high end stereo
         | equipment). Winamp has all the features I want, and nothing has
         | come along that compelled me to stop using Winamp altogether.
         | Since it's the same old Winamp, it's incredibly light and fast.
         | 
         | I'll use Foobar2000 and VLC from time to time (Foobar's
         | conversion and bulk tagging are great). I've tried using them
         | full-time instead of Winamp, but they just don't feel right.
         | 
         | EDIT: I love how there's an 'active playlist' of what's playing
         | now, and additional saved playlists in the library, and can
         | move/copy entries between them. It's probably accidental design
         | of adding a library later, but I haven't found another player
         | that shows multiple playlists side-by-side without customizing
         | it into something else.
        
         | acidburnNSA wrote:
         | Not quite an answer, but I used to have my whole library loaded
         | up in one list and could search any part of it, including the
         | path, using the "j" key to instantly play basically any song in
         | it from the keyboard.
         | 
         | It was so good that I literally put an old desktop computer in
         | the trunk of my car in 2000 (with eggshell foam bungee-corded
         | around the hard drives for shock absorption) and ran a long
         | keyboard wire to the drivers seat and I could queue up any song
         | at all while driving with one hand without taking eyes off the
         | road or hands off the wheel. When the computer booted, it
         | loaded winamp with the full playlist and so the only user
         | interaction was pressing the power button (mounted in my dash)
         | and pressing 'j' to search and play.
         | 
         | I've never found this capability in e.g. VLC or anything else
         | (maybe for the best ;). Am I missing it?
        
           | beckman466 wrote:
           | damn what a DIY project!
        
           | dmead wrote:
           | clementine (formerly amarok) is better than winamp and has
           | all those nice playlist features.
        
         | dreamlayers wrote:
         | It's small, does the job I need, it can be made to look good,
         | and extended via plugins. What else do I need? VLC seems like
         | overkill for music.
        
         | rocky1138 wrote:
         | It's basically a perfect music player. Lightweight, fast, runs
         | on every version of Windows 95+, great playlist manager, skins,
         | and has extensive plugins which support any music file format.
         | 
         | Why continue the search for perfection once it's been found?
        
         | conradfr wrote:
         | I like to be able to pause my music, watch a video file, and
         | resume the music, so a unified player is not ideal.
        
         | toast0 wrote:
         | > I don't know anyone who actually uses Shoutcast anymore.
         | 
         | I don't know you, but I use a shoutcast based premium streaming
         | service. Free tier has to use the official apps or the web.
         | Winamp is still perfect for this; it loads quickly, my playlist
         | has the couple of stations I want to listen to, etc. Foobar2000
         | works pretty well too, but llamas. VLC could work, but I don't
         | think it starts as fast, and there are so many updates to
         | install.
        
           | tombert wrote:
           | Fair enough! I haven't used it since I was a teenager to
           | watch bootleg episodes of Love Hina and Aqua Teen Hunger
           | Force (and other things that might appeal to a 15 year old
           | boy), but I didn't mean to imply it was "dead" or anything.
        
         | sevenproxies wrote:
         | VLC doesn't have gapless audio playback.
        
         | KeyBoardG wrote:
         | I would use Winamp, but at some point in the last decade I
         | switched to Foobar2000 because its simple and has great FLAC
         | support. At the time getting Winamp to do FLAC involved some
         | weird add on.
        
         | carry_bit wrote:
         | I still use it daily due to one killer feature it has: the
         | Nullsoft Signal Processing Studio DSP plugin that it comes
         | with. I have my own preset in there that I use on all of my
         | music. The preset combines:
         | 
         | 1. Playback rate control, affecting both speed and pitch (like
         | in a record player) 2. A bs2b transform 3. My own custom
         | overdrive effect
         | 
         | I could skip the 3rd one, but the first two already greatly
         | narrows down what I can use.
        
         | rc_mob wrote:
         | I was simple and focused on playing mp3's and managing
         | playlists and nothing else.
         | 
         | Every music player now has some shitty cloud integration that I
         | have to ignore.
         | 
         | The playlist manager was top notch. 10 times better than
         | itunes.
        
         | bityard wrote:
         | It works great.
         | 
         | It looks great.
         | 
         | What else do you need? :)
        
         | shikoba wrote:
         | I can force mono with Winamp. That's the sole player I know
         | that has that option.
        
           | tombert wrote:
           | Out of curiosity, why do you want mono? Just a preference?
        
             | shikoba wrote:
             | Yes. And especially when listening with headphone, some
             | artists find it fun to have a moving song from one side to
             | the other, in that case I turn my head thinking that there
             | is something near me, absolutely annoying. With mono the
             | sound is always located in the middle of my brain.
        
               | xxpor wrote:
               | Ah, so you essentially take the existing stereo mix ->
               | force it to mono -> play the new mono feed in both ears?
               | That's an interesting idea...
               | 
               | I feel like this should be relatively easy to replicate
               | with VAC (https://vb-audio.com/Cable/) and Audacity, if
               | the player doesn't support it natively.
        
           | adrian_b wrote:
           | For Linux there are various command-line players, e.g.
           | mpg123, with this option and with any other imaginable
           | options.
        
             | shikoba wrote:
             | I want a full working application with the equivalent of
             | global hotkeys. I use deadbeef on GNU/Linux, but I still
             | haven't find a way to force mono.
        
         | Strom wrote:
         | For me, Winamp still offers two things that most other players
         | don't:
         | 
         | 1) Global hotkeys to navigate through my playlists, enqueue
         | songs, control playback etc. Also the global pop-up window
         | (Ctrl+Alt+J) with my current playlist has a really fast search
         | function as I type. Only 'Everything' has faster search.
         | Otherwise modern apps have very slow searches.
         | 
         | 2) Milkdrop 2. I have a very large curated collection of
         | visualization presets for Milkdrop 2. This is not something I
         | use when I'm behind the computer, but it's awesome to have
         | running on some screens during a party as the visualizations
         | are in sync with the music.
        
         | quitit wrote:
         | As it was written for an era of much slower hardware (I
         | remember using it on a 100MHz machine) - it might be a good fit
         | for something where that matters.
        
         | Mountain_Skies wrote:
         | Winamp has a plugin for Orchestra 80/85/90 files, which to the
         | best of my knowledge, VLC does not. Wouldn't be surprised if
         | this were the case for many 8-bit era music formats. The time
         | period in which Winamp came to prominence was when there were
         | still lots of people with a foot in the 90s (and 80s) without
         | it necessarily being retro nostalgia.
        
         | tomc1985 wrote:
         | foobar2000's library features kind of suck IMO.
         | 
         | Clementine/Strawberry have issues with large libraries or just
         | skip tracks
         | 
         | Spotify is cloud, automatically eliminated there
         | 
         | VLC Player gets used for porn and videos
         | 
         | Winamp quietly Just Works(tm), it scans all my songs, plays
         | them, and is great for tag grooming and setting ReplayGain
         | levels
         | 
         | What else is there?
        
           | standardly wrote:
           | Really though, what else is there? Besides what is left of
           | WinAmp.. Foobar is too basic for me (not good for managing
           | larger libraries). iTunes used to work well for me, but I
           | don't use Apple.
           | 
           | Is there any other alternative I can try?
        
         | throwaway6977 wrote:
         | Maybe it's just familiarity but I always come back for the
         | active playlist features and IMO very good browse/search
         | workflow.
         | 
         | Literally never needs updated, until this leak at least...
        
       | fit2rule wrote:
       | Pretty sure I've got this in my GH stars.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | w4rh4wk5 wrote:
       | Never understood why people didn't just migrate to AIMP.
        
