thedoctor_o
thedoctor_o on Hacker News
I used to do plug-ins because it scratched an itch to code & provide things that'd be of use to others which when you've got a job to pay for that free time then it's less of an issue. Also the time of winamp & the plug-in / skin community of the time were somewhat reflective of how interested people were in tech vs how commoditised it's now become & generically boring imho. And I'm probably guilty of the change in behaviours with how I'm trying to fund wacup but 2 decades on is a long time & most of those early creatives have bills to pay.
There were winamp3 / modern 5.x skins which were freeform in nature so could be all sorts of shapes or not depending on what the skinner wanted it to be like. With 5.x still supporting the fixed form classic / 2.x skins as webamp & its skin museum support.
They were never going to remove that as this is all about only them benefiting from free dev resources.
I didn't see anything wrong with asking about it & I as don't really use HN I'm not sure of what the expectations, etc are on here. So imho its all good from my view point.
They're very unlikely to have that as I don't remember it falling under the remit of things to be collated when things were sold from aol to what now calls itself "winamp" - they primarily got a stripped down 5.666 & what's offered is their iterations though aspects of what was winamp3 would be within the gen_ff plug-in.
It was either sell it & shoutcast or kill both off since aol in 2013 was changing & there's lots of other projects under them at that time which were killed off instead of what was thought to be a better option to keep it going elsewhere.
Alas going to radionony which has ended up becoming llama group after some funny business stuff going on was a mistake though some of the other options that I was aware of at the time weren't great either.
And I'm not defending aol either as there were things that I didn't like under their almost 15yr tenure of ownership but it was never condescending like this lot have been over the past 11yrs which their licensing terms have reinforced.
They dumped the prior dev team over a year ago (the ones that added the nft plug-in & fanzone crap) & it is mostly a ploy to get a free dev team as was speculated when the whole "source available" thing got announced 4 months ago (but they seem to have left it to the night before to do anything hence the complete mess that's been going on).
The license was always going to be restrictive & focused on what only benefits them as they would never want any clones, etc to be able to make use of it. Also the terms when I look at it from an ex plug-in dev stance seem to prevent any new / updated plug-ins from being built with the plug-in api headers which afaict would fall under their license & surplanting the prior one (no idea if they've changed the in-file stuff or not as I cannot look at their code to avoid issues with work my own player).
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.
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.
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
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
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
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
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
No legit project could ever make use of the leaked source code even if it was from just before the end of the pre-sale AOL era so the person who did that never actually helped anyone & imho just hindered things.
I can't use it for WACUP & I don't see how any of the other players out there (clone / compatibles / just looking to hack in some features from it) could ever use it either.
There's also the whole "source available" thing they announced earlier this year still likely means it's never going to be proper open source against how media / others at the time took it to mean. Not like things couldn't be done via plug-ins but for whatever reason so many seem to forget about that & only see source code as the only way to modify things which imho is just going to make things messier if / when something does happen.
-dro
source available is not the same as open source nor have any terms been provided on what that'd actually be other than it's seemingly just about them getting a free dev team or looking to be doing some good from an investors view point.
-dro
Because they primarily wanted shoutcast (ironic since they sold that off last year & got played in the process of doing all of that) which meant taking winamp with it. It's all a mess now but most care not for that and just see that "winamp is back".
-dro
I had been doing that much more early on along with replacing some of the plug-ins & dlls. After a point the reality dawned that I was replacing so much that I was on the road to making my own player. Also how things have gone with the owners I just don't want to be doing anything that uses their offerings
There's still some live patching / splicing needed for some of the plug-ins that are still re-used from 5.666 as part of the current beta builds along with WACUP having the ability to run minus EQ & modern skin without the winamp core exe. As there's a few things from that exe which the modern skin plug-in requires to work which I've yet to work out all of the interfaces to allow the plug-in to work. It's part of what's been holding up a new preview build as I just need to be as free from having to leverage bits from Winamp as possible.
-dro
A feature that Winamp has had since September 2005...
-dro
Most of the crashes tend to be due to the parts re-used from 5.666. Also it's a preview build (aka public beta) so it can & will be unstable.
As for what place it has, I'm going to still make it because I've very clearly been made unwelcome to remain as a "winamp" user plus I don't like where it's owners are taking it with all of the ntf related stuff & taking the piss out of the user base for so long. So if I want to have something that can keep my plug-ins working then I've got to make my own player which is what I'm doing.
-dro
It's a gradual reimplementation whilst using some of the pre-compiled 5.666 exe / dll (how much depends on the build being used) with the end goal for WACUP to not require the 5.666 files, be plug-in compatible & it's own thing.
