[HN Gopher] Winamp Legacy player source code
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Winamp Legacy player source code
        
       Author : gjvc
       Score  : 567 points
       Date   : 2024-09-24 14:27 UTC (8 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (github.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
        
       | timvdalen wrote:
       | What happened here? Did someone buy the rights to the original
       | Winamp? The linked site doesn't look very related to the original
       | Winamp.
        
         | stefanos82 wrote:
         | Here you go https://about.winamp.com/press/article/winamp-open-
         | source-co...
        
           | itslennysfault wrote:
           | Thanks for sharing. Wonder if they've ever heard of color
           | contrast. Dark blue on dark blue is not very readable. Had to
           | highlight the article to read it.
        
             | shrikant wrote:
             | I'm not seeing that colour combination -- are you sure you
             | don't have Dark Reader or some such add-on enabled..?
        
               | reportgunner wrote:
               | I also don't see the bugged light mode until I allow 3rd
               | party scripts on the website in uBO
        
             | lucideer wrote:
             | Looks like a bug in their light theme - it's using the dark
             | theme's background. There's a theme toggle top-left to
             | switch to the still-functioning dark theme.
             | 
             | Guessing they probably started with a light theme then
             | retrofitted a dark theme & rolled it out without realising
             | it would regress the existing light theme.
        
             | stefanos82 wrote:
             | Coincidentally, I thought it was this bug that bit you; it
             | was reported a couple of days ago
             | https://github.com/mui/material-ui/issues/43823
        
           | justinclift wrote:
           | Oh great. Yet another bunch of people trying to claim their
           | not-at-all-Open-Source custom license is actually Open
           | Source.
           | 
           | Hopefully one day they'll _actually_ Open Source it. I mean,
           | they 're trying to pretend it is, so why not just do it
           | properly?
        
         | gjvc wrote:
         | see https://winamp.com/player/legacy or
         | https://about.winamp.com/press/article/winamp-open-source-co...
        
       | jollyllama wrote:
       | Awesome, that's far more interesting than the new implementation,
       | which doesn't include the batch media transcoding for exports to
       | mp3 players.
        
       | ndiddy wrote:
       | I'm curious how they expect people to contribute to the project.
       | Section 4 of the license says "Contribution to Project: You are
       | encouraged to contribute improvements, enhancements, and bug
       | fixes back to the project. Contributions must be submitted to the
       | official repository and will be reviewed and incorporated at the
       | discretion of the maintainers." However, the restrictions in
       | Section 5 ban forking the code or distributing modified versions.
       | This means that the standard Github "fork the repo, make your
       | changes in a branch, and send a pull request" workflow for
       | submitting changes would violate the license.
        
         | 0x0 wrote:
         | I guess you could format a diff patch file locally and paste it
         | as a text comment in an issue in their repo...? :P
        
         | chrisfinazzo wrote:
         | As @rollcat said, I suspect this means that people can
         | contribute modifications, but that they cannot be distributed
         | outside of the official sources.
         | 
         | So, while you can send a patch to add a feature, you couldn't
         | release that modified version on its own.
        
           | thomastjeffery wrote:
           | That still contradicts the license as written.
           | 
           | > No Forking: You may not create, maintain, or distribute a
           | forked version of the software.
           | 
           | There is no meaningful difference between the words "patch"
           | and "fork"; and the act of _creating_ an edited codebase is
           | explicitly disallowed.
           | 
           | If that isn't what they want, then they had better write more
           | clearly.
        
             | chrisfinazzo wrote:
             | English is a stupid language -\\_(tsu)_/-
        
               | thomastjeffery wrote:
               | You can't blame this one on English.
               | 
               | Before the ambiguity of language can get in the way,
               | there has to be a coherent idea that you want to express
               | in the first place.
               | 
               | This license explicitly contradicts itself. It says you
               | are encouraged to contribute changes to the source, _and_
               | you may not share changes to the source with anyone ever.
        
               | hunter2_ wrote:
               | It seems like the intent is to encourage giving changes
               | to exclusively the maintainer, and that forking in this
               | context refers to distribution beyond a private
               | communication between the change proposer and the
               | maintainer.
        
               | otteromkram wrote:
               | Not really. Legalese is vague on purpose because not
               | every situation can be rigidly defined.
               | 
               | As for English, because of its plain nature, I have
               | little trouble understanding someone who isn't proficient
               | or who has a heavy accent, whereas languages with
               | specific infections or tones might not have that kind of
               | liberty.
        
             | sramsay64 wrote:
             | There is in other areas of copyright law, like romhacks and
             | action replay codes. Romhacks seem like a very grey area
             | but generally don't get DMCAed when they distribute large
             | binary patch files of the original roms. And "Lewis Galoob
             | Toys, Inc. v. Nintendo of America, Inc." would imply that
             | the dead simple 16 byte[0] "patch files" in the form of
             | game genie codes are legal.
             | 
             | To take a more practical example. Is there no meaningful
             | difference between the dwm multimon patch files[1] and the
             | full forked repo[2]? For context, lots of suckless software
             | keeps extra features/addons in semi-offical out of tree
             | patches files. The philosophy of suckless is generally to
             | hardcode config options in source code and recompile
             | instead of editing .rc files. This reduces the complexity
             | of the code, so you end up with some very minimalistic easy
             | to patch recompile and code. So it's a natural (if very
             | esoteric) way of implementing plugins.
             | 
             | Obviously this is a bit contrived because all the suckless
             | code is actually open source, so none of this matters to
             | them. But I think it's fair to say that distributing the 7
             | .patch files at [1] wouldn't count as distributing a forked
             | version of dwm. The patch files contain some context lines
             | ripped straight from the main codebase, but not the main
             | repo. Hell I'd even wonder if there's some kind of fair use
             | argument for patch files. After all, often they boil down
             | to a criticism of the codebase, saying that it's bad
             | because it contains all the lines of code starting with '-'
             | signs and really would be better if it had these extra
             | lines of code after the '+' signs.
             | 
             | The license doesn't seem contradictory to me. Counter-
             | intuitive, unclear, and paradoxical (in the most general
             | sense of the word), yes. But not contradictory.
             | 
             | [0] Looks like the longest codes are 32 digits of hex long:
             | https://archive.org/details/GameGenieSNESCodebookProgrammin
             | g...
             | 
             | [1] https://dwm.suckless.org/patches/multimon/
             | 
             | [2] https://github.com/garybgenett/.dwm
        
           | amiga386 wrote:
           | Didn't lame do that for years? It was distributed as a patch
           | you could apply to the patent-encumbered MPEG "dist10"
           | reference source code (which as far as I can see, did not
           | even have an explicit license, the distribution only includes
           | disclaimers of warranty)
        
             | chrisfinazzo wrote:
             | Not sure...
             | 
             | Someone smarter than me can answer that.
        
         | Spivak wrote:
         | Because there are two definitions of fork. One is the button
         | that says fork in Github which is really cloning the repo into
         | your account. Then there is fork meaning "fork the project"
         | which is actively developing and distributing an alternative
         | lineage of the project, likely under a different name. You can
         | use Github's PR workflow, it's fine.
         | 
         | Github is the one with the unfortunate naming here that goes
         | against the already established meaning of fork. It really
         | should be clone.
        
         | Novosell wrote:
         | The Github ToS gives users the right to fork any public repos.
        
           | wang_li wrote:
           | On Github. Doesn't give them a license to fork it to their
           | workstation.
        
             | simoncion wrote:
             | One of the many bad things that Github did was to name the
             | button that does the `git clone` action `Fork`.
             | 
             | Like, I get why they did it, but (as we can see) it
             | resulted in this stupid terminology confusion.
        
               | bastardoperator wrote:
               | A fork is a linked copy, a clone is just a copy. They are
               | not the same.                 Deleting your repository or
               | changing its visibility affects that repository's forks.
        
             | otteromkram wrote:
             | Fork, then clone. Simple as.
        
         | tsukikage wrote:
         | Open an issue and type your patch into the description.
         | 
         | Note that you can't test or debug your patch, because that
         | would mean creating a modified version of the codebase, which
         | is prohibited. Just type that stuff straight in, directly from
         | your fever dreams, unmediated by common practice. If it's good
         | enough for the license, it's good enough for the code.
        
           | cormorant wrote:
           | No, it says: "You are granted the right to Modify the
           | software for private use only. You may make, run, and
           | propagate Covered works that you do not Convey, without
           | conditions, so long as your License otherwise remains in
           | force."
           | 
           | It's clear they don't want you distributing modified
           | versions. The thing people are getting caught up on is "You
           | may not create, maintain, or distribute a forked version of
           | the software." They fail to define "forked" but they don't
           | seem to have meant an undistributed modification.
        
