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Hacking AOL From The Inside
gizmo_mathboy writes: "It looks like the people that brought you Gnutella and Winamp, Nullsoft, are having fun hacking AOL code after AOL absorbed them. The story is here." One old idea this illustrates is that large, merger-ridden companies like AOL are hard to categorize simply -- they simply have too many parts, not all of which will ever be in complete concert. This kind of semi-allowed internal hacking could be the most valuable thing at AOL right now, though.
I thought it was highly interesting when AOL bought Nullsoft. I equated it to their purchase of Netscape... even though some people might have a problem with that analogy, I'd say that the amount of people using Winamp at the time was probably about equal to the number of people using Netscape. (Market share aside... although Sonique wasn't as popular and there were no other decent MP3 players for Windows at the time)
Netscape withered and died, though. A lot of good talent left the company. But with Nullsoft, the whole team went over... and they're still there.
Now, it's only a matter of "When's Justin Frankel gonna get fired?" Don't get me wrong, he's a genius and a hero in a lot of respects (Shawn Fanning doesn't hold a candle to him, IMO) but he has a knack for doing things to piss off the big corporations... including those that are in the same company as his now. This is a GOOD thing... generally, the stuff that he has made has went pretty far (Winamp, Shoutcast, Gnutella... that's one hell of a resume) but one day someone in another branch of that giant media conglomerate is going to overreact and demand Justin's termination.
It's not as if that would matter, though. So far, anything of his that AOL has shot down made it into the public domain, anyway. He's smart enough to know how to get things out there too, under the radar of AOL until it's too late.
Nullsoft is proof that good things can come out of corporate America, that large corporations don't always go for the loot at the expense of innovation. I'm not saying that AOL actively supports Nullsoft, but their general hands-off approach is almost surprising, considering since they own the company, they can just send a few managers in there to look over everyone's shoulder and make sure that they're not writing the Next Big Thing in Copyright Violations...
If AOL kills winamp, then more people will switch to freeamp, a free and superior project. I'll be the first to lose no sleep.
-- Anne Marie
One old idea this illustrates is that large, merger-ridden companies like AOL are hard to categorize simply -- they simply have too many parts
I notice he was careful not to say "too many moving parts.
I'm sorry, but your post begs the question:
"Is there such a thing as a clue cannon?"
God knows some people need a clue at least as big and massive as a cannon ball to even start to think clearly.
Bite my yammer.
Oh sure, Rome had its orgies, slavery, egomaniacal emperors, and gladiatorial games but they also had one of the most vibrant and advanced civilizations of their day and paved the way for modern Western society.
What exactly is bad about having an advanced civilization and paving the way for modern Western society?
What kind of dumb shit is that? Does Winamp rip CDs and encode MP3 now? I though it just played MP3s.
Cunning linguists
So there's this group of hackers creating cool pieces of free software while being condoned and payed by AOL. So if this is true, then this is AOL actually doing a good thing. First, that can't be true. Second, what's it doing on Slashdot? Don't tell me the discussion on journalistic integrity is going to affect you people?!?
It is the end of The Dot as we know it, it is the end of The Dot as we know it, and I feel fine..
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
"Atlantic Records has even begun to include the Winamp program on some music CDs, such as Matchbox 20's latest release, ``Mad Season.'' This basically provides all the software someone with a CD burner would need to make illegal, high-quality copies."
Funny - I've never needed winamp to make copies of any disk (software or audio). CD->CD copy works - - and most burning programs let you dump to a HD img if you need it... they don't ship a blank CD, either. Just another misleading statement.
--
"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
"It was an odd admission considering that the Winamp player doesn't distinguish between playing legal and illegal MP3s either."
Funny, neither does my walkman.
Well, if that's how you're going to define "profit," then yes, we all live in an ocean of unlimited wealth, free for the asking.
But just consuming stuff tends to get kind of one-dimensional and boring after a while. The important next question is, "What can you do with it?" By which I mean, can you take all that raw material and put it together in new, creative ways?
The value is not in the artifact, but in the imagination.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
As it stands, the last AOL CD that came in sparkled nicely in the microwave, and I was able to rescue a quite nice CD case of the style usually used for DVDs...
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
Article's Quote:
The REAL Quote:Somehow, I think that the meaning changes a bit here, don't you? The article seems to want to portray them as hackers who are glory hounds, whereas, I think their real quote reveals that they KNOW they will have their public image assassinated at every chance no matter what happens (as this example blatantly shows)
- Winamp can be used to listen to illegal mp3's
- Shoutcast can be used to play copyrighted music and not pay any royalties
- Gnutella exists
- The guys from nullsoft released a winamp plugin to change the AOL Instant Messenger ads with something else.
There really isn't much new information here, it portrays the guys at Nullsoft as whimsical, ecentric, crazy kids while showing AOL to be the mature but understanding adult that is simply putting up with their youthful antics with a grin.
Mas vale cholo, que mal acompañado.