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Justin Frankel On AOL, Subverting The Status Quo

Posted by simoniker on from the null-to-aol dept.

linuxbaby writes "Rolling Stone has an excellent feature on Justin Frankel, the creator of Winamp, Gnutella, Shoutcast, Waste, and other projects. The article calls him 'the world's most dangerous geek', and after years of being muzzled by AOL for igniting the pirate nation, Frankel is breaking his silence." The article ends by asking: "In many ways, Frankel's future encapsulates the debate over the future of the Internet itself. Does it become just a distribution system for corporate product or more of a way to subvert that corporate control?"

9 of 364 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Anyone been following Winamp? by Sprite+Remix · · Score: 4, Informative

    2 + 3 = 5 They're using Winamp's 2.x engine that allows 3.x skins to work with it. Along with a lot of extra crap that could be downloaded as a 3rd party plugin. Only reason why Winamp3 failed was it was shipped WAY to early.

  2. Re:He'd be more dangerous still... by rendler · · Score: 3, Informative

    How about using the search function yourself? It's not too hard.

    --

    *shrug*
  3. Re:Half a billion?!? by ron_ivi · · Score: 5, Informative
    Parent wrote:
    "He was paid in AOL stock, not dollars. What are 400 million pieces of toilet paper worth? Enough.

    400 sheets of toilet paper (Kleenex Cottonelle) on amazon.com go for $3.65

    400 million pieces of toilet paper = $3,650,000.

  4. Link to the song mentioned in the article by cyberb0b · · Score: 3, Informative
    You can download the recorded track from his website:

    http://www.blorp.com/music/Full%20Jams/031115-bren nankushner.mp3

  5. waste sapproaching 3 million downloads. by bn557 · · Score: 3, Informative

    www.dhorrocks2003.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/waste 3 million plus (2.7million unique) downloads of waste from here so far, just goes to show how good justin is...

    P

    --
    Humans are slow, innaccurate, and brilliant; computers are fast, acurrate, and dumb; together they are unbeatable
  6. Re:where credit is due... by NoMoreNicksLeft · · Score: 3, Informative

    Check out this.

    There is a way to be safe on a somewhat public network. I want to see how big it can be built....

  7. Win-An Mp3 Player by Fryth · · Score: 3, Informative

    he uploaded Winamp (the name is short for Windows Amplifier

    Actually, it's short for the Windows port of amp (An MP3 Player) for *nix.

  8. Re:where credit is due... by The+Munger · · Score: 4, Informative

    Firstly, I don't work there anymore. Secondly, the employees have worked on OSS on company time. So the company uses OSS and contributes back. Sure, the main product isn't open source, but they have contributed back, and everyone has to make a dollar.

    --
    Refuse to make a statement in your sig!
  9. Re:Overhyped. by kfg · · Score: 3, Informative

    Lindy is no more important than someone who hands tools to the guy who is tuning Spirits engine before takeoff.

    That would have been Charles Lindbergh. Then Lindy double checked the work himself. He also personally oversaw the design and construction of the Spirit personally.

    Lindy was a remarkable man. You should read "We" sometime.

    George Mallory was another remarkable man, even though he "failed." We don't normally admit that "failures" are remarkable men. George made it impossible not to.

    I fully understand the concept that every member of a team is important. I've never understood why the last run batted in is hailed as the "winning run" when the first run batted in was just as much the winning run as any other. There is also certainly a kind of hero worship I find repulsive.

    KFG