Winamp

Winamp
Original author(s)Nullsoft
Developer(s)Llama Group
Initial releaseApril 21, 1997; 27 years ago (1997-04-21)
Final release5.9.2 Build 10042[1] (April 26, 2023; 17 months ago (2023-04-26)) [±]
Repositorygithub.com/WinampDesktop/winamp
Written inC[2]/C++[3][4]
Operating systemWindows, Android, MS-DOS (DOSamp),[5] Mac OS (MacAmp)
Size16.3 MB
Available in18 languages
List of languages
English, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Brazilian Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish
TypeMedia player
LicenseWinamp Collaborative License 1.0.1, source available (2024-present); proprietary (until 2024)
Websitewinamp.com/player/

Winamp is a media player for Microsoft Windows originally developed by Justin Frankel and Dmitry Boldyrev[6][7][8] by their company Nullsoft, which they later sold to AOL in 1999 for $80 million. It was then acquired by Radionomy in 2014, now known as the Llama Group. Since version 2 it has been sold as freemium and supports extensibility with plug-ins and skins, and features music visualization, playlist and a media library, supported by a large online community.

Version 1 of Winamp was released in 1997, and quickly grew popular with over 3 million downloads,[9] paralleling the developing trend of MP3 (music) file sharing. Winamp 2.0 was released on September 8, 1998. The 2.x versions were widely used and made Winamp one of the most downloaded Windows applications.[10] By 2000, Winamp had over 25 million registered users[11] and by 2001 it had 60 million users.[12] A poor reception to the 2002 rewrite, Winamp3, was followed by the release of Winamp 5 in 2003, and a later release of version 5.5 in 2007. A now-discontinued version for Android was also released, along with early counterparts for MS-DOS and Macintosh.

After a five-year hiatus, Winamp 5.8 (written as Winamp 5.) was leaked to the public in 2018[13] before its eventual release by Radionomy;[14][15] development has since resumed[16][17] with the latest version 5.9.2 released on April 26, 2023. Its developer Radionomy has since rebranded as Llama Group and launched a streaming service that allows users to support artists by buying perks or NFTs.[18][19][20] The service launched on the web in April 2023, followed by beta apps for Android and iOS in July 2023.[21]

On May 16, 2024, Llama Group announced that Winamp would be going partially open source on September 24, 2024.[22][23] The source code was released under the "Winamp Collaborative License", which dubs itself as a free and copyleft license while restricting the ability to distribute modified and original binaries that were compiled from the source code (which is not considered free or open source[24]) and waives all ownership of third-party contributions to the Llama Group. After the source code was released, multiple pieces of proprietary source code were found, such as encryption implementations from Dolby, the entirety of the SHOUTcast server software, as well as previously unreleased GPL-licensed code that was modified by Winamp, violating the license's terms.[25]

  1. ^ "Winamp : Supported versions : Latest supported version". Winamp Forums. December 22, 2022. Retrieved January 15, 2023.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference WACoreProgLang was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference Lextrait was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference WAPluginProgLang was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference winamphistory was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference Saltzman was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference Millard was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference Mengyi was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  9. ^ Cite error: The named reference Wired98 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  10. ^ Cite error: The named reference AutoMZ-18 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  11. ^ Cite error: The named reference AOL1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  12. ^ "Winamp's woes: How the greatest MP3 player undid itself". July 3, 2017. Retrieved January 2, 2018.
  13. ^ Cite error: The named reference winamp58release was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  14. ^ Cite error: The named reference winamp58 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  15. ^ Evangelho, Jason. "Winamp 5.8 Has Been Officially Released And Supports Windows 10". Forbes. Retrieved June 15, 2020.
  16. ^ Cite error: The named reference winamp59release was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  17. ^ Cite error: The named reference winamp591release was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  18. ^ "Could the Answer to Indie Revenue Be… Winamp?".
  19. ^ Newman, Jared (April 14, 2023). "Winamp is back, but not like you remember it". FastCompany.
  20. ^ Davenport, Corbin (September 9, 2022). "Winamp 5.9 Is the First Stable Update in Four Years". How-To Geek. Retrieved April 15, 2024.
  21. ^ "モバイル版「Winamp」のクローズドベータが発表 ～iOS/Androidで人数限定のテスト／参加枠はまだ残っている模様". July 7, 2023.
  22. ^ "Winamp has announced that it is opening up its source code to enable collaborative development of its legendary player for Windows". Llama Group. December 16, 2023. Retrieved May 16, 2024.
  23. ^ Vaughan-Nichols, Steven (May 17, 2024). "Winamp is not going open source. Here's what it is doing - and why". ZDNET. Retrieved May 19, 2024.
  24. ^ List, Jenny (September 24, 2024). "Winamp Releases Source Code, But Is It Really Open?". Hackaday. Retrieved September 25, 2024. paragraph five of the Winamp Collaborative License […] prohibits distribution of modified versions or forks, and stipulates that only the official maintainers can distribute it. This doesn't sound like open source to us
  25. ^ "Winamp (the closed source product) contained modified GPL code, violating the GPL #265". Retrieved September 27, 2024.