Winamp's source code to be released publicly on September 24

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Delicieuxz

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Winamp's source code is going public. Which is great news for me, as it's still the player I use, and it should only become better from this, and continue to be a usable player on all future Windows OSes.

Big news: the source code for the Winamp application will be available on September 24!

The release of the Winamp player's source code will enable developers from all over the world to actively participate in its evolution and improvement.

While our current focus is on developing new products, we haven't forgotten our long-standing fans. This decision will enable thousands of Windows users to have the player of their dreams, thanks to the experience and creativity of thousands of passionate developers.

This collaboration will impact all of our future Winamp projects, keeping our iconic player at the heart of all we do.

Are you a developer interested in joining the adventure? Click the link in the bio to apply.
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View: https://www.instagram.com/p/C7CJ6D0KZm_/
 
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The terrifying part is..........this is a looooooooooooooooooooooooong time ago now...but I still have it installed.
Back when you measured your mp3 download* times from usenet in minutes.....



*allegedly...
 
This is great to hear, though its a pity they did't make this decision a decade or more ago. FOSS media players have basically replicated and/or supported (WinampPlugIns) all the features years ago in projects like Audacious/XMMS2 , and Winamp when it came into AOL's hands basically added a lot of ads and browser shit. Still this is great as many still prefer Winamp's UI, though admittedly the younger generation I've found is totally unfamiliar with a player like Winamp made for the days before metadata tag auto-sorted databases in the style of iPod/iTunes. I will be curious to see how open sourcing it benefits the community dev outcomes
 
Tengis said:
I didnt even know people still use Winamp....
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This is me. I remember using the crap out of it back in the day but had forgotten all about it and figured it. I don't think I've used it in at least 15 years..... Might have even been with Windows XP! Guess the older I've gotten, my ears aren't as lucky as they used to be.
 
I haven't used Winamp in like 23 years since I switched my main OS away from Windows to Linux.

For a while there I used the linux work-a-like player called XMMS which pretty much did the same thing, but I don't think I've used that in at least like 15 years.

1715890716646.png

(not my screenshot)


After that I used Banshee (a more featured music library player) for a few years until the project was abandoned in 2014.

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(also not my screen shot)

I briefly used Rhythmbox (another music library type open source program) after that....

1715890863483.png

(actually my screenshot)

...but to be honest, while I still have Rhythmbox installed (it is the default player in Mint now, and has been for at least a decade) I have drifted more and more towards streaming for my music these days. I very rarely access my local music library anymore.

Mostly Spotify, as I tend to believe all that "high res audio" and "lossless" craze is mostly bias that wouldn't pass blinded testing (at least with high quality encodes)


1715891506722.png

(my screenshot of my current listening)

...and I have to say, I don't much care for the new Spotify interface. Very real-estate inefficient. I just don't want to run a media player full screen, and on the side screens it gets very cramped. Would love to go back to something like Winamp, from a UI perspective, but having access to almost all music I ever want to listen to with a click is just too damn convenient.
 
Armenius said:
I still use Winamp 5.666 with OpenAL plugins. The only bummer is it doesn't support scaling, so the UI is tiny on a 4K screen.
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While there isn't a true scaling feature (hopefully one will come from it going open source), there is an option to double the size of the main player and equalizer. It looks pretty silly on my 1440p monitor, but it might look OK on a 4K screen. Too bad it doesn't also apply to the playlist and media library, as far as I can tell.

To enable the double-size mode: File -> Options -> Double Size

To make it apply to the EQ as well: File -> Options -> Preferences -> Skins -> Classic Skins -> Use doublesize setting on equalizer as well as main window


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I was using Winamp a year ago. I still have it installed. I only stopped using it because it seems to have broken for me. Possibly too many media files in the library. I'm using Foobar2000 now. I'll be happy to switch back to Winamp once it plays nicer with the OS and my library, I'd even be happy with WMP if it worked right.
 
Whalter12 said:
I was using Winamp a year ago. I still have it installed. I only stopped using it because it seems to have broken for me. Possibly too many media files in the library.
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I would be highly amused if that happened after adding a predictable number of items to the database.

65,536 maybe?
Or maybe 16,777,216?
Or maybe even 4,294,967,296?

How many mp3's do you have? :p
 
CrimsonKnight13 said:
I look forward to a FOSS fork of it that'll run on Linux. Strawberry is my current go-to though.
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Given the highly specific language of the press release and the fact that interested devs need to register, I doubt that they are releasing it under an actual open source license. Note also that the word "public" is absent in the press release.
 
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Tengis said:
I didnt even know people still use Winamp....
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It still works for listening to digitally imported (di.fm), but you need a subscription if you want to use winamp instead of their web player now, I think.
 
toast0 said:
It still works for listening to digitally imported (di.fm), but you need a subscription if you want to use winamp instead of their web player now, I think.
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Jesus that's a throwback, I had no idea di.fm was still around, I completely forgot about it

I think one of my clan mates got me listening to di.fm and I lived off that kind of music for a while. UT 2004, di.fm and playing till 5am.

