The Winamp source code release project didn’t work and ended up being a big fiasco. The ones responsible They deleted the GitHub repository in just 15 days since its release, a sign that not all projects of this type end up working.

Winamp, through its Belgian owner Llama Group, released the source code of its “Legacy Player Code” on September 24, so that developers can “Contribute your experience, ideas and enthusiasm to help this iconic software evolve”.

Winamp source code under collaborative licenses

One of the problems is release It didn’t happen so openly. as the developers would like. According to “Winamp Collaborative License (WCL) version 1.0.1”you couldn’t “distribute modified versions of the software” in source or binary code and “only those responsible for maintaining the official repository are authorized to distribute the software and modify it”. As they say in the ars technica: in other words, Anyone can contribute, but only for the benefit of Winamp.

On his Q&A website, Justin Frankel, key developer of the original Winamp and founder of Nullsoft, which also created the SHOUTcast streaming software, was asked if he could contribute to the code. Frankel replied that even if he had any wishes, the terms of the license “they are completely absurd in the way they are written”. Even taking them “As probably intended, they are terrible. no thank you”writes Frankel, summing up the general feeling.

Although this license appears to prohibit forks, or perhaps because of that, the code has been forked at least 2,600 times at the time of writing. By forking and examining the source code when it was first released, the programmers noticed various anomalies such as:

• Large chunks of code from other projects, offered under other, more robust licenses, were apparently included (though later removed) from the Winamp repository.
• The source code of the SHOUTcast server software may have been leaked from Winamp’s original code.
• Proprietary packages from Intel and Microsoft were also apparently included in the release’s build tools.

Some developers suggest that coding since the heyday of Winamp, a media player that appeared in the late 20th century around the time of Windows 98, and that now, it looks like you’ve moved your code to a platform you don’t really understand.

We don’t know if that was the reason, but the release of Winamp’s source code was an example of how an otherwise very interesting project should not be done to keep the player alive in an era that is clearly not its own.