         | vel0city wrote:
         | You don't need to fork a repo to create a branch.
        
           | hunter2_ wrote:
           | If the permissions on the repo (in GitHub, not git) are such
           | that you lack permission to create branches, then you must
           | first clone (local git terminology) / fork (hosted on GitHub
           | terminology) the repo so that all the permissions are yours.
        
         | owaislone wrote:
         | I guess they mean "fork" in the broader Open Source sense when
         | you fork something to create your own version of it and take it
         | on a different path or do things differently like like NeoVim
         | forked Vim. GitHub uses the term "fork" merely to create a copy
         | of the repo for contributions.
        
         | londons_explore wrote:
         | They expect people to simply ignore the license.
         | 
         | And most people will.
         | 
         | And they won't set their lawyers on any contributors.
         | 
         | And the world will go on.
        
           | heyoni wrote:
           | That's not good enough. You can't put out an open source
           | project and expect to control the community around it to that
           | degree.
        
             | justinclift wrote:
             | Well, it's not an Open Source project. So there's that. ;)
        
         | xupybd wrote:
         | 1. Forking: The license explicitly prohibits forking. Section 5
         | states: "No Forking: You may not create, maintain, or
         | distribute a forked version of the software."
         | 
         | 2. Making changes: You are allowed to make modifications, but
         | only for private use. Section 3 states: "You are granted the
         | right to Modify the software for private use only."
         | 
         | 3. Submitting pull requests: While the license doesn't use the
         | term "pull request" specifically, it does encourage
         | contributions. Section 4 states: "Contribution to Project: You
         | are encouraged to contribute improvements, enhancements, and
         | bug fixes back to the project. Contributions must be submitted
         | to the official repository and will be reviewed and
         | incorporated at the discretion of the maintainers."
         | 
         | However, there's a potential conflict here. The license
         | prohibits distributing modified versions (Section 5: "No
         | Distribution of Modified Versions"), which could be interpreted
         | to include submitting a pull request, as that involves sharing
         | your modifications.
         | 
         | In summary, this license: - Does not allow forking - Allows
         | modifications for private use only - Encourages contributions
         | to the official repository - Prohibits distribution of modified
         | versions
         | 
         | Given these terms, you cannot fork the code in the traditional
         | sense. You can make changes locally for private use, and you
         | are encouraged to submit contributions to the official
         | repository. However, the process for doing so is not clearly
         | defined, given the restrictions on distributing modified
         | versions.
         | 
         | If you want to contribute, you would likely need to submit your
         | changes directly to the official repository without creating a
         | public fork. The exact mechanism for this would need to be
         | clarified by the project maintainers.
        
       | rollcat wrote:
       | Eh, here we go again, there's yet-another custom license, "Winamp
       | Collaborative License (WCL) Version 1.0". Quick skim:
       | 
       | > No Distribution of Modified Versions: You may not distribute
       | modified versions of the software, whether in source or binary
       | form.
       | 
       | > No Forking: You may not create, maintain, or distribute a
       | forked version of the software.
       | 
       | It's basically "look but do not touch". I don't see why this was
       | necessary for something that's basically abandonware by now, and
       | is mostly of historical interest.
        
         | jjordan wrote:
         | Lawyers.
        
       | qrush wrote:
       | This really whips the llama's ass
        
       | eminence32 wrote:
       | Open sourcing is always good, because maybe you can learn some
       | things by reading it. Also, Winamp Legacy is a fairly important
       | piece of software, so having an archive of its source is a great
       | thing.
       | 
       | But the restrictions on the source are interesting. To quote the
       | license file:                   * No Distribution of Modified
       | Versions: You may not distribute modified versions of the
       | software, whether in source or binary form.         * No Forking:
       | You may not create, maintain, or distribute a forked version of
       | the software.         * Official Distribution: Only the
       | maintainers of the official repository are allowed to distribute
       | the software and its modifications.
       | 
       | I'm guessing the "No Forking" clause means I can't release my own
       | media player based on this source code, but the language is
       | curious because they explicitly welcome contributions and for a
       | project hosted on Github the standard way to do that is to "fork"
       | the project into your own account.
        
         | proto-n wrote:
         | I'm not sure forking the repo would create a forked version of
         | the 'software' if the fork's sole purpose is to develop a pull
         | request. But I guess it's somewhat ambiguous langauge, and
         | better safe then sorry when it comes to lawyers (which I'm
         | not).
        
           | eminence32 wrote:
           | I agree; your interpretation is reasonable and plausible. But
           | it's disappointing to have this ambiguously, since the
           | license file has a whole section for "Definitions" and yet it
           | fails to define what "forking" means in this context.
        
           | mikepurvis wrote:
           | Presumably the prohibition is around creating a forked
           | _release_ , with the language being intentionally a bit vague
           | to cover their bases. Unfortunate that that's how these
           | things are, though.
        
             | netsharc wrote:
             | Interestingly the first line says, even distributing a
             | modified version in source form is not allowed... so a
             | GitHub fork with a tiny modification already violates this
             | line.
        
               | derefr wrote:
               | In a very specific technical sense, it could be argued
               | that it doesn't -- the data for GitHub forks (i.e. their
               | branches and the commits of such) is actually stored
               | _within the base repo forked from_.
               | 
               | In other words, by forking something on Github, _you 're_
               | not distributing anything; rather, _the original org_ is
               | now distributing an additional thing you made -- your
               | fork branch[es].
               | 
               | This is the source of many confusing things about the
               | security of GH forks; and the source of some recent GH
               | vulnerabilities.
               | 
               | Also, if you're curious, this isn't a meaningless
               | "implementation-level distinction", as it has semantic
               | implications for repo management: it means that the
               | branch attached to a PR coming from a fork repo
               | _continues to exist in the base repo_ , even if the fork
               | repo that that branch originated from gets deleted.
               | Because that branch was _always_ "in" the base repo to
               | begin with; the PR just changed the branch's GH ACLs to
               | make it accessible to the owners of the base repo.
               | 
               | (Really, the "fork repo" itself is an illusion -- it's
               | like a SQL view. There's only the base repo, which
               | contains both regular branches, and user-fork-namespaced
               | branches. This is in part why forks can't be private;
               | they're just a view of resources in another repo, already
               | security-controlled by that other repo; so they can't
               | have their own additional security logic acting on those
               | same resources!)
        
               | mikepurvis wrote:
               | This implementation choice has always felt a bit odd to
               | me, almost like premature optimization. Is there a reason
               | to have done it this way other than storage
               | deduplication? Since git is already a content-addressed
               | store anyway, how hard would it have been to have some
               | kind of abstraction below the repo layer that would
               | provide the same deduplication?
               | 
               | At this point there's obviously huge inertia in Github's
               | early architectural decisions, but if you were building
               | Github today, would it still make sense to go this route?
        
               | thomastjeffery wrote:
               | GitHub's fork feature works outside of git itself. It
               | does not utilize the .git directory, and therefore does
               | not utilize git's deduplication.
               | 
               |  _EDIT_ : Oh, I see what you mean. It would definitely be
               | interesting to solve this namespace conflict problem from
               | inside git. I wonder how many times meta-branches (or
               | something similar) have been advocated for.
        
           | aidenn0 wrote:
           | You're not allowed to "distribute" a fork, even in source
           | form. Posting something on Github certainly smells a lot like
           | distributing it.
        
         | lucideer wrote:
         | Yeah the license self-refers as "copyleft" (an unregulated term
         | afaik), and they have been very careful to avoid usage of the
         | term "open source" rather preferring to say things like "the
         | source is open".
         | 
         | Regulated or not the use of "copyleft" still seems deliberately
         | misleading to me - I don't think the restrictions you've listed
         | are in line with the intent of the copyleft movement.
        
           | kevin_thibedeau wrote:
           | Copyleft just means you lose license privileges and revert to
           | unlicensed copyright rules when violating its terms. There's
           | no reason you can't use that principle in a more restrictive
           | way than GPL.
        
             | deathanatos wrote:
             | That's not at all what copyleft means.
             | 
             | https://www.gnu.org/licenses/copyleft.en.html
        
               | kevin_thibedeau wrote:
               | That's the FSFs spin. Ultimately GPL is a promise not to
               | pursue an entity for copyright violation without the need
               | for a signed contract. That promise is revoked when you
               | disobey the copyleft.
        
               | lucideer wrote:
               | > _That 's the FSFs spin_
               | 
               | This implies your take on copyleft is an adversarial one,
               | in which case implying your definition is canonical is
               | disingenuous.
        
             | lucideer wrote:
             | While I did make the point that "copyleft" is not a
             | protected term & therefore can have many definitions, I've
             | never heard your definition & it's certainly not the widely
             | accepted one.
        
