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Facepalm: Classic PC media player Winamp is being relaunched as an open-source project, though the code itself isn't as open as it claims to be. The company behind the brand seems eager to benefit from community-driven development while offering nothing meaningful in return.
As expected, Winamp's source code has been publicly released on GitHub. The Winamp for Windows project, as it's officially called by Llama Group, will receive a few updates per year, adding new features and ensuring proper security practices. Just don't get your hopes up about creating alternative projects from this "freely" available code.
Llama Group is looking to the GitHub community for help in developing new capabilities and maintaining (or even modernizing) a codebase that dates back several decades. Originally introduced in 1997, Winamp has long been praised for its flexibility and broad compatibility with various audio formats.
Originally developed by Nullsoft, Winamp quickly gained massive popularity among PC users. Even today, tens of millions of music enthusiasts still use Winamp every month. As a matter of fact, this humble writer uses Winamp daily – whether it's to listen to obscure (retro) gaming podcasts or shuffle through 25GB of MP3s.
Winamp's source code is now freely available, but the license it was released under has sparked controversy. The Winamp Collaborative License imposes significant restrictions on what people can do with the code, including a ban on releasing modified third-party modified versions. The license explicitly states that no public forks are permitted, and only the maintainers of the official repository are allowed to release the software or any new (approved) modifications.
Llama Group appears eager to benefit from community contributions to Winamp, but the software itself cannot be repurposed to create something new. Despite the legal threat, developers are undeterred, with hundreds of "unofficial" forks of Winamp's source code already surfacing online. As time goes on, this trend is only expected to grow.
Legal concerns aside, it seems clear that Llama Group no longer wants the full responsibility of maintaining the still-popular PC media player. The company has shifted its focus to different business ventures, including cloud-based products that leverage the "Winamp" brand to capitalize on music creators and streaming services.