Author Topic: Winamp Being Shut Down (Read 1697 times)

Trestor · « **on:** November 24, 2013, 05:14:41 am »

Old timer audio player Winamp is to be shut down by owner AOL on December 20 2013.

Evidently AOL haven't made much of a profit on it for years. They're interested in selling it, so if you have somewhere in the region of $5 million it could be yours. Presumably an effective business model and not being messed around by administrative fools could turn it around. The article is at http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/11/after-15-years-of-llama-whipping-aol-shuts-down-winamp-for-good/

A curious thing is that Winamp is far more popular outside the US, with millions of users, than it is inside. Why this is so I don't know.

Now is the time to obtain the last available download exe, as well as any desired skins, etc, while they're available. http://www.winamp.com/

For my part it's sad, not only because it has been a backbone of audio playing for a long time, but I found it good to use and better than most alternatives I've tried over the years. AOL's internal politics has been a problem and has held Winamp back from achieving its potential.

RebelMX · « **Reply #1 on:** November 24, 2013, 10:20:21 am »

Perhaps a built in OurAmp into the new client...

GhostShip · « **Reply #2 on:** November 24, 2013, 03:30:49 pm »

The developers where looking at intergrating VLC at some stage, however we are so pressed for time its unlikely to happen for a long while.

White Stripes · « **Reply #3 on:** November 25, 2013, 03:41:06 am »

integrating vlc would just make it vlc with skins... and require it to be open source...

GhostShip · « **Reply #4 on:** November 25, 2013, 09:25:51 am »

Tha was the goal in the final versions once critical network protocols have been made "kiddy-proof", currently since we are unable to make such changes and hold the whole network on the new client we are using the existing network protocols to allow for compatibility and thus its not possible to make the client code available to the public but that wont always be the case nor is it the deisred end of the project as only by multiplying the quantity of coders can we make the big strides seen in other projects that have a coding community supporting it.

Its a catch 22 but one we will drag ourselves towards until the codebase has matured and mutated enough to ensure there are no new trivial exploits that will put the users of the WPN at further risk.

silicon_toad2000 · « **Reply #5 on:** November 25, 2013, 10:02:03 pm »

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/11/winamp-lovers-beg-aol-to-open-source-code/

Quote

fans of the venerable software have launched a "Save Winamp" website and petition asking AOL either to keep Winamp alive or to open source its code.

"The history of digital music started with Winamp," says the group, which includes nine developers who have pledged to improve Winamp if the source code is released. "Our goal is to convince Nullsoft [the AOL subsidiary behind Winamp] to release the Winamp source code and we will take it further in an open-source way."

The petition was started by Web hosting company owner Peter Zawacki of Australia, and it has more than 12,000 supporters thus far. "If AOL allows it to go open source it WILL live on forever and be in the hands of people who love it and use it every day," the petition states.

White Stripes · « **Reply #6 on:** November 26, 2013, 01:39:29 am »

i hope someone or a group is quickly archiving all the winamp plugins... thats what will really be lost if winamp is taken down (there are other audio players out there that can use winamp plugins so winamp itself isnt really needed)