         | thedoctor_o wrote:
         | Maybe because not everyone likes how AIMP does what it does.
         | Same for why there's been numerous other media players over the
         | years - one solution doesn't work for everyone or we'd all just
         | be using iTunes or VLC or WMP. Choice is good.
         | 
         | -dro
        
       | dale_glass wrote:
       | Wow, I think it's been more than a decade since I even thought
       | about Winamp, let alone used it.
       | 
       | It still seems to be free to download though? What is even the
       | point of keeping the code closed?
        
         | OneTimePetes wrote:
         | Trojans, Spyware and Miners. Oh my.
        
           | EForEndeavour wrote:
           | Naive questions:
           | 
           | - what do you mean by "miners" in this context? Malicious
           | contributors sneaking crypto-mining logic into the codebase?
           | 
           | - doesn't the concern about Trojans and spyware affect every
           | other open-source project in existence? How have they been
           | protecting against that, and why couldn't the Winamp
           | maintainers take similar measures?
        
             | RF_Savage wrote:
             | More like precompiled binaries being distributed by
             | malicious stuff added in.
             | 
             | How will you know which winamp.exe is the legitimate one?
        
               | dale_glass wrote:
               | Code signing has been a thing in Windows for a long time
               | now. Besides that, just the usual "the official .exe is
               | whatever you find at the official site"
               | 
               | Downloading from random archive sites fortunately is a
               | trend that went away.
        
       | jchw wrote:
       | I just can't understand the point of the DMCA takedown here. This
       | software is very dead and abandoned at this point, and the only
       | thing bearing its name is vaporware that appears to be so distant
       | from the original as to effectively not even compete with it.
       | 
       | Of course, the copyright holders have every legal right to do so.
       | But doesn't it seem pointless? This codebase probably has more
       | historical interest than commercial by now. Am I missing
       | something?
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | omega3 wrote:
         | Not a lawyer but I guess it relates to a possibility of a loss
         | of a trademark by failure to police.
        
           | jchw wrote:
           | DMCA is a copyright claim, not trademark. Also, the idea that
           | a single instance of failing to enforce a mark would
           | constitute trademark abandonment is disputed[1]. It certainly
           | seems far-fetched given the general bias laws have towards
           | the rights of corporations, not to mention extremely
           | convenient for legal teams.
           | 
           | [1]: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/11/trademark-law-
           | does-not...
        
         | phendrenad2 wrote:
         | How do we know the DMCA takedown even came from the
         | rightsholder? It's trivial to pretend to own something, and
         | companies aren't really obligated to verify the authenticity of
         | takedown requests.
        
           | jchw wrote:
           | Well, it's impossible to be 100% certain, but the claim
           | itself was posted publicly.
           | 
           | https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2021/07/2021-07-0.
           | ..
        
         | tediousdemise wrote:
         | Seems pretty pointless to me, too.
         | 
         | I'll make the assumption that the founders have zero financial
         | interest in Winamp. What's the point of exerting IP rights if
         | you have nothing to gain financially... is it pride? A latent
         | desire to stagnate innovation? Making other peoples' lives
         | harder because yours was too? Who knows?
        
         | adamnemecek wrote:
         | I believe that this is a new version of Winamp, there have been
         | some talks about a relaunch
         | https://www.extremetech.com/computing/329258-winamp-prepares...
         | 
         | Considering there are some references to cloud
         | https://web.archive.org/web/20210418220750/https://github.co...
         | I'm going to go ahead and guess that it's new.
        
         | leros wrote:
         | It's very likely about the brand and trademarks. The WinAmp
         | software is dead, but the brand is alive and there is a company
         | trying to build something under it.
        
       | est wrote:
       | I still remembers all those crazy music visualizations.
       | 
       | It was rarely seen these days. Someone should make a WebGL
       | version.
        
         | jpindar wrote:
         | I'm surprised other music software or streaming sites don't
         | have visualizations.
        
         | theandrewbailey wrote:
         | Already done:
         | 
         | https://github.com/projectM-visualizer/projectM
         | 
         | https://webamp.org/
        
         | jugg1es wrote:
         | It was my best friend during my teenage hallucinogen phase
        
       | kats wrote:
       | Stop using archive.org to host illegal content, the site is run
       | on donations and they'll have to become less open if people use
       | them as just another filesharing site. Policing uploads requires
       | staff and costs real money. Legal issues cost real money.
        
         | ktm5j wrote:
         | I might be wrong here, but I think it's more that archive.org
         | had already crawled and mirrored this page. Then the OP or
         | someone else found the content that was already there and
         | shared it with people. It's not that OP or some archive user
         | deliberately caused this page to be mirrored.
        
       | caddywompus wrote:
       | Interestingly enough, there has been a community project
       | dedicated to keeping the last Winamp version alive (last version
       | from the original creators), and it really great to use.
       | 
       | https://getwacup.com/
       | 
       | It includes a skin that allows it to work on modern display
       | resolutions. It's really interesting to see just how low-res
       | screens were when it was in it's hey-day, given that they are
       | nearly unusable on a 4k monitor.
       | 
       | Edit: I was too young to remember the releases, but replies are
       | indicating that version 5 was in fact, not the most popular :P
        
         | Iv wrote:
         | But does it whip the llama's ass?
        
         | agumonkey wrote:
         | superb
         | 
         | also the classic modern skin is great
        
         | munificent wrote:
         | _> It 's really interesting to see just how low-res screens
         | were when it was in it's hey-day, given that they are nearly
         | unusable on a 4k monitor._
         | 
         | When WinAmp was big, typical resolution was 1024x768 (XGA).
         | Wikipedia has a nice comparison image to give you a sense of
         | how tiny that was compared to 4K:
         | 
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Display_resolution#/media/File...
        
         | antris wrote:
         | The Fatboy Slim album art on the screenshots page... I
         | definitely got taken back :')
        
         | danudey wrote:
         | > I's really interesting to see just how low-res screens were
         | when it was in it's hey-day, given that they are nearly
         | unusable on a 4k monitor.
         | 
         | This reminds me of the realization that modern MacOS apps can
         | have icon sizes larger than the original Mac's screen- 512x512
         | icons vs. 512x384 monochrome screen.
        
           | kitsunesoba wrote:
           | The max size for file an app icons on macOS was bumped to
           | 1024x1024 some years ago actually, I think around the time
           | the first retina MBPs appeared. So your point is even more
           | true.
        
         | vikingerik wrote:
         | Winamp 2.xx was generally the favorite. And there's no reason
         | to talk about it in the past tense -- you can still just use it
         | even now.
         | 
         | I do. 2.95 works fine right up to Windows 10 and probably 11,
         | and still plays any MP3 and pretty much any other format with a
         | plug-in. It even has a double-size display option built right
         | in which makes it perfectly usable on modern 4k resolution.
        
         | hk1337 wrote:
         | XMMS was a really nice Winamp clone for Linux way back when.
         | Might be a good starting point.
         | 
         | http://www.xmms.org/
        
           | xtracto wrote:
           | I've been using QMMP myself: https://qmmp.ylsoftware.com/.
           | It's another WinAmp clone.
           | 
           | The thing that I liked about Winamp that stopped being cool
           | were visualizations. net Audio player nowaday are so bland
           | and featureless (including Spotify, Tidal, Deezer and others
           | I've tried).
        
           | Malakun wrote:
           | And QMMp! https://qmmp.ylsoftware.com/
        
           | andrewshadura wrote:
           | Audacious.
        
