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The Zinf Project (ex Freeamp) Needs Help
"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."
As far as I know, the source to the Linux version of Winamp won't be open-source. I think many people will want an alternative to it for that reason. Also, although you do make some good points about trying to re-invent the wheel, having an (open source) alternative can be very useful if the "wheel maker" goes under. For example, if FreeAmp was your only media player, if the project was discontinued, the source would still be available and the project could be continued. Whereas if Winamp (or Nullsoft, but I guess now that they've been bought up, this isn't really that realistic of a scenario) went under, the project might just die.
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?
What we see depends on mainly what we look for. -- John Lubbock Now search for that bug slave!
By that rationale, we wouldn't have linux either... after all, we already had windows, and everybody knows its the BEST OS out there, or else why would 95% of desktops be running it?
In spite of its futility at becoming THE BEST music software out there, freeamp has some interesting features, which is why I use it over winamp. For one thing, its got the same featureset on linux as on windows, and runs well on both... its got a song fingerprinting feature which can recommend new music streams for you, although it doesn't really work right now as far as i can see. all the more reason for everyone to pitch in and write some code.
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')
My father is a blogger.
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 good example of why having multiple projects is good comes from EGCS and GCC. After GCC 1 was released it was realised that major code changes would need to be made to advance it. Thusly GCC 2 was born. However, another group had split and worked on the EGCS compiler. The EGCS compiler turned out to be so superior it was adopted, and replaced the original GCC 2.
I thought GCC, vim, and emacs were all available for Windows?
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
I'm a Winamp and XMMS user currently although I'm going to give Zinf a try on my Doze box. Sure it doesn't have as many cool features as Winamp but it also doesn't have the spectre of AOL hovering over your shoulder while you use it.
I'm off now to make some feature requests.
Open source wont succeed until it makes better software than what exists or until it makes software that doesn't exist yet.
... and I must say, I'm glad I ran into this story, because so far it has been the best player I have used so far. We CAN do better than Winamp. XMMS IMO performs alot better than Winamp does under windows (try loading 5k+ mp3's and see which one is faster, by a long shot). With Open Source software we won't see stupid marketing gimmicks like a mini-browser.
I've been trying zinf all morning
Whether Winamp3 has a linux port is irrelevant. First of all, the port is already way behind the windows version, and it's not Free (speech).
Unfortunately for Zinf, it is cursed with "media player" syndrome, which means it must not conform to any known UI methodology and look like absolute crap by default.
The playlist is by far the best I've seen, I began organizing my mess of an mp3/ogg collection. I can edit ID3's right from the list, and drag them right onto my playlist. Everything good about this playlist overrides any qualms I have about how the normal player interface is. It is very intuitive.
Freea*p has a new fan today, I've already removed Winamp!
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??
My father is a blogger.
AMP is a generic term for Audio Media Player ... and I can't see where they would have a case. Of course I don't have to foot the bill, so I can't say I would bother fighting it.
Also what are the specifics as to support being dropped by e-music? Have they also dropped support for Music Brainz? Music Brainz seemd to be CDDB done right with more information, proper support for multi-artist disks, etc.
-josh