Winamp is no more

[alm4rr]

BetaNews is reporting that the doors at Nullsoft have been closed: 'The last members of the original Winamp team have said goodbye to AOL and the door has all but shut on the Nullsoft era, BetaNews has learned. Only a few employees remain to prop up the once-ubiquitous digital audio player with minor updates, but no further improvements to Winamp are expected.'

http://www.betanews.com/articl...soft_Winamp/1100111204

 

[spacelord]

There is already a 5 page topic about this in Off Topic.

 

[Confused]

Originally posted by: spacelord
There is already a 5 page topic about this in Off Topic.

Yeah but this is actually in the right section of the forums, and many people (rightly so IMO) avoid OT like the plague!

 

[gsaldivar]

 

[Beau]

wow. I never thought I'd see the day.

 

[43st]

They should Open Source it like Netscape.

 

[Beau]

Originally posted by: Thera
They should Open Source it like Netscape.

agreed.

 

[ttown]

i like the web-page title "...let the great canadian exodus begin"

 

[Balt]

Way to go (again), AOL.

 

[Algere]

Originally posted by: gsaldivar

 

[naruto1988]

i will surely miss this great product. i'll still probably be a winamp user for a few more years though.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: Confused

Originally posted by: spacelord
There is already a 5 page topic about this in Off Topic.

Yeah but this is actually in the right section of the forums, and many people (rightly so IMO) avoid OT like the plague!

Same here. I venture into OT mainly on my weekends, and even then not for too long. It's a tamer version of P&N, but still, "It angries up the blood" sometimes.

Add me to the list of "I didn't know they were owned by AOL" people. I just thought they had signed a deal with AOL to have those horribly annoying icons posted everywhere "Buy AOL's useless Internet service now!! It's ub3r 733t!!!!!" And then AOL CD's start flying out of your CD drive, killing anyone in their path.....

Anyway, it's a shame to see it gone. Good, very functional, free software. Gone. With any luck, maybe the source code will "accidentally" make its way onto the web. Of course, the guys working on the code might not want that - if AOL owns the rights to it, they'd probably look for more blood right away.
At least we do have some good versions though. Version 2.91 was pretty nice, and 5.05 seems to work quite well too. v5 is slower to load than 2.91 was, but I can deal with that.

 

[Davegod]

AOL would stand to gain a lot of karma by releasing it open source.

Which would still leave them with an epic deficit that they evidently dont care about anyway.

Oh well.

 

[sandorski]

Maybe they'll all go join the Sonique team. I used to love Sonique back when it had a fully working App.

 

[Bulldog13]

:: obligatory foobar plug ::

 

[AFB]

Originally posted by: Algere

Originally posted by: gsaldivar

 

[mugs]

Sad, but what more can they do with it really? There hasn't been an improvement worth upgrading for since 2.x.

 

[NeoV]

I tried Foobar, but didn't really like it at all....

sad day

 

[Cerb]

Originally posted by: Beau

Originally posted by: Thera
They should Open Source it like Netscape.

agreed.

AHAHAHAAH...I can't even laugh right at that with AOL involved. Foobar2000 is superior. Winamp would probably still be rocking if it weren't for AOL. Think of what was left to do:
...configure those context menus.
...run under Linux (v6.0?).
...rip and encode songs from a disc at ANY speed, ANY format, ANY quality, FREE.
...wash dishes.
....brew coffee.

Originally posted by: mugs
Sad, but what more can they do with it really? There hasn't been an improvement worth upgrading for since 2.x.

If you don't care about visualizations, FB2K does all and more than Winamp. With a lighter version with modern skins, Winamp was moving in the right direction, towards a shapeless do-anything player with many combinable features (EQ (why not get decent sounding speakers/headphones?), visualizations (waste of CPU & GPU), etc. != useful features), but AOL leeched all the creative juice (and probably hid it in a vault so no one will ever find it again and make anything else really cool like that) and and basically forced the guys who were running it, and making such great stuff, to get disgruntled and quit. Way to go corporate monolith.

 

[erikistired]

i tried foobar and just wasn't impressed. sad to see this but had to figure it was coming.

 

[drag]

remember that AOL didn't open source netscape.

Netscape open sourced netscape before they were bought out by AOL.

AOL bought nescape out later that year (Jan '98 = open sourced netscape, Nov '98 = AOL bought out Netscape for 8.9 billion dollars.)

When Mozilla project started the Netscape code base was in a horrendous shape, most of the original developers of Netscape were long gone and were replaced by a legion of coders racing to try to compete with a no-cost and installed-by-default Internet Explorer vs a paid for Netscape version you had to download (then a no cost one).

What AOL eventually did was use the Mozilla engine for netscape 6.0, then decide after all to use IE instead (?!) and fired most of the netscape staff. Then it eventually left Mozilla as non-profit, gave it 2 million dollars as a parting gift, then fired a whole bunch more people from the netscape division.

Now Netscape is a ISP....

 

[Cerb]

And the result was a better product after a few years.

 

[jonnyGURU]

Wow! I can't believe this. I've always been a Winamp user and I've always like it, no matter whatever else has come along. Even the streaming Internet Radio and Video seemed to perform better than alternatives.

Why is it everything I use (Netscape, ICQ, Winamp) gets absorbed and then SCREWED UP by AOL???

Well.... My Netscape has gone Mozilla and my ICQ has gone Trillian. It's only a matter of time before something that trumps Winamp comes along. Don't like Foobar. Will wait and see.....

 

[rbV5]

Don't that bite the LLama's ass.

 

[rh71]

Originally posted by: mugs
Sad, but what more can they do with it really? There hasn't been an improvement worth upgrading for since 2.x.

true... I don't mind 5.05 so as long as I can always have this one... that's fine by me. Just hope there's no future incompatibility problems...