         | zamadatix wrote:
         | > It includes a skin that allows it to work on modern display
         | resolutions. It's really interesting to see just how low-res
         | screens were when it was in it's hey-day, given that they are
         | nearly unusable on a 4k monitor.
         | 
         | Monitor size/resolution has gotten larger which is some of the
         | factor but I think people downplay the shift in common
         | effective DPI which leads to a much bigger perceived change in
         | UI sizing design than there really has been. In the late 90s to
         | early 2000s an effective DPI of 75-85 for a typical home user
         | was not uncommon. Nowadays an effective DPI of 125-135 is
         | pretty standard, many tech folk using an effective DPI of 150
         | because it gives the effect of having more workspace.
         | 
         | So what may have looked like a half physical inch wide UI
         | element on a standard user's display in the late 90s might look
         | like a quarter inch wide UI element on many HN reader's screens
         | today because nobody likes to set their DPI properly :p.
        
         | ChrisArchitect wrote:
         | hm, forgotten about that one. I get why it
         | exists/independent/opensource whatever..... but _why_ does it
         | exist? Far as I can tell the  'official' v5.8 version that's
         | been around for download on the main site and still is for a
         | long time works great. Maybe I've just been using it for so
         | long I don't notice any oddities (or don't need them, it's a
         | music player for godssake), and I guess they've improved
         | interface etc on wacup but....
        
           | thesuitonym wrote:
           | Well, reading the release notes may answer that question.
           | Some highlights:
           | 
           | - running WACUP on Windows 10 for ARM on a Raspberry Pi 4 is
           | now a known to work configuration
           | 
           | - Changed the shared metadata handling to do a better job in
           | skipping trying to process requests for metadata requests
           | that are always going to fail before triggering relatively
           | time consuming calls
           | 
           | - Changed how the CD playback plug-in initialises itself to
           | minimise the delays on loading that it can cause
           | 
           | - Fixed a crash when retrieving the raw lyrics data from a
           | file's metadata tag on opening the Alt + 3 / View File Info
           | dialog
        
         | 0des wrote:
         | Somewhat worrying that I can't seem to find the source code for
         | WACUP listed anywhere, checked their website, discord, and
         | github. I'd feel a lot better about using it if I could see the
         | source code. Currently using Audacious with a Winamp Classic
         | skin.
        
           | thedoctor_o wrote:
           | Then don't use it if you only want to use 100% OSS.
           | 
           | I'm making something that I want to use (essentially a
           | compatible implementation for my plug-ins to run under) & if
           | it's of use to others then that's a bonus.
           | 
           | At no point has WACUP claimed to be 100% OSS nor should I be
           | expected to do that when I'm the only one working on my
           | Winamp reimplementation. Aspects that need to be done that
           | way are done so accordingly.
           | 
           | -dro
        
             | 0des wrote:
             | Yikes, okay.
             | 
             | I trust Justin Frankel, I don't know you, previous team or
             | not.. The world can go on using Winamp 2.x forever and be
             | just fine, its GRAS. If you're bringing something that _isn
             | 't_ that, previous dev history or not, you're going to have
             | to differentiate yourself from the folks who are also
             | putting out winamp-alikes.
             | 
             | I'm not trying to be a jerk, that's just the reality.
             | 
             | Knowing _what_ the code I 'm running is doing is helpful in
             | swaying me to your direction, even if that's not what you
             | claim to be aiming for.
             | 
             | > should I be expected to do that when I'm the only one
             | working on my Winamp reimplementation
             | 
             | Let us know when you want to change that. We're talented,
             | and generally nice. Maybe some day you'll want some help.
        
               | smolder wrote:
               | > you're going to have to differentiate yourself from the
               | folks who are also putting out winamp-alikes.
               | 
               | No one giving away software _has_ to do anything. Maybe
               | they 'd get more donations as OSS or something, but it's
               | no guarantee.
        
               | romwell wrote:
               | Yes, but nobody _has to_ use their work.
               | 
               | I'd assume that people who make general-purpose open-
               | source software with the intent of it being used by
               | _someone_ other than themselves.
               | 
               | So read the "have to" as "if you want to have people use
               | and appreciate your work, this is a necessary step".
        
               | dapids wrote:
               | Which is definitely just that, an assumption. Some people
               | write things just because they want to or can, and don't
               | care whether anyone else finds it useful for their own
               | purposes. It might just be something for a portfolio, to
               | inspire others, etc, or again, just because. Lots of
               | things are created "just because".
               | 
               | The decision is left to the end user, use it, or don't.
        
               | justinfrankel wrote:
               | fwiw dro's been around a long time and i would be
               | inclined to trust them :)
        
               | thedoctor_o wrote:
               | I'm also not trying to be a jerk either but when I'm
               | constantly being told by random people that I have to be
               | OSS when it comes to WACUP that's also not particularly
               | helpful other than introducing more potential work for me
               | to do when there's absolutely no guarantee of a return to
               | that effort. So maybe I'm more terse than I should be
               | about such things but that's also just how I am.
               | 
               | It might make more sense for other projects especially
               | those starting out fresh but that's not ever been my
               | mindset with how I've been doing Winamp plug-in related
               | development since 2003 along with the 5yrs I worked on
               | Winamp & if that means people will avoid WACUP then so be
               | it as they're more likely to be sticking with the AOL
               | provided 2.x releases anyway.
               | 
               | Also it goes both ways on the trust aspects & maybe when
               | the likes of fb2k, aimp & musicbee go OSS I might
               | eventually reconsider my dinosaur like approach to
               | development but there has to be a tangible benefit for me
               | to do it.
               | 
               | I've already asked for help over the 5yrs or so I've been
               | trying to make WACUP but the things that need help with
               | doing are also the things that no one really wants to do
               | (e.g. a new good midi input plug-in).
               | 
               | -dro (assuming this reply ever gets posted as I've been
               | trying for over an hour)
        
               | EMIRELADERO wrote:
               | > Also it goes both ways on the trust aspects & maybe
               | when the likes of fb2k, aimp & musicbee go OSS I might
               | eventually reconsider my dinosaur like approach to
               | development but there has to be a tangible benefit for me
               | to do it.
               | 
               | Forgive me for asking, but if the reason for you
               | releasing WACUP to the public at all isn't purely
               | personal benefit (if it was only about that might as well
               | keep it to yourself right?) but to help people and share
               | something that you deem useful and let others benefit
               | from it, why would the source code be any different? Put
               | another way: why is releasing the binaries publicly
               | acceptable even if it doesn't benefit you directly, but
               | doing the same thing for the source itself isn't?
        
               | VortexDream wrote:
               | Releasing a project as open source is associated with a
               | lot of work and responsibility. People get quite entitled
               | over open source projects and get quite upset when
               | developers don't do what they want. I can see why he's
               | unwilling to undergo all that stress and pressure if he
               | feels it doesn't benefit him.
        
               | jvolkman wrote:
               | The Windows ecosystem has a long history of closed source
               | freeware. It doesn't seem strange at all to me.
        
             | caddywompus wrote:
             | Oh hey! Appreciate the work you've done, thanks for keeping
             | the project alive!
        
         | tiffanyh wrote:
         | My memory is fuzzy on this but didn't most consider Winamp 2.x
         | the best. Winamp 3.x was considered bloated. So to help rectify
         | the problems of 3.x, Winamp release version 5.x (the best of 2
         | + 3). Though I recall many still used version 2.x even after
         | the 5.x release.
         | 
         | Question: so when you say folks are trying to keep the "last
         | version" alive, which version are you referring too since later
         | versions weren't loved.
        
           | dreamlayers wrote:
           | Winamp is highly modular. Most functionality is in plugins,
           | and you could only install the plugins you want. For example
           | you could exclude the media library, modern skins, and video
           | playback. So, 5.x doesn't have to be bloated.
        
           | yk wrote:
           | If memory serves, the update from 2.x to 3.x was the one were
           | suddenly skins no longer worked and they decided to base the
           | program around a db instead of the file system. Which is not
           | that bad (though still strictly inferior to file based) in
           | modern cell phones, but at a time when computers were a lot
           | slower and everybody had organized their music library around
           | files instead of metadata it was a bloody disaster.
        