           | deathanatos wrote:
           | While "copyleft" is just a word like any other word, and
           | subject to the same descriptivist drift as any other, in this
           | case it is a specific word coined by a specific org, with a
           | pretty specific definition. One that this license does not
           | meet.
        
             | wormius wrote:
             | Frankly, copyleft is MORE permissive than generic bullshit
             | weasely term "open source" (thanks to corp-friendly ESR).
             | The fact they try to avoid using "open source" but
             | willingly use the more "free as in freedom" word "copyleft"
             | is a bit distressing.
             | 
             | I'm tired of this whole "shared source" movement, it's
             | disingenuous, and ruins the spirit of actual open source
             | (let alone "copyleft").
             | 
             | Boo on Winamp. Shame. I'm still using 5.666 until I die. I
             | won't use their newer stuff, because it's clear they're not
             | doing it with love but just trying to find another captive
             | market of nostalgia nerds.
        
         | bityard wrote:
         | > No Forking
         | 
         | Amusing; there are already 6 forks on GitHub as of this
         | writing.
        
           | edm0nd wrote:
           | Now 52 forks on GitHub. Thug life.
        
             | flykespice wrote:
             | 72 now
             | 
             | This is like a park having a sign on the corner telling you
             | to not step on the grass because it is privately owned but
             | people go and make picnic there anyway
        
         | xx_ns wrote:
         | This seems to go against GitHub's own ToS[1]:
         | 
         | > By setting your repositories to be viewed publicly, you agree
         | to allow others to view and "fork" your repositories (this
         | means that others may make their own copies of Content from
         | your repositories in repositories they control).
         | 
         | [1] https://docs.github.com/en/site-policy/github-
         | terms/github-t...
        
           | elashri wrote:
           | It is interesting that in a hypothetical scenario if someone
           | did fork it and then thes goes to court. Which licence would
           | take precedence here?
        
             | shiandow wrote:
             | Seems to me that it's up to you which license you use, so
             | if one grants the right to fork then there's nothing Winamp
             | could do to prevent that.
             | 
             | At best they could invalidate the one license they control,
             | but even that seems iffy
        
             | otteromkram wrote:
             | > Which licence would take precedence here?
             | 
             | Whichever one runs up the attorney's bill the highest.
        
             | favorited wrote:
             | > Which licence would take precedence here?
             | 
             | There is only 1 license, and it is issued by the WinAmp
             | copyright holders. No additional license is created by
             | hosting a repository on GitHub. The only (extremely
             | theoretical) issue would be between GitHub and the WinAmp
             | folks, if GH believed that WinAmp is violating its TOS.
        
           | squarefoot wrote:
           | Interesting to see how would this play out in case of a
           | lawsuit against an user who doesn't honor their license
           | because it clashes with GH one. Anyway, that code has already
           | been swallowed by some AI that will reorganize it, split in
           | functional blocks and regurgitate it elsewhere someday, so
           | too late for them to complain.
        
             | kube-system wrote:
             | The GitHub ToS is not a software license. It is the terms
             | for using the GitHub service. The penalty for breaking it
             | is that your GitHub services might be terminated, not that
             | they can somehow relicense your software.
        
               | trehalose wrote:
               | This part of the ToS explicitly does grant such a license
               | to other GitHub users.
               | 
               | > If you set your pages and repositories to be viewed
               | publicly, you grant each User of GitHub a nonexclusive,
               | worldwide license to use, display, and perform Your
               | Content through the GitHub Service and to reproduce Your
               | Content solely on GitHub as permitted through GitHub's
               | functionality (for example, through forking).
        
               | efilife wrote:
               | It would seem that Github's TOS is superior to their
               | license. They could have chosen other way to host their
               | code
        
               | IgorPartola wrote:
               | As written, this says that you can fork a repo but can't
               | then clone it and work on it on your own machine. Isn't
               | software licensing fun?
        
               | skeaker wrote:
               | Interesting. I guess you could just stick to the Github
               | web editor to stay compliant? Really a terrible way to go
               | about things though
        
               | IgorPartola wrote:
               | You also can't run the code.
        
               | bee_rider wrote:
               | Hmm, it says not to distribute the source or the binary.
               | What about WASM or LLVM IR?
        
               | IgorPartola wrote:
               | If GH provides they capability I suppose.
        
               | trehalose wrote:
               | I was thinking that. The language seems not quite clear,
               | at least to a non-lawyer like me:
               | 
               | > you grant each User of GitHub a nonexclusive, worldwide
               | license to use, display, and perform Your Content through
               | the GitHub Service and to reproduce Your Content solely
               | on GitHub as permitted through GitHub's functionality
               | (for example, through forking)
               | 
               | So, on GitHub, we can "use", "perform", and "reproduce".
               | Does editing/modifying fall under any of those verbs?
        
               | SixtyHurtz wrote:
               | Cloning is part of GitHub's functionality, so therefore
               | we can clone it but can only commit those changes back to
               | GH. We are permitted to do anything that is part of GH's
               | functionality.
        
           | thomastjeffery wrote:
           | IANAL...
           | 
           | By creating an account on GitHub, you agree to this license.
           | That seems like a pretty strong precedent for precedence.
        
           | avodonosov wrote:
           | Different meaning of "forking".
           | 
           | "modified/derived version" vs "copy"
        
           | Etheryte wrote:
           | There is no conflict here. The quote from Github's ToS means
           | you allow others to copy the source code you've made public,
           | it cannot and does not give you any rights regarding what you
           | do with the code beyond that. Points one and two of the
           | Winamp license quote are essentially one and the same, just
           | worded in a different way for clarity.
        
             | SixtyHurtz wrote:
             | The GitHub ToS states:
             | 
             | > If you set your pages and repositories to be viewed
             | publicly, you grant each User of GitHub a nonexclusive,
             | worldwide license to use, display, and perform Your Content
             | through the GitHub Service and to reproduce Your Content
             | solely on GitHub as permitted through GitHub's
             | functionality (for example, through forking). You may grant
             | further rights if you adopt a license. If you are uploading
             | Content you did not create or own, you are responsible for
             | ensuring that the Content you upload is licensed under
             | terms that grant these permissions to other GitHub Users.
             | 
             | It would be weird to have a license that lets me create a
             | fork in my own repo, but doesn't permit me to distribute
             | it. If I create a fork of a public repo on GH, I require a
             | license to distribute it because a public repo can be
             | forked or downloaded by anyone. I can't them doing doing
             | it. Therefore permission to further distribute is required
             | for participation on GH.
        
               | unilynx wrote:
               | > If I create a fork of a public repo on GH, I require a
               | license to distribute it because a public repo can be
               | forked or downloaded by anyone
               | 
               | Why?
               | 
               | The users that clone or fork your fork of the original
               | repository are covered by the original repository's
               | "license" GitHub grants itself, not yours.
        
               | SixtyHurtz wrote:
               | Because if I didn't have a license then that would mean I
               | would be liable for infringement every time someone
               | downloaded it from GH. That's exactly why GH has the TOS
               | that it has - so that nobody can be sued for just using
               | GH when a rights holder uploads their own work to a
               | public GH repo.
        
           | your_drunk_dad wrote:
           | Time to report it to GH then.
        
           | slightwinder wrote:
           | I guess they mean with "fork" a rebranded or self-compiled
           | version. So unmodified source code, but different logo or
           | name. Or compiled with different settings or for an
           | unsupported platform. Something along that line. But calling
           | this fork, after they are already forbidding modifications in
           | point 1 is really strange phrasing.
        
           | mrgoldenbrown wrote:
           | There are two distinct meanings of fork and you are
           | conflating them I think. I suspect winamp's license is using
           | the sense of the (pre GitHub) idea of creating a distinct
           | version of a project maintained by a different group, and the
           | GitHub ToS specifically refers to forking within the GitHub
           | platform.
        
             | thomastjeffery wrote:
             | What is the other meaning of fork?
             | 
             | When you click "fork this repo" in GitHub, that clones the
             | repository, and re-publishes it under your username.
             | 
             | When you clone a repo to your system privately, that does
             | not involve publishing. If this is their intended meaning
             | of "fork", then this license must explicitly disallow
             | cloning the repo!
        
               | TheCraiggers wrote:
               | > What is the other meaning of fork?
               | 
               | The older, still in use today meaning is what happened
               | when Oracle bought MySQL and ruined it. People forked it
               | and now we have MariaDB. Basically, it means a fork in
               | the code base and now there are two separate projects.
        
               | simoncion wrote:
               | Yes.
               | 
               | Until Github came along, "Creating a copy of software for
               | your own personal use" had never been widely-accepted
               | definition of the word "fork" in the context of software
               | development. Forking a project has always involved
               | independent publication and maintenance of said project.
        