It's all coming back.
 
emphy said:
Given the highly specific language of the press release and the fact that interested devs need to register, I doubt that they are releasing it under an actual open source license. Note also that the word "public" is absent in the press release.
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Yeah, I think they're hoping for just positive PR with most not making the distinction and associating even source available with open source.

I saw a company recently that had a florescent banner across the top of their site that stated Open, source-available: <link to Github> which points to a proprietary license repo. Considering their technical audience I guess shows how many already mistake the two.
 
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I hope someone adds Spotify and Tidal integration. I'd rather use nostalgic Winamp than their PC apps. 👍
 
yeah I use windows media player for cd/hdcd and foobar for rips and hi-res being it plays gapless and with the spheck plug-in you can run milkdrop visualizer, which i have a curated list of presets for, that i got that were originally used as part of an actual VJ program. if anyone wants them let me know. a lot of time was spent putting it together. obviously works with winamp too.

edit: my set blows the "5000 milkdrop presets" thing you can find on the web out the water (which is filled with a bunch of trash and repeats)
 
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The fact that it will be a fork called FreeLLama open-source project with winamp (and importantly the mobile one) staying fully close, make it sound more possible.

Stuff can be quite public even if no one can make code change in the official trunk (think sqlite, open domain not open contribution) and in between, list of public but vetted a bit contributor, i.e. you can still fork your own and do your own change and accept open contribution in that one if you want (think libSQL).
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I would be highly amused if that happened after adding a predictable number of items to the database.

65,536 maybe?
Or maybe 16,777,216?
Or maybe even 4,294,967,296?

How many mp3's do you have? :p
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I checked and at most I might have 65,536 MP3/FLAC files (with lots of duplicates). Probably more related to the 49,000+ skins I have downloaded. Uninstalled winamp to clear those out. Will try it again. :D
 
Miss the days in college of Acid + WinAmp plugins on a big 17" trinitron.
 
Neat, I guess. I've used a few players mentioned earlier. I'd forgotten about foobar2000. I've used AIMP off and on for years now, mostly because it has a decent built in encoder.
 
I started using Winamp 2.78 on my old Compaq LTE 5000 Pentium 75mhz 8mb of ram 510mb hdd. It used a whopping 75% cpu to listen to a mp3 back in 2002. Still using Winamp 2.78 on my MSI GF63 4ghz 6 core 12 thread lappy and uses an unnoticeable amount of cpu. 2.78 still works on Windows 11 without a hitch 22 years later. Can't wait to see what stuff is dreamed up with the source code... A direct linux port would be awesome
 
I just searched for version 2.78. I can't find anywhere I can actually download it from, but the full installer is 1.8 MB. That's impressive the new version 5.9 has ballooned to 12.4 MB.
 
Whalter12 said:
I just searched for version 2.78. I can't find anywhere I can actually download it from, but the full installer is 1.8 MB. That's impressive the new version 5.9 has ballooned to 12.4 MB.
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I still have my install copy that came with a old computer back in 2001 but oldversion.com has a copy of 2.78 as well as newer ones:
http://www.oldversion.com/windows/winamp-2-78

Here is Winamp 2.78 about 10 years back running on Windows 7, 11mb of ram!
 

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Was it the upgrade from 2.x to 3 that caused all the negative response back in the day? I don't remember anymore. Foobar2000 for me.
 
That_Sound_Guy said:
Was it the upgrade from 2.x to 3 that caused all the negative response back in the day? I don't remember anymore. Foobar2000 for me.
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3 was hot garbage. Its only redeeming feature was the freeform skin ability. 5 took all the awesomeness of 2 and added the few good bits of 3. I've been using WA since the 90s (even paid for pro once or twice), currently rocking the latest release with the standard big bento skin. Its ASIO plugin support works really well with my sound card and network file-scanning/library updating is fast and invisible.
 
elm669 said:
11mb of ram!
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Hard to mentaly go back when we were running winamp on windows 98 with 16 or 32 mb of system ram.... total, easier to go back to single task on a single thread DOS mental image of having just 4MB, first 640kb something accessible, Windows 98 had a full GUI running Blender, 3dmax, visual studio, etc..., in windows mode, with our winamp music playlist with its own gui as a background task, with that ram amount.
 
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I have a bunch of old winamp installers from like 97 and 98 and stuff. Was my daily driver for a long while. ...and one of the best things about winamp was Milk Drop and Acid Spunk.
 
I think around the same times iTunes did it, Winamp tried to launch a $1 song market place in 2003, got completely destroyed by Apple.
 
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