             | raffraffraff wrote:
             | I dunno... Libraries were a revolution for me. If I
             | remember correctly, that was around the time I briefly
             | switched to iTunes _for_ its library features. The ability
             | to start typing and instantly see a list of song matches
             | was great. The problem with the WinAMP library was that it
             | wasn 't that good. If course iTunes turned into a bloated
             | mess too, and I ended up on foobar2000 for years.
        
             | toyg wrote:
             | That reminds me of this classic JWZ :
             | https://www.jwz.org/doc/mailsum.html
             | 
             | (Note: you want to copypaste that link, not click it)
        
               | goldenkey wrote:
               | I clicked it and it is NSFW. :-/ Why does JWZ hate HN?
        
           | lnx01 wrote:
           | 5.666
        
           | taf2 wrote:
           | Yes I loved Winamp 2.x - the transition from tapes to mp3 was
           | great for me. My car had a tape player and not a CD player
           | and it was more fun to make tapes that's cds imo
        
           | lproven wrote:
           | I have long felt that, given the problems of the Python 2-3
           | migration, the Python devs should have done the same. :-)
        
             | xxpor wrote:
             | https://pypi.org/project/six/ ;)
        
               | lproven wrote:
               | Oh, nice. :-D
        
           | meepmorp wrote:
           | WinAmp 2 was the last "real" version, before the AOL buyout
           | of Nullsoft took its toll.
        
           | krater23 wrote:
           | I currently use 2.95 and see no reason to update. But I
           | listen rarely mp3's in the last years.
        
             | artificialLimbs wrote:
             | >> see no reason to update
             | 
             | You will when you get a 4k monitor.
        
               | efdee wrote:
               | Winamp has a built-in function to double the pixels, so
               | it's actually quite usable on 4K as-is.
        
               | tomc1985 wrote:
               | It only works for the main window. The library window
               | doesn't work with it.
        
               | thedoctor_o wrote:
               | It does with WACUP
               | 
               | -dro
        
             | lazyjeff wrote:
             | Same here, using Winamp 2.95 on a HiDPI screen as my main
             | audio player.
             | 
             | The best feature that it seems no other player has
             | reproduced yet is being able to hit the J key to do an
             | instant search for a song, with 0 latency: the search
             | narrows down the songs as fast as you hit the keys.
             | 
             | But I've noticed that there are now a few files that sound
             | scratch when played, perhaps they're 48 kHz or something...
        
               | jraph wrote:
               | Same thing in Clementine, except you don't even have to
               | press J. Just type your search when the window is focused
               | and the filter bar will catch the keys.
               | 
               | This can be disabled too.
        
             | lproven wrote:
             | Foodbar 2000 FTW. https://www.foobar2000.org/
             | 
             | Tiny, fast, simple, does the job.
             | 
             | There's an Android version too, which is my go-to audio
             | player, because of its simplicity.
             | 
             | Both FOSS.
        
               | skeeter2020 wrote:
               | Haven't tried Foodbar :)
               | 
               | I use Foobar on my PC daily but didn't even know it was
               | available on Android, so thanks! Musicolet is also a
               | great Android player without all the BS (ex: can run mp3
               | files copied to the device with no internet connnection)
        
               | lproven wrote:
               | Blast. Didn't even notice. Sorry!
        
               | VortexDream wrote:
               | Yeah, but does it really whip the llama's ass?
        
               | TedDoesntTalk wrote:
               | In case you don't know, WinAmp borrowed that meme from
               | the late, schizophrenic musician Wesley Willis.
               | 
               | https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/2lepog/ti
               | l_t...
               | 
               | "McDonalds is a place to rock, It is a restaurant where
               | they buy food to eat, It is a good place to listen to the
               | music, People flock here to get down to the rock music."
               | - Rock 'N Roll McDonalds
               | 
               | "Batman beat the hell out of me and knocked me to the
               | floor, I got back up and knocked him to the floor, He was
               | being such a jack off" - I Whupped Batman's Ass
               | 
               | "This beast killed as many as 100,000 people / It's wings
               | can flap like a bird / It can break a glass / It can also
               | stab you in the ass" - The Chicken Cow
        
               | JasonFruit wrote:
               | I didn't realize until today that Wesley Willis was also
               | a visual artist[0], and surprisingly good.
               | 
               | [0]: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=wesley+willis+art&t=brave&
               | iax=imag...
        
               | thedoctor_o wrote:
               | Fairly certain that fb2k has never been FOSS or can you
               | point to where that's not the case as that'd be far more
               | interesting than the point of this thread.
               | 
               | -dro
        
               | lproven wrote:
               | Oh! My bad. I mistook the SDK and projectM source
               | download links for the app itself.
               | 
               | I apologise for the misleading comment.
        
               | thedoctor_o wrote:
               | Is all good.
               | 
               | -dro
        
           | habeebtc wrote:
           | I have been running Winamp 2.95 for coming up on 20 years
           | now. So you would be correct on that count.
           | 
           | Despite how powerful modern computers are, I still notice how
           | much lighter 2.x is than 3.x.
        
           | orbital-decay wrote:
           | IIRC, Winamp 3 introduced the new skin engine which supported
           | transparency and was slow as molasses on contemporary
           | machines. Moreover, 2.x switched to the new MP3 decoder at
           | some point, and many people didn't like it, either ripping
           | the old decoder from the old versions or stopping upgrading
           | past a certain 2.x version.
           | 
           | (None of this is important today, I guess)
        
             | warning26 wrote:
             | Winamp 3 was a complete rewrite from the ground up, built
             | around the new skinning engine and the "Wasabi" scripting
             | language. But as you say, it wasn't very performant, and it
             | was also super buggy.
             | 
             | I believe there was some drama which resulted in the lead
             | dev for 3 getting fired, and then the skinning engine
             | (which was the most popular part of 3) was grafted onto the
             | 2.x base for version "5".
        
               | res0nat0r wrote:
               | I've been using my minimal Winamp install and the noerror
               | skin for like 15+ years now. Still the best mp3 player on
               | Windows IMO.
               | 
               | https://skins.webamp.org/skin/8a466a39534e4be0dc6ca5cc0d6
               | f5a...
        
           | caddywompus wrote:
           | I'm actually not too familiar with it, I was too young to use
           | the original Winamp back when it was released, and can only
           | remember playing around with the skins, along with RealPlayer
           | on Win98
           | 
           | I'm guessing they went with version 5, since it looks like
           | versions after that might have been a full rewrite?
        
             | skeeter2020 wrote:
             | If you want a fun read that wastes a few hours, poke around
             | the interwebs for the story of Justin Frankel and WinAmp.
             | There's been some recent posts on HN about how "the
             | Internet is played out". Not sure if I agree, but this guy
             | definitely belongs in the mythos of web 1.0
             | 
             | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_Frankel
        
           | 0des wrote:
           | Winamp 2 was generally preferred. If I recall correctly, it
           | skipped version 4 not because v2 + v3 = v5 but because nobody
           | would want to download a Winamp 4 skin. Not kidding.
        
             | lelandfe wrote:
             | You're both right!
             | 
             | https://web.archive.org/web/20131219003849/http://www.winam
             | p...
             | 
             | > What happened to Winamp 4? You're not imagining things.
             | Yes, we skipped a version number for the following reasons:
             | a) Winamp 5 combines the best aspects of Winamp 2 and
             | Winamp 3 into one player. Hence Winamp 2 + Winamp 3 =
             | Winamp 5! b) Who the hell wants to see a Winamp 4 Skin :P
             | c) We think that a Fibonacci sequence for versioning might
             | be pretty damn cool. d)We improved so much in Winamp 5 that
             | we figured it warranted skipping a version. ;)
        
               | xmprt wrote:
               | I still don't understand. What's wrong with Winamp 4
               | skins?
               | 
               | Edit: Maybe I have to sound it out. Is it because 4 skin
               | sounds like foreskin?
        