               | bee_rider wrote:
               | The typical way of copying a project for your own
               | personal use on GitHub involves publishing that copy on
               | GitHub. So, it is a real fork--maybe not a _well
               | maintained_ one, or one that the author is particularly
               | excited about, though!
        
               | thomastjeffery wrote:
               | OK, but that's still not different.
               | 
               | When you fork a project on GitHub, that literally creates
               | a parallel working history, and publishes it under your
               | username. That's what GitHub means by "fork".
               | 
               | So what's the _other_ definition?
        
               | AshamedCaptain wrote:
               | Many years ago I would have called that "mirroring",
               | which is definitely not forking.
        
               | thomastjeffery wrote:
               | OK, but a mirror only exists to share an exact (hopefully
               | up-to-date) copy of the repo. So we are just moving the
               | goalpost from the moment you create the fork to the
               | moment you edit it. Did that really change anything? I
               | don't think so.
        
               | tnh wrote:
               | You can Zeno's-paradox-away the distinction between a
               | bathtub and a kitchen sink, but that doesn't make them
               | the same thing.
               | 
               | This sort of argument change how people understand words,
               | and it also doesn't change how lawyers interpret laws
               | nearly as often as people think. It's still fun, though!
        
               | homebrewer wrote:
               | > Oracle bought MySQL and ruined it
               | 
               | By "ruined" you must mean "solved decades-long issues and
               | turned it into a real database", or we're talking about
               | two different projects.
               | 
               | https://dev.mysql.com/blog-archive/the-complete-list-of-
               | new-...
               | 
               | https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/8.4/en/mysql-
               | nutshell.html
               | 
               | Do note that the largest users (like GitHub and Facebook)
               | still use the original MySQL, and AFAIK have no plans to
               | abandon it.
        
               | kjhcvkek77 wrote:
               | In particular I think you may press the fork button on
               | the github repo as per github rules. However, you are not
               | allowed to make any commits to this new repo.
        
             | maxerickson wrote:
             | Any public GitHub fork is being distributed.
        
               | efilife wrote:
               | You can't have a private Github fork
        
               | bdcravens wrote:
               | Yes you can; it's set at the organization level
               | 
               | https://docs.github.com/en/organizations/managing-
               | organizati...
        
               | zorgmonkey wrote:
               | You can, but only private forks of a private repo are
               | allowed. Private forks of public repos are not allowed by
               | design (modulo some weird bugs that were discussed on a
               | past post).
        
               | efilife wrote:
               | I stand corrected
        
               | swinglock wrote:
               | Is forking a well defined term? Doubt it will hold up in
               | court.
        
               | maxerickson wrote:
               | They don't give permission, so the lack of definition
               | doesn't really matter.
               | 
               | If they were trying to grant a narrow permission and then
               | enjoin someone they thought was outside of their
               | definition, it would matter (But they just aren't giving
               | permission to distribute modified versions).
        
               | willcipriano wrote:
               | Anything the owners of the Winamp code can find in order
               | to take legal action on will be distributed. Rule 2 (and
               | 3) is always superfluous in practice.
        
             | krick wrote:
             | Let's say you are hallucinating "two distinct meanings of
             | fork". Unless you are referring to tableware, a fork is a
             | fork, it's any distribution of a software, based on the
             | software in question. The fact that most forks on GitHub
             | serve only operational purpose, nobody actively maintains
             | them and nobody normally uses them instead of the parent
             | project, doesn't change what they are: a distributions for
             | (potentially, and unless PR is accepted, actually) distinct
             | software projects, based on a project they are forked from.
             | You are just so used to the button and the process, you
             | lost track of what the label on that button actually means,
             | why it's called "a fork". And the answer is, well, because
             | it's a fork. In no way it is different from starting a
             | MariaDB project. As soon as you press that button, you are
             | distributing your own software, based on that parent
             | software. If the parent project disappears, or moves on, or
             | never accepts your PR, which somebody really likes, other
             | people can (and probably will) use your fork in a way that
             | isn't any different than, well, any larger and "more
             | obvious" fork.
             | 
             | So, essentially, winamp license means nothing. They already
             | forfeited their right to deny you forking by posting it on
             | GitHub.
        
               | beepbooptheory wrote:
               | Just an aside, but really hope "maybe you're
               | hallucinating..." doesn't catch on in human to human
               | speech.. Its great for the models, kinda too flattening
               | for real discourse.
        
               | 486sx33 wrote:
               | "...maybe you're hallucinating..." and "...I must be
               | hallucinating..." Have been part of human to human
               | communication since the 60s, when people in fact could
               | very seriously have been. It continued on for acid
               | flashbacks and other surreal moments
        
               | beepbooptheory wrote:
               | Thats certainly true, and at least in philosophy similar
               | discourses go back much farther than that!
               | 
               | But the senses are importantly different right? In the
               | former, we are talking about clearly psychological
               | assertions, in the form of skepticism, within an
               | otherwise shared world.
               | 
               | Here it is clearly rhetorical though, right? Talking to
               | GP as if they were LLM. Using it for a not-so-shorthand
               | for "I believe you to be wrong about this".
               | 
               | Its really not a big deal. It's just interesting, I
               | guess, how much the tools tend to master us and change us
               | while we lie to ourselves that its the other way around.
               | 
               | Also, hadn't heard "acid flashbacks" in a long time..
               | Still waiting for mine!
        
               | EchoReflection wrote:
               | I've used LSD a few times, but to my knowledge never had
               | any "acid flashbacks". Maybe that's for the best... but
               | seems like it might be fun if one was in a safe
               | environment.
        
               | Delk wrote:
               | "Maybe you're hallucinating", let alone "let's say you're
               | hallucinating", is a really weird take on someone
               | thinking of a reasonable semantic distinction even if you
               | disagree about its existence or relevance.
               | 
               | Perhaps you can say that to a friend as banter or in a
               | tongue-in-cheek way, similarly to how you might say "I
               | must be hallucinating" about yourself. But as an argument
               | in a discussion with a stranger, it seems rather
               | dismissive and inappropriate.
               | 
               | And it does reek a bit like something stolen from LLM
               | terminology.
        
             | neycoda wrote:
             | A fork is a copy of a repo at a certain version. A copy of
             | the files of the repo without the .git folder is
             | effectively a fork. Either way, their terms contradict what
             | GitHub allows.
        
           | rogerdpack wrote:
           | You can fork it but not commit to it? LOL
        
         | revscat wrote:
         | The language is pretty clear to me. I understand what you're
         | saying, and suspect that this is an honest oversight on their
         | part, but as it currently reads forks are prohibited.
         | 
         | They may have meant something else, but what it says _now_ is
         | "no forking."
        
           | CrankyBear wrote:
           | They know exactly what they're doing. They're open-washing
           | the program to get attention. It worked. As I write this,
           | it's the number one YComb story. But, it's in no way, shape,
           | or form open source.
        
             | bmacho wrote:
             | I am all for reverse Hanlon[0]: don't assume incompetence
             | when people profit from something. I think however that
             | "source available" is a legit business model, and not just
             | a HN hack. They made their source code available after all.
             | Although it isn't compatible with github, as the others
             | pointed it out.
             | 
             | [0] : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon's_razor
        
             | hn_go_brrrrr wrote:
             | It's not "Open Source", to use the capitalized term the OSI
             | attempts to gatekeep. It fits most non-zealots' definition,
             | though.
        
               | trashburger wrote:
               | How is it zealous to prevent people from co-opting and
               | diluting the meaning, like you have done here? If
               | anything, companies are trying to misuse "open source"
               | for their source-available code.
        
             | derefr wrote:
             | Well, it's at least slightly more open than e.g.
             | Microsoft's source-available repositories, let alone leaked
             | proprietary source; as you do have the freedom to e.g.
             | _read_ the Winamp source code and then _ground-up
             | reimplement a Winamp-alike program_ , without their lawyers
             | coming after you. (Orgs like ReactOS don't let people
             | contribute if they've ever read code from a Microsoft
             | source-available repos, lest _ideas inspired by that code_
             | end up in the ReactOS codebase, and Microsoft sue them for
             | that.)
             | 
             | I'm not sure what to call a codebase that _only_ grants you
             | the (implicit) right to not be sued for reading the source
             | and then getting inspired by it, though.
        
