Would you go back to Frontcode?

[Cobra]

WinMX History 101: Frontcode shut down their servers which took WinMX offline. Patches and new caches brought us back online but killed much of the former userbase and divided the rest between the patches. New patch changes allow us to become probably the only P2P network that now blocks fake files. And finally, the Community Patch has been created to hopefully bring the community back together as one network again.

We do not have the largest P2P userbase on the web, but it is still rather large. So many battles have been fought along the way that could have gone south and ended in WinMX becoming extinct altogether. However, my belief is still that the lack of a massively larger userbase is only due to WinMX not being "official" any longer, leaving many uncertain if they can trust the program any longer (unofficial downloads that they fear may be filled with viruses, for instance). I could be wrong, but that is still my thought.

But what if Frontcode suddenly showed up again? They release a new version of WinMX and this new version and their new cache system do only three things differently from prior to 2005:

• The new version somehow makes all current and any possible future third-party redirection patches unuseable.
• The new caches used by Frontcode cannot be pointed to by any current or future third-party patches.
• You can no longer run any of the older versions if this newest version is installed.

(I know, "impossible", but just pretended that it is possible.) Other than these three preventative changes, everything else about WinMX is still the same .... it still looks, feels, and behaves exactly like either v3.53 or v3.54b4.


This would leave you with a choice. Given all that has happened in the past 3 years verses WinMX being official again, would you stick with what we have now or would you connect back to Frontcode like things were in the past knowing that you can't have it both ways? No matter which choice that you make, the community would be split again because there would be some going to one and some going to the other, so there is no point in considering "we would be splitting up again" a factor.

[Trestor]

Unity under the Official Provider is all well and good, but based upon the scenario you have outlined I'd say No, because all the changes mentioned would be designed to specifically exclude those who have kept MX alive all these years, without giving anything new to the user. It might be different if Frontcode developed a whole new MX with lots of user friendly features to make MX easier to use. If that happened then their involvement would be a benefit to all, but to do nothing more than muscle back into a field they abandoned years ago and then kick the Faithful's backside out the door would not earn them any respect, I think.

[bu44er]

I would have to say no. After hard work has gone into this project by many of people it would not seem fair to betray them.

[TheMacDaddy]

I would say no to total Frontcode control
But i wouldnt say no to Frontcode and the great people who kept Winmx alive working as a team
Or even better still Kevin Hearn giving us total rights to the sourcecode of Winmx its self   

[White Stripes]

id find a way to run both versions (old/community patched and the new 'glued down') side by side if many started moving (even if it ment using two computers to do so).... but overall... given that (highly improbable) situation i say no...

but i definitly have to agree with this;

Or even better still Kevin Hearn giving us total rights to the sourcecode of Winmx its self

perhaps GPLed rather than complete public domain to avoid a confusing mess...

[GhostShip]

The genie is out of the bottle in terms of winmx's core technology so the real way ahead would be to release some code into open src so the users could update what we already have and improve on it, of course I would be happy to see Kevin fly out from wherever he is situated to offer up something new, but as many state if it was just to bring a new form of lock-in system and nothing for the users then I too would have to diverge with his plans, its been 3 years now though so I,m not expecting any sudden changes to the MX landscape but Kevin is always welcome here to communicate his wishes, we all owe him a lot for his existing work regardless of how he had to leave.