               | lelandfe wrote:
               | You got it :)
        
               | ConceptJunkie wrote:
               | So I can't imagine that the clowns that made that awful
               | new Winamp site would be cool enough to call the new one
               | Winamp 8. Or release a version that anyone actually
               | wants, for that matter.
        
               | 0des wrote:
               | >the clowns that made that awful new Winamp
               | 
               | You don't have to be like that.
        
               | zwirbl wrote:
               | The site didn't have to like that either
        
               | hermitdev wrote:
               | If the new website is any indicator of the quality of the
               | new Winamp, it's going to be a huge nope from me.
        
               | lelandfe wrote:
               | They may win for the worst scrolljacking I've seen to
               | date
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | thedoctor_o wrote:
               | Supposedly they're still going to call it Winamp v6
               | assuming it happens. They've lied a number of times over
               | the past 8yrs so don't hold your breathe but the new site
               | is somewhat indicative of their disregard about why those
               | still using Winamp (or clones of it) do so.
               | 
               | -dro
        
               | gonesilent wrote:
               | how can i msg you a invite to the new landoleet discord?
        
             | totetsu wrote:
             | NB four and fore are sound the same in some accents
        
               | agumonkey wrote:
               | And now I have a totally different view on the smooth
               | jazz band named fourplay
        
               | ConceptJunkie wrote:
               | Definitely true for American accents.
        
               | lproven wrote:
               | Thank you for so delicately pointing out the problem/joke
               | here -- I hadn't noticed it, not even back then.
               | 
               | My question is: in what English accents do "four" and
               | "fore" *not* sound alike?
        
               | rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote:
               | This is the Horse-Hoarse merger. [1]
               | 
               | > Accents that have resisted the merger include most
               | Scottish, Caribbean, and older Southern American accents
               | as well as some African American, modern Southern
               | American, Indian, Irish, and older Maine accents.
               | 
               | If my understanding is correct, in some accents that
               | don't pronounce their "R"s at the end of words, the vowel
               | shape changes slightly while pronouncing "four," but
               | "fore" is pronounced with a simple vowel.
               | 
               | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-
               | language_vowel_changes...
        
               | lproven wrote:
               | Fascinating. Thank you.
               | 
               | It is extremely hard for me to even _imagine_ this, as
               | apparently my native accents both contain this merger.
               | This is a rare experience for me, but a previous
               | occurrence was discussing the rhotic-R phenomenon.
        
               | aasasd wrote:
               | Wiktionary sometimes comes handy in such musings, because
               | it has IPA spellings and recordings of pronunciations,
               | and marks the dialects--not always but frequently for
               | more popular words.
               | 
               | https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fore
               | 
               | https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/four
               | 
               | The IPA suggests that pronunciations of the two words are
               | identical both with and without the merger, but I'm no
               | specialist.
        
               | rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote:
               | Just dug a little deeper, and I've arrived at this
               | conclusion:
               | 
               | In accents _with_ the merger,  "four," "for," and "fore"
               | are all always homophones.
               | 
               | In accents _without_ the merger,  "four" and "for" are
               | never homophones.
               | 
               | And in some subset of these non-merged accents, "fore"
               | may be pronounced identically to "four" (as listed in the
               | IPA guide in your first link). In another subset, it may
               | be pronounced identically to "for" (as implied by the
               | "Homophones" section in that same link).
        
               | ziml77 wrote:
               | Thank you. This is what it took for me to realize why
               | version 4 might be an issue. If I just saw "4 skin" I
               | certainly would have gotten it. Somehow adding Winamp in
               | front made it hard for me to interpret it the alternative
               | way.
        
             | tomxor wrote:
             | > not because v2 + v3 = v5 but because nobody would want to
             | download a Winamp 4 skin
             | 
             | I wish the people who named Gimp image editor were this
             | thoughtful! Searching for image masking info has caught me
             | out multiple times :/
        
               | monkeycantype wrote:
               | on multiple occasions when i've needed to know command
               | line syntax I've googled 'man find'
        
             | squarefoot wrote:
             | If memory serves, the latest unbloated version of WinAmp
             | was called Winamp Classic, and its versions were in the
             | 2.9x range.
        
               | thedoctor_o wrote:
               | 5.x is just the 2.x base continued with newer plug-ins &
               | newer apis for those plug-ins. Unchecking things during
               | installation (e.g. choosing the lite install) or just
               | removing the unwanted plug-ins was always an option to
               | make a 5.x into a comparable 2.x install.
               | 
               | -dro
        
         | cyber_kinetist wrote:
         | For context, here's the new revamped(!) Winamp coming up soon:
         | https://www.winamp.com/
         | 
         | It's just... the complete opposite of what Winamp was all
         | about, and it's horrible and leaves a bad taste in your mouth
         | (-100 points for the atrocious "modern" website which loads MBs
         | of Javascript, screams BIG TEXT at you, hijacks your scroll
         | wheel, and still tells you nothing about the actual software
         | other than it will probably suck. Oh and another -100 points
         | for that cookie popup.)
        
           | pongo1231 wrote:
           | Interestingly in contrast to the others it loads up fine on
           | both my laptop and my S9 with Firefox, even after disabling
           | my adblocker and unblocking all scripts in NoScript.
        
           | kingsloi wrote:
           | Wow, that's a first. Clicking the URL hung Brave, completely
           | unresponsive for 2-3 mins, now it's loaded but shows nothing
           | but a dark blue background. Same for every refresh, too!
        
             | stavros wrote:
             | Winamp ( _winamp_ )
             | 
             | It really whips your browser's ass.
        
               | theandrewbailey wrote:
               | My brain automatically read that in that guy's voice from
               | DEMO.MP3, complete with the bleating.
        
               | stavros wrote:
               | As it should!
        
               | andrew_ wrote:
               | LOL same. It's absolutely wild how that's an automatic
               | response.
        
               | [deleted]
        
             | hdjjhhvvhga wrote:
             | This is my pet peeve. Browsers should not allow any
             | websites to hijack all computing cycles. This was already
             | clear a few years ago during the Monero hype. The fact that
             | most adblockers will detect such attempts today doesn't
             | change the fact that any website can almost prevent you
             | from doing other work just because you opened it. The
             | current strategy of dealing with this problem ("this tab
             | has become unresponsive") is inadequate because it is
             | reactive, not proactive. I'd like to be able to blacklist
             | everything and whitelist only chosen websites I trust.
             | Loading for too long because of tracking code? Too bad,
             | choose another loading strategy or I just close the tab.
             | Making my fans spin faster? Begone.
        
               | kevin_thibedeau wrote:
               | NoScript does this.
        
               | eitland wrote:
               | There is another thread going on about bringing back web
               | 1, but here is something I have been advocating for a
               | while, make 2 different new web profiles, along the lines
               | of:
               | 
               | 1.) A subset of modern HTML / CSS, custom Javascript.
               | Remove anything that isn't needed and especially anything
               | that affects rendering negatively for no good reason.
               | 
               | 1.1.) Possibly: Provide versioned, vendor neutral
               | versions of js to allow for autocomplete.
               | 
               | 2.) Same as 1, but with custom JS. All js must complete
               | in a specified number of cycles. User interaction gives
               | extra cycles.
               | 
               | The point of 1 is to:
               | 
               | - for companies: massively lower the barriers for new
               | browsers (remove lots of backwards compatibility and the
               | huge problem of JS)
               | 
               | - for security conscious users: provide a safer way to
               | browse the web
               | 
               | - for users generally: provide a way to browse the web
               | faster and more comfortably
               | 
               | - the point of 2.) is to provide an approximation of what
               | we have today but in a way that automatically limits
               | developers from abusing JS.
        