               | nick238 wrote:
               | I thought reading closed-source code is a _very_ bad
               | idea, as if you wind up writing something similar, then
               | you 're possibly guilty of copyright infringement. If you
               | have one team look at the design, catalog the features,
               | and describe how it works in detail, then you can have
               | another team implement it, and you're on legally much
               | better ground (unless patents):
               | 
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean-room_design
        
               | badsectoracula wrote:
               | > I thought reading closed-source code is a very bad
               | idea, as if you wind up writing something similar, then
               | you're possibly guilty of copyright infringement.
               | 
               | The idea is to avoid accidentally copying code, though
               | TBH i think this is some sort of legend that comes from
               | decades ago and not really practical (nor, as the article
               | mentions, required by law). Writing something similar
               | alone won't make you guilty of anything, otherwise people
               | who worked as programmers wouldn't be able to work at a
               | different company on the same or similar field again
               | _ever_.
        
             | z3t4 wrote:
             | I think this is a great license as it allows you to
             | download the code, make modifications, create "pull
             | requests", etc, but you are not allowed to compete, or
             | distribute it with a virus baked in. That way the
             | maintainers have full control and don't have to worry about
             | hostile takeovers, or people making profits without
             | contributing.
        
         | grishka wrote:
         | It feels like they wanted to make sure that no one distributes
         | a modified "Winamp" that isn't built from the official sources,
         | which makes sense, but they went too restrictive on it. The
         | usual way to go about it is to say "if you want to maintain and
         | distribute your own fork of this product, you must change the
         | name and the logo to make sure it doesn't infringe on our
         | branding". Telegram does this for its client apps, for example.
        
           | simoncion wrote:
           | > ...but they went too restrictive on it.
           | 
           | I bet that they would disagree with you. This is an "all
           | rights reserved" "source available" license. Given the
           | redistribution restrictions, their assertion that it is a
           | "copyleft" license is clearly false.
        
         | panzi wrote:
         | Yeah, I wouldn't call that an open source license. It's
         | something like Microsoft's "shared source", as I
         | expected/feared.
        
         | sva_ wrote:
         | Seems like 37 madlads have already pushed the fork button.
        
         | InsomniacL wrote:
         | The person who set the license is also accepting PR's from
         | forks.
         | 
         | https://github.com/WinampDesktop/winamp/pull/7
        
           | greenavocado wrote:
           | The confusion and disorganization is hilarious
        
           | airstrike wrote:
           | IANAL but doesn't that basically show they are OK with forks?
        
             | imp0cat wrote:
             | There's already 229 of them, so we will see.
        
         | merb wrote:
         | Ianal but the license also prohibits fair use cases, which
         | probably might circumvent the granted license.
        
         | somat wrote:
         | It's not open source. however I like it. I wish closed source
         | licenses were more of a thing. as it is, our software tends to
         | fall under two two extremes very liberal open source. closed
         | build artifact only. with very little in the middle.
         | 
         | I think a "here is the copyrighted(with all that implies)
         | source for you to compile on your machine" software
         | distribution would be a great middle ground. but it is a thing
         | you normally only see on large screwball enterprise contracts.
         | because the normal practice of here is the compiled build
         | artifact really sucks when trying to trouble shoot why it is
         | not working on your machine.
        
         | sidewndr46 wrote:
         | This license prohibits maintenance. If the official copy had a
         | single bit that prevents it from compiling on your local
         | machine, you cannot make that change. Only the "maintainers of
         | the official repository" are permitted to do that.
        
         | bastardoperator wrote:
         | Looks like someone just removed 180K lines of plugin source
         | code from the repo too. Checkout from here:
         | 7ce05499ff0508f9eb06f7194407f676de7d72f4
        
         | KPGv2 wrote:
         | > but the language is curious because they explicitly welcome
         | contributions and for a project hosted on Github the standard
         | way to do that is to "fork" the project into your own account.
         | 
         | It's because techies instead of lawyers wrote it. The first and
         | second restrictions overlap anyway, as it says you can't
         | distribute a modified version in the first restriction, but
         | then can't distribute a forked version in the second
         | restriction. I'm not sure what the difference is, and courts
         | don't like redundancy and will often invent reasons to
         | interpret the phrases as meaning something different.
         | 
         | I got a $15 parking ticket recently and got it dismissed after
         | I contested the ticket on the basis that the way the city regs
         | were written, they used both "parking spot" and "parking area"
         | and thus "parking area" cannot be synonymous with "parking
         | spot," which altered the meaning of the reg they used to ticket
         | me.
        
           | bredren wrote:
           | Curious if you'd share the language you used in this
           | contention.
        
       | lucideer wrote:
       | "source code is open" implies "open source", and the License
       | refers to itself as a "copyleft" license, but it's a newly minted
       | license - IANAL does anyone know if this is open source or
       | another Elastic type situation?
        
         | justinclift wrote:
         | It's definitely not Open Source as it has pretty restrictive
         | terms. :(
        
       | gjvc wrote:
       | see also see https://winamp.com/player/legacy and
       | https://about.winamp.com/press/article/winamp-open-source-co...
        
         | bityard wrote:
         | The second link is a 404
        
           | mikestew wrote:
           | Probably this one:
           | 
           | https://winamp.com/press/winamp-open-source-code
        
           | gjvc wrote:
           | fixed
        
       | scblock wrote:
       | Source-available but certainly not open source.
       | 
       | "You are granted the right to view, access, and study the source
       | code of the software. You are granted the right to Modify the
       | software for private use only."
       | 
       | "No Distribution of Modified Versions: You may not distribute
       | modified versions of the software, whether in source or binary
       | form."
       | 
       | "No Forking: You may not create, maintain, or distribute a forked
       | version of the software."
        
         | dncornholio wrote:
         | Nobody said anything about open source
        
           | ryandrake wrote:
           | Yea this is just a case of a bad HN title. The source is
           | clearly not open, even if though it is released.
           | 
           | EDIT: looks like the title's been corrected!
        
             | blue_cadet_3 wrote:
             | They say the same thing in their blog post announcing it.
             | 
             | https://winamp.com/press/winamp-open-source-code
        
           | npteljes wrote:
           | Title is "Winamp Legacy player source code is now open". The
           | usage of the word "open" in conjunction "source code" alludes
           | to the long established "open source code" phrase, which
           | implies a set of licenses, and the associated open source
           | culture.
           | 
           | A better choice for the title would have been "Winamp Legacy
           | player source code is now available".
        
             | dncornholio wrote:
             | I agree but my statement still holds true. When something
             | doesn't explicitly say "Open Source", it's not Open Source.
             | This is a very old trick that i've learned decades ago..
        
               | RIMR wrote:
               | Well, the description in the Repo says this:
               | 
               | >its source code was opened to the community
               | 
               | I find it hard to believe that any serious person would
               | argue that "code that is open to the community" [?] "open
               | source code".
               | 
               | I think it's realistic to assume that the developers who
               | wrote the README, and the lawyers who wrote the license
               | didn't talk to each other much when making decisions
               | about how much freedom users were going to have with the
               | code.
        
               | thedoctor_o wrote:
               | They've worded it just as they intended imho (ignoring
               | the confusion over fork aspect) as it's how to ensure
               | that they're still in charge & to prevent anything
               | derivative as they really don't like that based on prior
               | experience with them.
               | 
               | It's also mostly about getting that lovely free dev work
               | because with oh so many capable devs out there they're
               | just going to be clamouring to want to give up anything
               | where possible to be able to work on this along with
               | trying to appear to be doing good. Even though they've
               | halted development at least 3 times I'm aware off &
               | ditched a number of dev teams under their 11yr tenure of
               | ownership.
        
           | bityard wrote:
           | The HN headline did
        
           | blue_cadet_3 wrote:
           | Their official blog post does
           | 
           | https://winamp.com/press/winamp-open-source-code
        
             | dncornholio wrote:
             | It does not. It open-source only in it's URL which has no
             | semantic value if you read the article.
        
               | deathanatos wrote:
               | _And_ the license itself states,
               | 
               | > _The [license] is a free, copyleft license_
               | 
               | And then proceeds to not be a free, copyleft license.
               | 
               | This pretty clearly seems like they're trying to squat on
               | the terms "copyleft" "free software" and "open source"
               | while weasel-wording their way out of it -- "open
               | washing", as someone else in the comments called it,
               | seems to fit. This smacks of someone who wants to _use_
               | the words, and to have you feel like they 've used the
               | words, but without having to actually do the things the
               | words would mean, spoken genuinely.
        
               | RIMR wrote:
               | Contract law doesn't really allow for this kind of
               | behavior. If you say over and over again that your
               | software is open source and the community is free to
               | develop with it as they please, and then write your
               | license to say the opposite, you're going to have a hard
               | time enforcing the license given that you're actively
               | telling people to violate the terms in your press
               | release.
        
               | airhangerf15 wrote:
               | It's still misleading and they're obviously trying to
               | imply marketing value that doesn't exist.
        
         | Dalewyn wrote:
         | If I can read the code, it's open source.
         | 
         | What you're complaining about is _free_ source code, which this
         | probably is not.
        