-dro
No offence taken. I would just rather than waiting around for those many willing devs (most of which seem to be web devs rather than native client devs from my past 8yrs experience) to appear I've instead put my time & effort into making something as I was already doing for the decade before Winamp was eventually sold on.
So as long as I end up with WACUP being a program that fulfils my needs in allowing my plug-ins to keep working & happens to be of use to others wanting a supported native 'classic' winamp experience (due to the pivot from a plug-in pack to being a standalone player) then I'm going to keep doing it irrespective of what is / isn't happening with "winamp" (I don't view anything that now comes out as being winamp other than a brand name slapped onto some code).
-dro
It is going to end up as a clone (as per the banner text on the site) but when I started out I didn't expect the lot that owned Winamp to fuck it up so much & abandon it. Every build uses less of the pre-compiled exe/dlls that come from 5.666 & I've currently get beta builds that can now run completely without the Winamp core along with a native 64-bit build because why not.
WACUP began as a a plug-in pack but I've pivoted to it becoming it's own player but it takes time as I've been patching / replacing the 5.666 plug-ins with my own which allows me to have the best plug-in compatibility possible unlike most other clones that do a sub-set of the Winamp 2.x api vs I wanted something that would support up to 5.666.
-dro
5.666 was the last full release of 'classic' Winamp. What is currently offered is an incomplete 5.8 beta that's "not an on-going project" (which is what was stated on their website for that download for over 3 years) so take of that as you will.
From the job listings that have been seen for their new team (which also confirmed they'd done nothing for many years despite the marketing lies) imply something that is completely different with the Winamp brand slapped on it.
-dro
What revenue stream? There's nothing from pro licenses now as that was stopped prior to the sale from AOL & thankfully it doesn't seem like they've been forcing in-client adverts (though they'd talked about doing it). I'd love a revenue stream that's just some of what Winamp was making prior to it's sale rather than having to scape by.
So other than what's coming any adverts on their forum (dunno if there are any), it's being propped up by other aspects of the audiovalley group (e.g. the targetspot/shoutcast advert/charges to pay for the streaming service).
That's probably why they're going to do some sort of subscription / nft / 'donate to artists but take a cut' type of affair with whatever they may end up slapping the Winamp brand on.
'classic' Winamp is officially dead from what's stated on their awful web3.0 website & that might be fine for whoever but it misses the point of why however many have kept using it in a streaming-centric world - they don't want streaming services & Winamp being turned into a Spotify wannabe as seems to be the case is sad to see).
-dro
The complication is that what's been leaked just can't be used by anything trying to be legit because it was not released in any official manner & so it's license isn't at all clarified even though it's a pre-release copy from the AOL era which some would say it's abandonware. Plenty saw the publicly posted screenshots of partial headers from the source files on twitter that were being used to prove it was a real leak which I unfortunately was greeted to on opening a DM (which I wasn't happy about) otherwise everything else gleaned was taken from others observations at the time.
With the clear demise of 'classic' Winamp with the whole 'set the tone' & seemingly nft related crap the new lot are now going for, what was leaked still equates to what's gone to the new owners (which was one of my pre-sale tasks) so it's into the messy state of who has recourse against it being leaked.
As for the issue, I don't remember there being anything specific that is in place to make it intentionally block system closing unless it's taking too long &/or it's crashing. I don't have the Winamp core handling that aspect of the running process with the current preview build (& the beta builds barely let the Winamp core do anything with it being able to run without it with some missing features) so the best way to find out if it behaves would be to try it out as a portable install so it doesn't mess with your existing Winamp install.
-dro
AIMP misses the boat on the sort of Winamp plug-ins I still want to have supported whilst not using an actual Winamp itself (as is now the aim for WACUP). Sure it's an option but a limited sub-set of Winamp 2.x era plug-ins isn't great :)
-dro
It pre-dates the 5.666 release & is of no use to any project trying to do things correctly i.e. whoever did (I have my suspicions) basically shafted a load of projects that could have made legitimate benefit.
-dro
You've already got an open source Winamp if you're using the likes of xmms, qmmp, Audacious or anything else that effectively loads classic style skins (not that they tend to get it spot in) so does it really matter what the state of Winamp vs it's source code is...? I'd say no.
As you've clearly got something that fits your needs as do I by slowly making my own Winamp compatible player to run my old Winamp plug-ins (which were always closed source nor am I for or against OSS but it needs to be the dev that decides not external pressure) because I don't trust nor like what's happened with those that now own the brand.
Also source code is pointless without dev(s) & unless we're looking for AI to do all of the coding, whether the code is open or closed, the fleshy meat bag bashing the keyboard is still needed for the time being :)
Use what makes you happy & I'll keep making & using what makes me happy too :)
-dro