               | Kiro wrote:
               | What about actual apps or games where you want to push
               | the limits?
        
               | eitland wrote:
               | For that we already have html5 and Firefox :-) (and
               | Chrome and what not)
        
               | lproven wrote:
               | Sounds good, but I'd move for the total removal and
               | banning of all JS and other scripting.
               | 
               | Otherwise, what's the point?
        
           | lostgame wrote:
           | In the Spotify/Apple Music, etc; era - wtf is the selling
           | point on this?
        
           | ttyyzz wrote:
           | The page is a performance nightmare on my mobile phone (pixel
           | 4a), unusable.
        
           | denton-scratch wrote:
           | That site's unusable; I see [Decline][Accept] buttons, with
           | no explnation of what I'm being invited to decline or accept.
           | No choice but to close the tab.
        
           | firekvz wrote:
           | The browser on my pixel 6 crashed, haven't seen a site lag a
           | phone for like 2 years
        
             | andai wrote:
             | Holy shit, you weren't kidding! What the heck is this thing
             | doing, mining bitcoins? How did this ever get approved?
        
             | cyber_kinetist wrote:
             | Yeah, the site also freezes my Firefox for 5 seconds, and
             | this is from a gaming PC. Absolutely horrendous...
             | 
             | How hard you would actually have to try to make a website
             | as horrible as this, this thing is just a meme.
        
               | cjnicholls wrote:
               | Here's the developer https://www.laniche.com . Their
               | other websites don't seem to be as laggy but there is a
               | theme of animating *every* element and embedding videos.
        
               | sli wrote:
               | For all that lag, I was expecting a lot more than some
               | simple animations. And that scrolljacking is by far the
               | worst I've ever experienced. I have to scroll three times
               | to switch to the next section. Can't even manually drag
               | the little scrollspy thing. Atrocious.
        
             | mderazon wrote:
             | Came to write this as well
        
           | Flockster wrote:
           | Wow, it made my Firefox stuck for a few seconds, opening it
           | in a new tab. (So it wasn't viewable while loading).
        
           | isk517 wrote:
           | Add me the the list of people who thought you were
           | exaggerating about how bad the website was and then
           | immediately noticed how it made my browser stutter.
        
           | Nition wrote:
           | Funnily enough, despite that brand new absolute mess of a
           | website, the ancient original Winamp Forums are still
           | running: http://forums.winamp.com/
        
           | alx__ wrote:
           | Looks like they copped the design styles from Sonos. Which is
           | already meh
        
           | robertlagrant wrote:
           | > We're building Winamp for the next-generation.
           | 
           | The incorrect hyphen is just irritating as well.
        
           | jmknoll wrote:
           | At the bottom of their site, they have about 30 open full
           | time positions, including Sales, Legal, and Finance. Seems
           | strange for a 25 year old media player. Did they just close a
           | big funding round or something?
        
             | WorldMaker wrote:
             | I don't recall the full tumultuous journey, but highlights
             | I recall were Nullsoft (original Winamp creators) towards
             | the end were bought by AOL who did them dirty and then AOL
             | forgot about Winamp as a property entirely for something
             | like two decades through the Time Warner merger then
             | divorce then the Yahoo! merger into "Oath" under Verizon.
             | At some point in spinning Oath back out of Verizon and
             | putting Oath's IP on the chopping block someone found
             | Winamp in an old closet somewhere and sold the "brand" to
             | whoever this new company is that so far as any can tell has
             | zero relationship to the original Nullsoft in any capacity.
        
               | thedoctor_o wrote:
               | The pure Nullsoft Winamp was from 1997 to mid-1999 with
               | AOL having Winamp under it's ownership until 2013
               | (technically until mid-January 2014) when it was sold to
               | Radionomy (who then were bought by Vivendi but then
               | bought themselves back under the guise of Audiovalley).
               | 
               | So that time with AOL covers v2.5 when it became free
               | after starting out as shareware through to v5.666 along
               | with the maligned WinAmp3 period. So that's whole a lot
               | of not doing much but still producing releases for almost
               | 15yrs. Winamp (& SHOUTcast) were sold before Verizon did
               | it's thing with AOL.
               | 
               | -dro
        
         | dmt0 wrote:
         | macOS desperately needs a version of this. Vox is the closest
         | thing I could find, but still isn't the same. Can't stand
         | native Apple apps.
        
           | thedoctor_o wrote:
           | There's also re:amp which is a decent implementation of the
           | Winamp classic skin support.
           | 
           | -dro
        
         | TonyTrapp wrote:
         | The WACUP author also discussed the source code leak here a
         | while ago: https://getwacup.com/blog/index.php/2021/04/17/what-
         | does-the...
        
           | toyg wrote:
           | The fact that he points out what is and is not in the leak,
           | might come back to bite him if the owners get very litigious.
           | He should not have looked at it.
        
           | mkoryak wrote:
           | Reading that blog and not being familiar with winamp's
           | history after winamp2 (which was the best), it felt like
           | there is a good story there about "dro" and the current
           | owners. Can someone point me to it?
        
       | pachico wrote:
       | Leak or an attempt to get attention since it doesn't seem to be
       | getting much?
        
       | manyellsea wrote:
       | Download zip doesn't work for me, found a mirror here
       | https://sizeofcat.ru/so.cl/1638195782/
        
         | timdorr wrote:
         | This appears to work (for now):
         | https://web.archive.org/web/20210418214109if_/https://codelo...
        
       | vermaden wrote:
       | Winamp was great in 2000s ... Today Deadbeef works exceptionally
       | great on UNIX systems. There is also Sayonara or VLC ... and tons
       | of other usable players.
       | 
       | Not sure what happens on Windows systems nowadays but I always
       | include Winamp 2.95 as part of the Windows installation that I do
       | for family/buddies ... I just change the default 'ugly as fuck'
       | theme to something usable and nice appealing :)
        
       | marcodiego wrote:
       | Interesting as a historic document. If someone is willing to port
       | it to newer systems or compilers, also maybe of some value. I
       | really don't see much value considering there are already
       | reasonable good, lightweight (I think) and multi-platform (like
       | qmmp) which offer support to winamp skins.
        
         | fps_doug wrote:
         | It's the same as the Opera Presto leak a few years ago. You
         | cannot legally maintain or update, let alone distribute it.
         | Back then you could find a few minor patches in Russian forums
         | but that's about it. So even if there's people capable and
         | willing to maintain it (which for a browser I think is an order
         | of magnitude more work), there is no easy way to have a
         | collaboration platform that also gives the project enough
         | visibility, so motivation is pretty low.
        
           | Y_Y wrote:
           | Is this legal obstacle true everywhere? If a company stops
           | making a breakfast cereal permanently, then I can replicate
           | it and sell my own. Why not a browser that Opera is never
           | going to sell again?
        
             | NoSorryCannot wrote:
             | Copyright law will generally cannot be applied to a
             | breakfast cereal anywhere. Patents or trademarks may apply,
             | however, but these work differently.
             | 
             | Is it the same everywhere? No, but it is similar in a lot
             | of places, due to political agreements and convergence.
        
           | userbinator wrote:
           | There's still plenty of that "true hacker" mentality (for
           | lack of better term) in lesser-known and mostly non-English
           | sites out there. Chinese is common, as is Russian, not
           | surprisingly. I dare not disclose them because I know they'll
           | get too much and unwanted attention, but look hard enough and
           | you will find.
        
       | bullox wrote:
       | It really whips the llama's ass.
        