       | papruapap wrote:
       | man, at first glance doesnt look like a lot of work to add
       | support to linux.
        
         | apricot wrote:
         | Does Linux really need another media player?
        
           | ginko wrote:
           | It certainly needs Winamp.
        
           | gdelfino01 wrote:
           | I recently wend through the process of selecting a MP3 player
           | software for my Linux laptop and after testing many settled
           | on the Strawberry player. It is actually very good:
           | https://www.strawberrymusicplayer.org/
        
         | racked wrote:
         | Care to elaborate on how you can see that? Eager to learn
        
       | aflukasz wrote:
       | "We take DirectX 9 SDK (June 2010) from Microsoft, modify it and
       | pack to archive. Run unpack_microsoft_directx_sdk_2010.cmd to
       | unpack it."
       | 
       | Nice. Wonder how long will this version work?
        
         | chrsw wrote:
         | I was surprised you're allowed to this. But I also haven't read
         | the license.
        
         | toast0 wrote:
         | Windows executables mostly work forever. Especially if they
         | were widely distributed.
         | 
         | If Winamp is broken on Windows N+1, it's Windows that is
         | broken. If Winamp is broken on Wine, it's Wine that is broken.
        
           | AshamedCaptain wrote:
           | May have been true 20 years ago. But these days it is not
           | hard to find a game which works in Wine but not Windows. And
           | DirectX is often the reason.
        
             | Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
             | Yup.
             | 
             | I have Master of Orion 2, which came out when DirectX was
             | in version 1.0. It technically executes in Windows 10, but
             | the graphics are glitchy.
             | 
             | When they re-released it on Steam along with the MoO
             | remake, they actually packaged the DOS version with DOSBox
             | rather than release the Windows version.
        
             | babypuncher wrote:
             | I think this is largely only true with Windows games from
             | the '90s using still-nascent 3D apis. Many of these games
             | were broken on modern versions of Windows by the time Vista
             | came out.
             | 
             | Once you get to the early '00s, you can still find a lot of
             | games that are broken, but the culprit is usually changes
             | in hardware and driver behavior rather than Windows itself.
        
               | AshamedCaptain wrote:
               | No, not really. Even if you ignore DRM which practically
               | makes ALL games from the XP-Vista era unplayable (which I
               | ignore since that is often not better in Wine), just
               | search around for the amount of workarounds that are
               | required even when you apply these patches.
        
               | babypuncher wrote:
               | I wasn't saying that fewer games from the '00s require
               | fixes, I said that the things that are broken in them are
               | more often caused by factors other than Windows itself.
               | The most common compatibility issues I see with games
               | from this era are caused by changes made to GPUs and/or
               | their accompanying drivers.
               | 
               | Take for example the first two Splinter Cell games.
               | Certain shadows on them do not render on modern GPUs. The
               | root cause isn't any changes Microsoft made to DirectX or
               | Windows, but Nvidia deprecating a feature they relied on
               | in their GPUs and their drivers not providing any kind of
               | fallback. If you play these games on Windows XP with
               | hardware from 2003, they run fine. But if you play them
               | on Windows XP with hardware from 2007, they do not.
               | 
               | Wine fixes a lot of these games because it is already
               | providing its own translation layer for graphics calls,
               | and any GPU vendor-specific DirectX stuff gets translated
               | into hardware-agnostic Vulkan. These same games are often
               | easy to fix on Windows using DXVK (Wine's DirectX
               | translation layer), or wrappers designed for late '90s
               | and '00s games like dgvoodoo2.
               | 
               | The big elephant in the room is DRM, with popular
               | solutions like StarForce being deliberately broken by
               | Microsoft.
        
       | klaussilveira wrote:
       | I can't comprehend such a restrictive license on abandonware. And
       | from the the looks of it, not very well written abandonware.
        
         | npteljes wrote:
         | I was a huge fan of Winamp back in the day, but the way they
         | handled the software completely soured me towards it. Winamp 3
         | was a clusterfuck, Winamp 5 was fine but felt like bloat, and
         | then it was passed around like a hot potato, then abandoned on
         | and off, and then the open sourcing feels like it was also
         | around for quite some time. And now it's not even that, just a
         | meager source-available. I know they don't owe me anything, but
         | I feel disappointed.
        
           | jb1991 wrote:
           | You have to place some of the blame for latter Winamp
           | versions on AOL who purchased Winamp from Frankel's team and
           | messed with it so much he eventually resigned.
        
           | deciplex wrote:
           | One of the earlier examples of enshittification, before the
           | process had been smoothed out and best practices established.
        
       | ChrisArchitect wrote:
       | Further discussion about this "opening up" back in May:
       | 
       |  _Winamp has announced that it is "opening up" its source code_
       | 
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40383029
        
       | abtinf wrote:
       | They are either going to have to submit a ton of DMCA requests to
       | GitHub and get their own repo taken down by GitHub, or they will
       | be at risk of losing their copyright and will take it off GitHub
       | themselves.
       | 
       | Forking is a fundamental feature of GitHub. Forking policy may
       | only be set on private repos, but this is a public repo. The
       | license doesn't permit forking. There are already 6 forks.
       | 
       | Typically, copyright is not lost through selective enforcement
       | (unlike trademark), but in this case the rights holder is making
       | license violations both trivial and has full access to the list
       | of violators. I suspect the courts will laugh them out of the
       | room unless they vigorously defend their rights.
       | 
       | In that case, I certainly wouldn't want to deal with it if I was
       | GitHub. It is a terrible user experience, where a user clicking
       | one of the most popular buttons on the platform suddenly becomes
       | a legal problem.
        
         | thomastjeffery wrote:
         | > In that case, I certainly wouldn't want to deal with it if I
         | was GitHub. It is a terrible user experience, where a user
         | clicking one of the most popular buttons on the platform
         | suddenly becomes a legal problem.
         | 
         | As others have mentioned, GitHub has already covered that with
         | their ToS. All public repos may be forked.
        
       | abetusk wrote:
       | A perversion of the term "open". The licensing terms do not allow
       | redistribution or resale, which is a condition of "open source"
       | (as it's commonly accepted).
       | 
       | Note how the title nor the repository says "open source". I would
       | have called this source available, not that "the source is now
       | open".
        
         | simoncion wrote:
         | The license claims that it's a copyleft license... but it
         | cannot be one with the distribution restrictions demanded by
         | the license.
         | 
         | I hope that they either remove the claim that it is a copyleft
         | license, or relax the distribution restrictions to something
         | like "If you distribute modified versions of this Program, you
         | may not call the modified versions Winamp.".
        
           | abetusk wrote:
           | I completely missed that.
           | 
           | The license file also says that it's "free" and ensures that
           | we have the "freedom to use it":
           | 
           | """ The Winamp Collaborative License is a free, copyleft
           | license for software and other kinds of works. It is designed
           | to ensure that you have the freedom to use, Modify, and study
           | the software, but with certain restrictions on the
           | distribution of modifications to maintain the integrity and
           | collaboration of the project. """
           | 
           | Looks like there's already pushback in the issues section [1]
           | [2].
           | 
           | [0] https://github.com/WinampDesktop/winamp/blob/community/LI
           | CEN...
           | 
           | [1] https://github.com/WinampDesktop/winamp/issues/16
           | 
           | [2] https://github.com/WinampDesktop/winamp/issues/6
        
       | thefourthchime wrote:
       | I have a little history with Winamp. I wrote a popular plugin for
       | it back in the day.
       | 
       | This is the source code for Winamp 3, which is a total rewrite of
       | winamp 2 in C++. In my opinion, it was overcomplicated and over-
       | architected. The original source code by Justin Frankel in C.
        
         | jb1991 wrote:
         | Is Frankel's original code anywhere? I do recall him saying
         | once that he preferred C++ over C but used C++ as simply C with
         | classes. Frankel is a hero of mine.
        
           | mihaitodor wrote:
           | I think there was a copy of it buried somewhere in the
           | comments here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29379346
        
         | thedoctor_o wrote:
         | What has been "provided" is the stripped down 5.666 source
         | bundle given to radionomy when sold on from AOL & the end
         | result of their iterations up to the 5.9.2 release. So it's
         | made up of the however many years of the 1.x -> 2.x -> 5.x
         | development process & however many different people hacked upon
         | it in that time (aka a mess).
         | 
         | Yes there's a large part of winamp3 in there which was already
         | long since open sourced properly in the aol era (unlike this
         | heavily restricted licensing terms) but from what I remember
         | when making the code deliverable the dedicated winamp3
         | repository was never provided (assuming my memory from 11yrs
         | ago is still good).
         | 
         | -dro
        
       | zerkten wrote:
       | Is there an official announcement or something else that
       | accompanied this? I don't know the current state of their
       | organization and the chain of ownership for the code.
        
