The Zinf Project (ex Freeamp) Needs Help

Jayesh Sheth writes: "The Zinf Project (formerly known as Freeamp) needs your help! The Freeamp ( http://www.freeamp.org ) project, which produced the cross-platform mp3 and ogg vorbis player, is now known as the Zinf project. Freeamp distinguished itself early on as an easy-to-use music player for both Linux and Windows, with integrated support not only for the mp3 format, but also for the open source ogg vorbis format." Read on for the help this project is looking for -- in short, they're looking for some new blood.

"The project is unable to continue using the name 'Freeamp' due to legal action from PlayMedia Systems, Inc over the use of 'amp' in its name. Additionally, Emusic.com (currently owned by Vivendi Universal Net USA ) - which had previously sponsored the Freeamp project - has dropped its support for the project.

Fortunately, since Freeamp was run as an open source project, its source continues to live on - under the current stewardship of Robert Kaye (at the helm of Zinf.org), one of the original programmers for the project. The Zinf project,however, is looking for new project leaders, programmers, documenters, and user - support people.

If you have some free time, and would like to keep Freeamp alive as Zinf, please visit the Zinf website or its Sourceforge website, where you can add yourself to a user or programmer mailing list, download the source code or compiled files, check out the list of open bugs, and get in contact with the project .

Thanks for reading this. Lets keep Zinf - and diversity in the music player landscape - alive."

Comments

Amp Trademark?

[jpt.d]

Why do I think that is bull?

1) Amp is a generic term (short for ampere), and is in fact somebody's name.

2) Winamp has it

3) Which AMP are we talking about?

One word, Mozilla.

[Big Sean O]

Lots of people complained that Mozilla was a failure: it was late, it was buggy, it already lost to MS Internet Explorer, yadda yadda yadda.

But now Mozilla is released. It isn't perfect, but it's good enough for me to burn my copy of Internet Explorer. Meanwhile, having the source open means that it will fuel browser-development projects for the next decade.

If having an open-source WinAmp clone feels like overkill, you're not thinking sufficiently long-term. It's only after a large body of code is released and contributed to that new variations appear. An open-source audio player will create new projects that don't exist yet, like "my car stereo has a wireless card and it downloads playlists and music from my mp3 server every night it's parked in the garage".

Without having an open, well-designed, body of code to use, you're either forced to write all the code yourself (always an option, but obviously not for everyone), or wait for somebody else to come up with the idea and pay them (either with $, or your private data (listening trends, demographic data), or 'unused processor time')

Why not a better name, like "smelly armpit"?

[Futurepower(R)]

I strongly support FreeAmp. I agree with previous posters that Open Source lives forever but closed source often dies. Where is Harvard Graphics now, for example? At one time it was the best in its field, now people can't remember that it existed. Software companies often self-destruct. One day, FreeAmp will be the best player, and only old-timers will even know that WinAmp existed, especially considering people won't be using Windows any longer, and WinAmp has Windows in its name.

But Open Source projects are also often self-destructive. The first step of many Open Source projects is to pick a stupid name. Zinf? That's disgusting. Only insiders know what it means. Everyone else has to struggle with the name until they become an insider too.

My favorite self-destructive name is Killustrator. The originators of Apache server tried to be self-destructive by calling their product "A patchy server", but were saved by the fact that the same syllables sound like the name of an American Indian tribe. A lot of open source names have been acronyms that began with the words "Yet another".

Someone should investigate this as a social phenomenon. Why does a programmer who is intelligent in other areas of his life start a new project and name it "I'm an idiot"? Lack of self-esteem?

The name of a project is very important in attracting developers and users. What writer wants to review a product named "Fussbudget"?

Even if software is free, there is still a need for marketing. Marketing is just creating good communication between developers and users. Stupid names are bad communication.

A almost agree with you...

[Big Sean O]

Your point about Harvard Graphics is spot on.

But I don't agree totally about your theory on Stupid Names. Killustrator wasn't a great name, but it was catchy. An Illustrator-Killer, heh. Who can remember what the project is called now?

A lot of OSS names are quite inventive and remarkably effective: Linux, the Gimp, Perl, Python, Jabber. And words that decompose to acronyms have been around since Lisp was jokingly called "Lots of Irritating Superflous Parentheses"

Zinf isn't a bad name. It is short, easily recognized, and doesn't have any other associations with it. If the product is good, people will learn the name. For example, what's YOUR search engine? Webcrawler or Google??