         | johnsillings wrote:
         | Man, that audio (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaF-nRS_CWM)
         | makes me so nostalgic.
         | 
         | Apparently it was a Wesley Willis reference, too, which just
         | makes it 1000x better.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | WithinReason wrote:
       | For those looking for a lightweight but powerful music player,
       | Foobar2000 is a good choice!
        
         | gorbachev wrote:
         | I've been quite liking musicbee. foobar2000 is definitely great
         | as well, I just prefer musicbee's UI a bit more.
        
           | bt1a wrote:
           | I'm going to second musicbee. It's really fast and the UI is
           | very clean. I don't doubt that foobar can be customized to
           | one's grandest desires - it's just that musicbee works well
           | out of the box.
        
       | geocrasher wrote:
       | I listened to my first MP3 ever (Creed's "Higher") in 1999 on
       | Winamp. It really whipped the South American camelid's posterior.
       | Dang. I'm old.
        
         | nikcub wrote:
         | The first scene releases of mp3's were in 1996[0]. It was 1997
         | when things got rolling, just as Winamp was released.
         | 
         | I recall then that even new PC's couldn't decode at full CD
         | quality and you had to downscale. We also picked which songs to
         | download locally based on their size
         | 
         | Spiderbait's song "Calypso" was probably the most popular mp3
         | download in '97 since it was only 2.5MB and a lot of people
         | just wanted to try this new mp3 thing everybody was talking
         | about.
         | 
         | The decoder Winamp used was actually amp - developed by
         | Tomislav Uzelac[1]. I can't remember how he dodged patent
         | issues, but he had his name and an ask for donations in the
         | about box of v1 iirc.
         | 
         | Winamp owe a lot to amp - the first version was essentially a
         | skin + port of his library to Windows. I'm pretty certain
         | Winamp v2 also used amp, just as it was blowing up to become
         | the most downloaded program online.
         | 
         | Nullsoft and Justin were absolute legends. He wrote an AOL ad
         | removal / blocking tool and WASTE while at AOL. I can't think
         | of any similar startup or subsidiary today that has even close
         | to the attitude / courage they had.
         | 
         | [0] https://www.mp3scene.info/releases/year/1996/
         | 
         | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomislav_Uzelac
        
           | MisterTea wrote:
           | > I recall then that even new PC's couldn't decode at full CD
           | quality and you had to downscale.
           | 
           | I remember pentium 90's struggling to play mp3's on Win95/98
           | while at uni. They would play but you couldn't do much else
           | otherwise they would stutter. Even minimizing and maximizing
           | the mp3 player would cause stuttering.
        
           | marcodiego wrote:
           | I think only the first versions of winamp used amp, it was
           | replaced later. Interestingly, the old amp code can still be
           | compiled and ran on modern systems with little modifications.
           | I've did it a few months ago.
        
           | jihadjihad wrote:
           | Oh wow, WASTE, that brings back some memories. I hadn't heard
           | of it until college, where everyone on campus used it to
           | share music / videos / etc. I never knew that the history of
           | it was linked to Nullsoft and Winamp.
        
           | raydev wrote:
           | My favorite "wild west" item from this time period is
           | nineinchnails.net. I don't know who was running the site at
           | the time, but they were ripping and hosting mp2/mp3 files of
           | NIN's entire discography just out in the open and free.
           | 
           | A combination of limited hard drive space + sad dialup speeds
           | prevented me from actually downloading the entire discog
           | before the eventual shutdown in 98 or 99-ish.
        
         | racl101 wrote:
         | > I listened to my first MP3 ever (Creed's "Higher")
         | 
         | My condolences.
        
         | IggleSniggle wrote:
         | After years of listening to Adlib MIDI soundtracks on the
         | computer, I was absolutely blown away to be hearing "Yesterday"
         | by the Beatles coming out of the speakers. I played that tiny
         | little file (not a whole CD!) countless times on repeat. Just
         | unbelievable that such a thing could be coming from a tiny
         | (relatively) little file.
        
           | geocrasher wrote:
           | Yes, I remember feeling that awe as well. For giggles, I just
           | went to YouTube and listened to "Higher" again, and man...
           | that really took me back. Haven't listened to it in years.
           | Still one of my favorite heavy metal songs of all time.
           | 
           | I also remember being _so thrilled_ to be able to store
           | _several_ MP3 's on my 64mb Sharp Zaurus SL-5600.
        
         | wgx wrote:
         | You may enjoy this for a nostalgia hit: https://webamp.org/
        
         | jvolkman wrote:
         | I remember being jealous of my friend's Pentium (66? 90?) when
         | mp3 playback slaughtered my 486.
        
           | raphman wrote:
           | The original Fraunhofer MP3 player, Winplay3, had settings to
           | reduce decoding quality - which helped a lot on my 486.
           | 
           | https://youtu.be/vzQT4qkC-gk?t=110
        
           | Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
           | I had an AMD DX4-120 that was overclocked to 160 Mhz. Yup, a
           | 160 Mhz 486.
           | 
           | Was on par with a 90 Mhz Pentium for integer processing,
           | IIRC, so MP3 playback didn't drag the system to a halt,
           | though it was still a noticeable impact on performance.
           | 
           | What really dragged the performance down was when I'd try to
           | run 3D Studio MAX at the same time. I had 24 MB of RAM, and
           | the installer warned that they did not recommend running with
           | less than 48 MB, which was an absurd number for a home user
           | at the time.
        
           | IggleSniggle wrote:
           | When "Pentium" was the name of the very most precious metal
           | one could obtain
        
             | dehrmann wrote:
             | It truly was all about the Pentiums.
             | 
             | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpMvS1Q1sos
        
             | giarc wrote:
             | That has to be one of the best advertising campaigns in
             | history. I've heard non-technical people in the last few
             | years still say things like "I think our new computer has a
             | Pentium or something". The word Pentium was synonymous with
             | quality and speed.
        
               | trulyme wrote:
               | They might be right, though I wouldn't say the name is
               | synonymous with speed anymore. Intel is still using this
               | name for entry level cpus [0].
               | 
               | [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium
        
       | ComodoHacker wrote:
       | If you want Winamp-like experience, try AIMP[0]. It keeps
       | Winamp's traditions on usability, audio quality and features,
       | while not trying to monetize its users in any way.
       | 
       | 0. https://www.aimp.ru/
        
       | MrGilbert wrote:
       | I'm afraid that, at one point in time, a DMCA takedown might
       | backfire at the archive. I mean, it has been taken down on
       | Github, but it's of course available at archive.org - it would
       | hurt the internet as a whole if the archive needs to close it's
       | doors.
       | 
       | Hopefully that will never happen.
        
         | Cthulhu_ wrote:
         | It depends on whether Github or Winamp can be arsed; given that
         | it's been posted on HN now, they are probably on the trail now.
         | 
         | Archive.org can't just ignore a DMCA takedown, that would
         | threaten their safe haven status.
        
           | gmueckl wrote:
           | Winamp at this point in time is just a trademark that ended
           | up at a Belgian company. And I think they want to use it to
           | launch a music streaming service. The rest of Nullsoft went
           | down with AOL. I wonder which party would even have the legal
           | rights to move against such a source code leak.
        
             | [deleted]
        
             | garaetjjte wrote:
             | They are claiming they have rights to the code too: "I am
             | acting on behalf of AudioValley SA who currently owns the
             | copyright to the Winamp code after a purchase from AOL."
        
             | RF_Savage wrote:
             | I wonder what happened to NSIS, the NullSoft InstallSystem?
             | 
             | Used it myself as a teen to have a professional looking
             | installer for my software releases.
             | 
             | I still occasionally see software with NSIS installers and
             | Nullsoft copyright. So I wonder what entity is behind it
             | now days.
        
               | garaetjjte wrote:
               | NSIS is open source, seems to be maintained by the
               | community.
        