       | factorialboy wrote:
       | F yeahhhhh ... the player that never crashed, even if Windows OS
       | crashed all around it
       | 
       | This is more significant (to me) than the iPhone 16 launch, I'll
       | pay for people who can port this to Linux (Gnome) and Mac OS.
        
         | mdaniel wrote:
         | Barring the ton of licensing stupidity ongoing (maybe they'll
         | fix it, who knows), as far as I know you could actually do that
         | by forking the repo and then connecting your fork to
         | bountysource. Open an issue for each target OS, set the
         | amounts, and then publicize that fact on as many social media
         | channels as you have access to
         | 
         | However, I wanted to draw your attention to "are you asking the
         | right question" because there's a _very real_ chance that the
         | things you actually love about Winamp would not carry over to
         | any such ports, since it 's not "recompile and get the Winamp
         | on Windows experience" - they would be Gnome and macOS apps,
         | behaving similar to other such apps
        
           | elpocko wrote:
           | Bountysource is long dead.
        
       | ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
       | One of the best pieces of software ever made. Will devour its
       | code. Hopefully new startups like Slack can learn from it too.
        
       | opan wrote:
       | Not open source, not free software. Restrictions in license found
       | here for those curious:
       | 
       | https://github.com/WinampDesktop/winamp/blob/community/LICEN...
        
       | f1shy wrote:
       | I was expecting to see some comment about the quality of the
       | code. How clean (or not) it is.
       | 
       | I was personaly hopping a much more ordered and clean codebase.
        
       | mihaitodor wrote:
       | Wish they bothered to preserve the commit history... Can't
       | imagine anything sensitive in there that they couldn't share.
        
         | thedoctor_o wrote:
         | That'd mean they'd have to do more work then necessary &
         | there'd at most only ever be what went back to the stripped
         | down 5.666 code deliverable they got after it was sold on from
         | AOL at the start of 2014 (was looked into but determined not
         | worth the hassle when that was being sorted out at the time).
         | 
         | -dro
        
           | mihaitodor wrote:
           | I see... Fair enough. Thanks for the background!
        
       | JosephRedfern wrote:
       | There is some pretty creative swearing throughout this codebase -
       | very entertaining!
        
         | anordal wrote:
         | I thought so, but that's what I came to the comment section to
         | know ;-)
        
       | Linkd wrote:
       | Are there any tools that can receive an entire code base like
       | this, then analyze and answer questions about the code,
       | structure, functionality?
        
         | wppick wrote:
         | Ya the one between your ears. Kidding! Maybe Sourcegraph Cody
         | https://sourcegraph.com/cody, or possibly Github copilot. I
         | think Cody might handle the multiple files better, and allows
         | you to pick from multiple models.
        
         | watt wrote:
         | apparently folks are making tools to do this:
         | https://martinfowler.com/articles/legacy-modernization-gen-a...
        
         | ing33k wrote:
         | Cursor can do it.
        
       | 29athrowaway wrote:
       | There is an open source clone of Winamp called XMMS.
       | 
       | Sonique and Foobar2000 were also venerable players of that era.
        
         | the__alchemist wrote:
         | I still use Foobar. Ideal/timeless software.
        
         | gapan wrote:
         | Yep, I still use XMMS.
         | 
         | There is also qmmp[1] for a Qt based player. And I think
         | Audacious[2] still has a classic winamp interface, although
         | it's not the default anymore.
         | 
         | [1] https://qmmp.ylsoftware.com/
         | 
         | [2] https://audacious-media-player.org/
        
       | davidpfarrell wrote:
       | The best thing we can do for the future of the project is to NOT
       | engage with the project at this time ... Even just cloning the
       | project into your private workspace to review / compile is giving
       | more engagement than their current licensing stance warrants.
       | 
       | I'll check again when an HN post comes out stating they've
       | changed their licensing stance - Until then, closing this tab and
       | forgetting about it ...
        
         | lacedeconstruct wrote:
         | The author justin frankel (also wrote reaper the DAW absolute
         | legend) had this to say about it
         | 
         | > Question: Now that WinAMP's source has been officially
         | released, do you have any desire to hack new badass features
         | in?
         | 
         |  _Answer: If I did have any desire, it would be extinguished by
         | the license terms, lol. The terms are completely absurd in the
         | way they are written, e.g. "You may not create, maintain, or
         | distribute a forked version of the software." So arguably
         | making any changes would be considered "creating a forked
         | version." But even taking these terms as they are likely
         | intended (which is slightly more permissive than how they are
         | written), they are terrible. No thank you._
        
       | johnchristopher wrote:
       | Which winamp is it ? Version 2 ? Version 3 with the wasabi (?)
       | engine ? Or version 5 ?
        
         | aeyes wrote:
         | 5.9.2
         | 
         | https://github.com/WinampDesktop/winamp/blob/community/Src/W...
        
       | interestica wrote:
       | It's 2024. Was Winamp2 + plugin system just peak audio playback
       | software?
        
         | Suppafly wrote:
         | >Was Winamp2 + plugin system just peak audio playback software?
         | 
         | Yes. You can tell it was peak too because later versions got
         | worse instead of better.
        
       | nicholashead wrote:
       | I remember hanging out in #mpeg3 on EFNet many many years ago and
       | becoming an acquaintance of Justin Frankel while he was working
       | on this. I had made a skin and even a few tray icons for him to
       | use in the app, and some of them are in here. I can't remember
       | 100% which ones were mine, but the punchlabel one definitely was.
       | My name is in the credits too:
       | https://github.com/WinampDesktop/winamp/blob/0695744fd658c42...
        
       | thrashwerk wrote:
       | What a load of BS. This is just a poor attempt at open-source-
       | washing.
       | 
       | They rolled their own license but couldn't be bothered to read
       | GitHub's ToS.
       | 
       | "collaborative" license, "opened to the community", "enabling the
       | entire community to participate in its development", "global
       | collaboration" but you have to grant them perpetual rights and
       | waive your own, you're not even allowed to fork lol.
       | 
       | Seems like they're only looking for unpaid workers.
        
       | sunshadow wrote:
       | According to the license, this repo is not that different than me
       | just extracting the source code from the binaries. Pass.
        
       | synergy20 wrote:
       | sorry but why does old winamp code still matter? there are plenty
       | open source audio libraries these days along with different open
       | source players.
        
         | acuozzo wrote:
         | It's a fun diversion to browse around old codebases, especially
         | those of software you once used extensively.
        
         | airhangerf15 wrote:
         | It's still one of the best simple media players (sadly). If it
         | had better HiDPI support, it'd still be my go to on Windows (if
         | I still used Windows).
         | 
         | I wonder if anyone there still has the source to the failed
         | Linux Alpha. It crashed all the time, but it did exist, for a
         | very short while.
        
       | comprev wrote:
       | The source code itself appears to come from a cracked version [0]
       | supplied by deadbeef\n\n\             cracked by rOn\n\n\
       | 32kb cool intro by lone";
       | 
       | [0]
       | https://github.com/WinampDesktop/winamp/blob/community/Src/W...
       | 
       | Edit: Apparently it's an Easter Egg! Credit to bri3d for research
        
         | benmmurphy wrote:
         | its probably an easter egg
        
           | sionisrecur wrote:
           | Yes, by the cracker team not by the Winamp devs.
        
             | thedoctor_o wrote:
             | Those names were some of the original devs & they're the
             | ones who put it in the easter egg on the about dialog that
             | it relates to as a hacker-like joke. The source code is
             | what aol sold on as a stripped down copy of 5.666 & then
             | what radionomy/audiovalley/llama group iterated on
             | afterwards. As much as I dislike what now calls itself
             | "winamp", it's nothing nefarious & you can find old 2.x
             | installs with that about easter egg text.
             | 
             | -dro
        
         | skandl wrote:
         | Weird, how does that even work? Does cracked mean its' been
         | decompiled? It's strange because it includes other stuff like
         | build scripts, etc that wouldn't be in released binaries..
        
         | bri3d wrote:
         | This is a weird Easter Egg that's been compiled into real,
         | genuine, uncracked Winamp release builds for a very long time.
         | 
         | The actual compiled binary ends up with the same text you see
         | linked there scrambled using XOR (you can see that on the other
         | side of the #if 0) to avoid it appearing in the binary's
         | strings verbatim.
         | 
         | It's unfortunately hard to find stuff from the Old Internet
         | anymore (I recall this being discussed at length on the
         | original Winamp forums), but there are some references to it
         | here:
         | https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/366648-winamp-51/page/2/#...
         | 
         | There's a screenshot of the exact text from the source here:
         | 
         | https://eeggs.com/items/45636.html
         | 
         | And someone getting really confused about it on Reddit here:
         | 
         | https://www.reddit.com/r/winamp/comments/caukeo/installed_wi...
        
