This is bullshit.
Until I see an OSI approved license, it's not open source.
this post was submitted on 19 May 2024
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I am so sick of these rubbish licensing efforts calling themselves Open Souce. Fair code is a new atrocity.
There is no repository link. There is no open source code.
The Winamp announcement linked to in the article never says "Open source", that's the article writer not understanding the difference.
Tbf,
opening up its source code to enable collaborative development
sounds already close to open-source, though it isn't necessarily, as the licence that is used matters.
Even CLA + GPL/MIT would suffice
I disagree.
CLA gives them total ownership of the code (all contributors are surrendering their copyright), and allows them to change license at any point in time, including making it closed source.
If you're contributing code to a project with CLA you're not contributing to Open Source, you're working for a company for free.
A CLA is okay if and only if the copyright is being assigned to the Free Software Foundation or a similarly reputable nonprofit.
Yes, thanks for pointing it out. As long as it is some organization that can't be bought it should be fine. I didn't included that because it makes my response more confusing.
Essentially CLA gives the entire copyright to specific entity and that entity in case of FSF it likely could use it for fighting violations, while some startup likely intends to change license when their product gets more popular to cash out on it (for example what Hashicorp did recently before selling to IBM)
A CLA in itself is not necessarily bad, but it depends greatly of what the license is and what it says about future intentions.
There had been many instances of copyright folders using the CLA as a means to go proprietary so the community is understandably wary about it today.
If the current license is permanent and non-revokable like one of the well-known ones (GPL or MIT to name the most) then even if they change it later the code up to that point would remain under that license and can be forked freely.
The issue in that case is not losing the code, it's that the copyright holder has a long term plan where they benefit from community help for a while then take the product close source to monetize it, which is regarded as a dick move.
IMO there are benefits to any project that uses a FOSS license even if temporarily if you can fork it afterwards. And let's not forget that you can also fork it during.
AFAIK that's already the deal. So the proposal is a improvement of the deal. Also don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
This is not "perfect is enemy of good" it would be if I was arguing about MIT vs GPL etc.
By signing CLA you're surrendering copyright to the company and this allows them do do whatever they wish with your contribution, including switching back to closed source.
Hashicorp was able to change license of their products exactly thanks to CLA.
https://about.winamp.com/press/article/winamp-open-source-code This page says they aren't actually making the code open source until September 24, 2024, a date that has not happened yet...
Source-available ≠ open source
What's the licence? It doesn't sound like "open source" and sounds more like "source available".
BSA
Bullshit Source Available
This line gives me some hope that it will actually be open-source:
Winamp will remain the owner of the software and will decide on the innovations made in the official version.
Would they really bother to specify "official version" if it was only source-available and forks weren't allowed?
In the official announcement, they have very carefully and deliberately avoided the term "open source".
"Open source" has a very specific meaning, and probably the key part for this is if there are any restrictions on what you do with any derivative software you create.
Can you use the Winamp source code to create a new media player and sell it? If there is say a restriction on if you can use it in a company or on if you can sell it, then it's not "open source" even though you can publish noncommercial software based on it.
"Hey Internet, come do development on our product for free so we can monetize it. TIA"
It annoys me, too, because there's various open-source projects already, like QMMP and Audacious.
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They just want more people being pushed to their NFT marketplace while getting free development. It's astounding they are getting so much good press.
I went to the mall today and it felt like the early 2000s again
Look I know it is barely on topic but that shit was so wild I had to
I wish foobar2000 was open source too. Maybe this will encourage the creator to do so.
Agree, also I never encountered other software so flexible in user interface. Every feature can be placed with panels everywhere to your own liking. The whole app interface is like a canvas. Took me a while to get the hang of it but after that ...
Wished other apps were this flexible.
The sad thing about this is that 90% of the skins available for WinAmp since then are gone. You can't find them to download them anymore.
There is Winamp skin museum - https://skins.webamp.org/
Oh, my trusty old Wolfplayer is on there too. Brings me back…
Now I can add a Plex integration. Finally my CD collection can return to winamp
The main reason I like Winamp: Advance Visualization Studio. And skins. Bring back skins in applications. I don't care if 99% are ugly and unusable. We don't need jerks like Gnome team deciding what everything should look like.
Bring back skins in applications.
I love the Cristal Disk Mark / Info applications for this. Some cool Japanese guy, going by hiyohiyo, develops them as free software. And he is not afraid to make editions decorated with presumably his favourite Anime girls
Oh man, my whole desktop experience used to be themed. I would spend hours finding the perfect skins.
Now we just need open source directx and direct draw so all the visualizations work and we’re in business.
Mesa + DXVK/WineD3D/VKD3D/Gallium-Nine.
This really whips the llamas ass.
Why did they wait so long
They just want to get profit from the purchase but they are no longer competitive.
Looks like they are looking for suckers to contribute to their code base for free without even making it actually open source.
IMO at this point WinAmp does not offer anything beyond name recognition and nostalgia. Isn't qmmp essentially an open source version of WinAmp?
IMO at this point WinAmp does not offer anything beyond name recognition and nostalgia. Isn't qmmp essentially an open source version of WinAmp?
Even as nostalgia, I just tried out loading a winamp skin from the winamp skin museum someone linked further up with qmmp and it handles that just fine too. So I'll be just using that going forward.
The lammas ass gets whipped again
I wonder what the aim is. Trying to get relevant again? I haven't used Winamp in many many years. I'm a Spotify / YouTube kind of guy now. I drank the koolaid. It's a little late and things like VLC have a pretty solid offering now, without all gotchas that this will have (such as you apparently can't call it Winamp and will have to sign away a sacrificial child to actually get the code)
VLC is a video player. While it of course can play audio files, it is not intended for managing a library of them like winamp. I do agree that they've missed the boat though. I still buy CD's and actually have a digital library of music that I own. As such, I never stopped using winamp. But I don't know a single other person in real life that doesn't just use a streaming service for their music.
What does this mean for WACUP ?
Haha no way! At this point I can't think of a reason to switch from VLC, but I'd love to see a Winamp renaissance.
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