               | thedoctor_o wrote:
               | NSIS has nothing to do with the lot that own Winamp & it
               | was a clearly defined "not part of the sale" as it has
               | been OSS from early on around it's v1.0 iirc which was a
               | long long time before Winamp was eventually sold.
               | 
               | I still think they should be using their own forum with
               | an archive of the NSIS sub-forum to ensure that there's a
               | clear distinction between them & the lot that now own
               | Winamp (as there's no benefit for them to be keeping that
               | forum running other than a trickle of ad revenue) but
               | that's down to those that lead NSIS to decide upon.
               | 
               | -dro
        
         | dmos62 wrote:
         | We should have infrastructure for sharing things like this
         | without putting a centralized entity like archive.org in the
         | crosshairs. Bittorrent comes to mind, but it could only be part
         | of the solution.
        
           | sergiotapia wrote:
           | Disclaimer: I'm not into shitcoins, and I am not shilling
           | this coin at all.
           | 
           | However, the goals of Filecoin seem to be right up this
           | alley. Distribute file storage among billions of users where
           | the more you host and help the swarm, the more coins you
           | earn.
           | 
           | https://filecoin.io/
           | 
           | Last I checked (about a month ago) there was still no way to
           | "help the swarm" without having a ridiculous set up but I
           | imagine someone with more experience will correct me.
        
           | danlugo92 wrote:
           | https://gun.eco/
        
           | 0des wrote:
           | IPFS is perfect for this.
        
             | dvdkon wrote:
             | Almost, but since it publicly associates the files you
             | share with your IP address, I don't see most interested
             | people willing to use it in this context.
        
               | 0des wrote:
               | Pinning services exist, VPN's exist, also every other
               | technology including torrents exposes your IP.
        
               | soylentcola wrote:
               | True, but torrents et al make you a peer, so you're also
               | distributing, not just saving a copy locally. At least
               | that's how I've always understood it in terms of legal
               | risk.
               | 
               | But yeah, VPN has (so far) been enough for me to avoid
               | being low hanging fruit when torrenting something I don't
               | have a license to "distribute" while seeding.
        
               | dmos62 wrote:
               | To be fair, most Bittorrent users have not had any legal
               | issues (while downloading copyrighted stuff).
        
           | makeworld wrote:
           | All archive.org items have a torrent file, so even if IA goes
           | down you can still download the item from seeders.
        
         | haunter wrote:
         | I never get how Archive.org can get away with... everything?
         | Like every single console game is there. Nintendo is very
         | famous to take down ROM sites yet their full library is on
         | Archive.org. And that's Nintendo only, all the PS1, PS2, PS3
         | games and the whole Xbox/360 catalog is there as well. It's
         | crazy
         | 
         | In some aspect Archive.org is better than some private torrent
         | trackers
        
           | nicoburns wrote:
           | There's plenty of precedent for archives. National libraries
           | get a copy of everything published, and anybody is allowed to
           | borrow and read from it for free. I think there is a
           | recognition that preserving history is important.
        
           | gibspaulding wrote:
           | I've been worrying about this as well. I recently found a
           | Beetles discography on Archive.org even after TPB turned up
           | almost nothing. It's great being able to find things, but
           | It'd be a shame to loose all of the legitimate content
           | because of getting associated with blatant piracy.
        
             | Y_Y wrote:
             | Meatspace libraries often have a big collection of CDs too.
             | This is part of our cultural heritage, and I think making
             | it accesible in this form is a no-brainer.
             | 
             | (By the way, maybe it was a typo, but the spelling is
             | "Beatles". They were better at songwriting than puns.)
        
           | spicybright wrote:
           | I'm so happy they somehow keep going. I've found so much
           | otherwise dead software there, esp. obscure windows 3.1 games
           | I played growing up :)
        
           | ranger_danger wrote:
           | Because they're a library with a DMCA exception (which may be
           | expiring soon), they are allowed to host that content. That
           | doesn't mean you are allowed to download it though. Normal
           | copyright and DMCA law still applies to you as a consumer of
           | this content. Also Jason Scott has stated that they prefer to
           | take a stance of "just upload whatever it is first, then if
           | someone complains we will take it down".
        
           | kingcharles wrote:
           | archive.org regularly removes things when they are alerted :(
        
             | bt1a wrote:
             | Sounds like we need an archive.org archive
        
         | kiallmacinnes wrote:
         | I'm not 100% sure of all the details, but archive.org has some
         | exceptions[1] to the DMCA & thanks to California, it's
         | officially considered a library - which again, I believe gives
         | it some more leeway on the DMCA.
         | 
         | [1]: https://archive.org/about/dmca.php
        
           | toomuchtodo wrote:
           | In the event a DMCA notice must be actioned, the content is
           | no longer made available ("darked") but it remains archived
           | for the future.
        
       | thefourthchime wrote:
       | I nearly got a job with them back around 2001. At the time they
       | were revamping their development group.
       | 
       | I had written some plug-ins for Winamp so I familiar with the
       | plug-in structure. It looks like the new lead developer wanted to
       | rewrite everything. Using all kinds of object-oriented
       | methodologies. The older code was all C based and very simple. I
       | wasn't fan of the new direction.
        
         | bluedino wrote:
         | > The older code was all C based and very simple. I wasn't fan
         | of the new direction.
         | 
         | Pretty sure the original author hung out in #winprog (EFnet
         | IRC), I wasn't a great Windows programmer but I remember him
         | showing off how he created the skinnable interface and
         | everything. I also remember spending a half hour downloading a
         | Rob Zombie MP3, using Winamp to play it, and wondering what the
         | big deal was :)
        
           | spicybright wrote:
           | There's something special about how limited media
           | availability was back then. Made every track you could manage
           | to get your hands on really special!
        
             | nebula8804 wrote:
             | I guess we are replicating this today with vinyl.
        
               | ConceptJunkie wrote:
               | Some people are. Probably not folks who actually came up
               | in the age of vinyl. The only plans I ever have for using
               | my turntable again is to digitize some obscure stuff that
               | I'll probably never find on more modern media.
        
               | unixhero wrote:
               | There is some sense of mindfulness in the physicality of
               | listening to a vinyl record.
        
               | spicybright wrote:
               | Def. It's interesting because now we have to willingly
               | limit ourselves to get the same effect.
               | 
               | I actually wish we tried this a bit more with news,
               | social media, etc.
        
           | IggleSniggle wrote:
           | As a kid with plenty of time but without access to either a
           | car or a credit card, and with plenty of experience with MIDI
           | and a little with WAV, being about to download an mp3 was
           | absolutely mind-blowing.
        
         | Y_Y wrote:
         | > the new lead developer wanted to rewrite everything. Using
         | all kinds of object-oriented methodologies. The older code was
         | all C based and very simple.
         | 
         | A tale as old as time.
        
           | andrew_ wrote:
           | Is it bad that I start hearing the Aladdin (1992) soundtrack
           | whenever I read that line?
        
             | khedoros1 wrote:
             | Not Beauty and the Beast?
        
             | smolder wrote:
             | A whole new world,
             | 
             | a new fantastic paradigm!
             | 
             | No more structs,
             | 
             | Or bad raw pointer luck,
             | 
             | I will use the whole damn STL.
             | 
             | A whooole neeeeww woooooorld!
        
               | asveikau wrote:
               | A whole _operator new_ world?
               | 
               | (Apologies.)
        
             | dkonofalski wrote:
             | Yes, it is bad. You got the wrong movie. ;)
        
             | [deleted]
        
       | synergy20 wrote:
       | there are so many music players that can do mp3, why winamp
       | source code is of interest still?
        
       | titaniumtown wrote:
       | I've never even heard of Winamp before lol
        
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       (page generated 2021-11-29 23:00 UTC)