       | dfedbeef wrote:
       | Finally I can play MP3s on my desktop computer
        
       | momentsinabox wrote:
       | Haven't thought about converting FLAC files to mp3 in a while.
       | Hell yeah Winamp
        
         | theandrewbailey wrote:
         | Why convert? Winamp plays FLAC natively.
        
       | prmoustache wrote:
       | Can't we just let it die?
        
       | grandpoobah wrote:
       | You know what source code I'd like to see? ICQ and MSN and/or
       | Windows Messenger.
        
         | mihaaly wrote:
         | Uh oh!
         | 
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iCPIUGnHQ8
        
           | rzzzt wrote:
           | This is a Worms sound effect as well, right? Does it come
           | from a sound library? (I feel like I have watched a video
           | about this at some point, but if there isn't one, there
           | should be.)
           | 
           | Edit: HN search gives me this short thread:
           | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11289591
        
           | rincebrain wrote:
           | My local grocery store's registers made that noise when they
           | had an error.
           | 
           | You can imagine how fast my head whipped around the first
           | time I heard it.
        
       | sionisrecur wrote:
       | Funny, the latest commit is "Removing code which is not open"[0],
       | which means they are infringing on someone else's licensing terms
       | by keeping it in the git history.
       | 
       | [0]
       | https://github.com/WinampDesktop/winamp/commit/0a4b7d32d0906...
        
         | srockets wrote:
         | Based on https://github.com/WinampDesktop/winamp/issues/11 it's
         | their own code, just a different service they didn't decide to
         | release the source for.
        
           | thedoctor_o wrote:
           | llama group / "winamp" don't own shoutcast anymore as that
           | was all sold off a year or so ago to azerion as part of
           | changing audiovalley into llama group.
           | 
           | -dro
        
             | saylisteins wrote:
             | looks like both are under the same parent company Src: http
             | s://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radionomy#List_of_properties_f...
        
               | thedoctor_o wrote:
               | The history section just above the prior properties
               | section is what's now the case with winamp & shoutcast
               | under unrelated organisations nowadays. Though it's all a
               | bit murky as radionomy & audiovalley were the same top
               | people.
               | 
               | -dro
        
               | efilife wrote:
               | What does -dro mean?
        
               | random_ind_dude wrote:
               | Look at their username.
        
               | efilife wrote:
               | So this is like a signature? Under every comment? Why, if
               | we all have usernames?
        
               | Philpax wrote:
               | To introduce their WinAmp-relevant identity:
               | https://winampplugins.co.uk/
        
               | thedoctor_o wrote:
               | It's just a habit I have when I'm replying to things so
               | I'll try to remember to avoid doing it on here.
        
               | DrammBA wrote:
               | Don't be discouraged by hn folk, people like to think
               | this is better than reddit but we have our own brand of
               | toxic here, if you want to sign your comments go ahead
        
               | efilife wrote:
               | I don't have a problem with it but didn't see the reason.
               | Was I toxic?
        
         | tecleandor wrote:
         | Ha! They've been quickly pulling some other things in the last
         | hour or two, like a bunch of files with this header...
         | *           Copyright 2000-2002 Dolby Laboratories, Inc.  All
         | Rights        *                Reserved.  Do not copy.  Do not
         | distribute.         *                     Confidential
         | information.       *       *           (C) copyright Fraunhofer
         | - IIS (1998)       *                All Rights Reserved
        
           | metadat wrote:
           | Is there a copy of the original repository available
           | anywhere?
           | 
           | I wonder if it can even build.
        
             | nar001 wrote:
             | They didn't remove anything it's still available in the
             | history
        
       | metflex wrote:
       | Is there any chance or an already existing fork to build for
       | apple silicon mac!?
        
       | yason wrote:
       | This is the license equivalent of a specific automotive spare
       | part for an old car where the dealer asks $1300 for it just to
       | say they don't want to stock and sell those. "Yeah, it's
       | available, sure, but...you don't want it."
        
       | aantix wrote:
       | Back in the summer of 1999 while I was in college, we were the
       | first house to use MP3's at our parties. Most houses used a CD
       | disc shuffler which usually consisted of a bunch of scratched and
       | smudged discs, so their music skipped all the time.
       | 
       | We went all digital. We were ahead of our time.
       | 
       | The parties were in the basement. We'd lock the computer up in a
       | spare bedroom - ran the wires and speakers out to the main
       | basement area.
       | 
       | We used Winamp on shuffle.
       | 
       | Hours of music without a single skip, without us having to
       | babysit the music.
       | 
       | Thank-you Winamp for the great memories.
        
         | happyweasel wrote:
         | > Back in the summer of 1999 [..] > We went all digital. We
         | were ahead of our time.
         | 
         | Well I had a DAT recorder in 1993. Even a DAT walkman.
        
           | mihaaly wrote:
           | I guess I am not too far from the truth saying the CD (1982)
           | is digital too. : )
           | 
           | I assume what they mean is no physical media (storage) before
           | the DAC, or something like that.
        
       | stuaxo wrote:
       | For anyone who wants to support a proper legacy I recommend
       | backing the WACUP project.
       | 
       | It's based on the winamp3 code, that Winamp did open source, and
       | then the closed source parts are being re implemented.
        
       | zadler wrote:
       | Lot of fun looking at an old battle worn codebase like this.
        
       | johndhi wrote:
       | Simply reading the word "Winamp" brings back a nostalgia for me
       | almost like smelling the perfume of an old girlfriend.
       | 
       | Spent so many hours looking at my custom Winamp skin and playing
       | songs I'd downloaded from god-knows-where...
        
       | Asmod4n wrote:
       | If you want a free copy of the SHOUTcast server software, they
       | illegally share that code in their repo ..
        
         | saylisteins wrote:
         | looks like both are owned by a company called Radionomy src :
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radionomy#List_of_properties_f...
        
         | stonethrowaway wrote:
         | Hit that download button while it hasn't been force-push
         | cleared.
        
           | saylisteins wrote:
           | Even if it's force pushed, it's too late as long as there are
           | forks. See:
           | 
           | - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41060102
           | 
           | - https://github.com/WinampDesktop/winamp/issues/19#issuecomm
           | e...
        
         | EMIRELADERO wrote:
         | Here it is from a snapshot before removal:
         | https://github.com/WinampDesktop/winamp/tree/3ab19235a69d96b...
        
           | chinathrow wrote:
           | There is even a full (code, data) GeoIP copy in there.
           | 
           | https://github.com/WinampDesktop/winamp/tree/3ab19235a69d96b.
           | ..
        
       | lofaszvanitt wrote:
       | The only music player that wasn't annoying. Just did its job with
       | a streamlined interface, without the clutter and clunky graphics
       | that competitors thought was the way to go.
        
         | ThrowawayTestr wrote:
         | Checkout Tray Player if want a minimalist music player for
         | Windows.
        
         | sumtechguy wrote:
         | > without the clutter and clunky graphics
         | 
         | Wasnt one of the fun things with that player putting random
         | skins on it? Or am I thinking of a different one?
        
           | 77pt77 wrote:
           | Yes.
           | 
           | And also fancy graphical visualizations of the music.
        
             | s1mplicissimus wrote:
             | oh heck yeah, that was fun times!
        
         | mihaaly wrote:
         | My 'favourite' nowadays is Tidal. Those botchers cannot make a
         | stable playback experience, also the UI is full of user hostile
         | elements, approaches, and malfunctions. If I was in the
         | position of hiring, those coming from Tidal had no chance.
        
       | voidfunc wrote:
       | Bizarre license reeks of a company that doesn't know what to do
       | with their own highly regarded software but is desperate for the
       | community to give them free improvements that they can later
       | monetize.
        
       | pessimizer wrote:
       | Why did people start talking about open source in this thread?
       | This is almost the opposite of open source, and doesn't claim to
       | be open source. It's restrictive to the point where you should
       | just treat it as an official source leak. It's even called
       | "collaborative" by which they clearly mean that if you want to
       | work on the software, you're free to send them a pull request.
       | You're also free to compile it yourself, as long as you don't
       | distribute it (modified or not) in any way.
       | 
       | Nothing wrong with this, but I don't understand why people
       | started arguing about open source. Because you get to look at the
       | source?
        
       | adzm wrote:
       | Maybe finally this can help clarify how their WASABI interface
       | thing works for the visualization plugins
        
       | initramfs wrote:
       | If you're just looking for a repository to steal,
       | https://github.com/hatonthecat/CloneThisRepository
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2024-09-24 23:00 UTC)