Winamp Down for the Count

Artifex writes "BetaNews is reporting that the doors at Nullsoft have been closed: 'The last members of the original Winamp team have said goodbye to AOL and the door has all but shut on the Nullsoft era, BetaNews has learned. Only a few employees remain to prop up the once-ubiquitous digital audio player with minor updates, but no further improvements to Winamp are expected.'" The Register also has a story.

Comments

I guess...

[holzp]

I guess they really are Nullsoft now.

Re:I guess...

[Anonymous Coward]

This was really just the whip that broke the llama's ass.

Re:I guess...

[AKAImBatman]

Here's an odd thought... why bother? Quite a few Winamp clones exist because the WinAMP design is not hard to replicate. It's really not much more than a way of loading, inspecting, and playing audio files from disk, http, or streaming servers. Here's a few example clones:

jlGUI
JAMP
JahSing

Re:I guess...

[BiggyP]

you'd likely be much better off picking up something like BMP to use for the port since GTK2 is far better than 1.x on win32.

OS Winamp

[kdark1701]

So when are they releasing the source code?

Re:OS Winamp

[RayTardo]

So you could package it as closed source and sell it under a different name...

It's successor?

[romcabrera]

Which one do you think will likely be its successor?

Re:It's successor?

[Bricklets]

Which one do you think will likely be its successor?

Knowing what AOL did to their Netscape division, it'll probably be Windows Media Player.

Re:It's successor?

[nine-times]

Does anyone else feel like AOL went around buying up software developers in competition with MS products just so they could kill it as part of a deal with Microsoft?

Really, did we ever see evidence that AOL had any intention of using Netscape or Winamp for anything, or was it just to kill the projects?

Re:It's successor?

[mallumax]

Winamp 2.9 series has every feature an mp3 player should have and plethora of plugins available. So what more do u need ? Video ?? get 5 series.Use the classic skin for more performance. I can't think of any feature that is not available (a plugin exists for any feature i can think of ) I mean doesthis really matter as long as winamp work on all windows verions.

Re:It's successor?

[Anonymous Coward]

The real killing of things started when control switched hands from AOL to Time Warner. Once that happened, the Microsoft settlement and killing of Netscape happened, now this.

AOL seemed to have a clue, but didn't really know how to act on it. Time Warner simply sees no value in a product when there is a working Microsoft version of the same thing.

Re:It's successor?

[kalidasa]

Actually, I was just thinking that: as they once called the Ottoman Empire a prison of nations, they should call AOL a cemetary of independent software projects.

Re:It's successor?

[Number6.2]

Just remember: Corporate America isn't about *you*. It's about enhancing "value" to "shareholders".

This means that if they have to make 1000 employees miserable by laying them off for a quarter (or eight) so the financials look rosy for Wall Street, they'll do it.

And if they have to gobble up a superior technology as a bargaining chip, they'll do it.

Corporate America is the ultimate communal reptilian brain: cold, efficient, ruthless, amoral, it WILL achieve it's goals, no matter who it has to hurt. Things are very black and white in Corporate America: profit/good loss/bad.

Open Source, on the other hand, is very mamillian: there are others "like it", there's a *community*. Altruism actually has a place in this scheme.

And it drives the lizards crazy. If one lizard attacks another lizard, no other lizard intervenes. If a lizard attacks a mamal, all of the mamal's kin come down on that lizard like, well, a pack of wild animals.

Hence...the antipithy between Corporate America and Open Source.

This is a metaphore, to be sure: some businesses "get it". These are the businesses that can plan further than a quarter ahead at a time, or are big enough that they can say "screw the Street" and take a short term hit (IBM?)

Companies are like lizards, they are always prey to bigger lizards.

Open Source is like a herd of (your favorite heard animal here). They can only be taken down by a BIG lizard or another pack based life form.

enough

cheers
6.2

Re:It's successor?

[XMyth]

Winamp 5 came with better skin support (not a big deal I know) and the media library which is what sold me on it. If it wasn't for the media library then I'd still be using Winamp 2.9.

Re:It's successor?

[afd8856]

wxMusik. (musik.berlios.de)

Like itunes, but open source and really really slim on resource usage. Really, I've never been so excited with a player since I've found wxMusik. It has a media library, dinamic queries,it's interface is slim, just give it a try!

Re:It's successor?

[gordo3000]

decent try, but real bad example. In most pack animals, the smallest and weakest are left to die when then chase is put on by the predator(your lizard if you want). There are very few mamalian species that rush to the rescue and try to fend off the attack, but their are a few(so I guess it works sometimes).

a good example is an elephant herd, in which the elders will protect the children from attack and if a parent is killed, the young are still cared for by others. This is not the norm though.

on the other hand, isn't everything you described what a profit maximizing business is about. take something, give it value for long enough to profit, and always reevaluate the prodcut to see if its still worth it to you. It could very well be that those employees are now out of work, but if their work wasn't profitable, there is no valid reason to keep them. Obviously AOL does not feel the work of Nullsoft to be profitable.

Of course, you could not blame AOL for failed companies and blame the greed of the head's of those companies who sold out to AOL rather than keep doing a good thing. You know, even if bill gates walks up to me and offers me a billion dollars for something I have, there is no force on this planet that forces the sale.

Re:It's successor?

[InsaneGeek]

AOL actually didn't really care too much about the program or how good it was. At the time Netscape was the start page of a majority of the internet. They bought Netscape for their page views, they sold all of the programs (except for the browser) off to Sun. They kept the browser so they could keep the clicks, unrealizing that MS would end up flipping their position and that in short while adveritsement dollars wouldn't be quite the same.

Re:It's successor?

[DrXym]

No it wasn't that. You give them too much credit. AOL are simply incompetant.

At one time, Netscape, Nullsoft, Spinner etc. were considered to be 'divlets', all with their own identity, all churning out cool stuff that could be reused etc. You think about what these groups produced:

1. Netscape made Mozilla & Gecko. Enough said. It also had a great portal until some dickheads started infesting it with popup windows, rendering it unusable.
2. Spinner.com made a great radio system. I still play it on occasion.
3. Nullsoft made the best, bar none damned media player for Windows, plus NSV streaming, NSIS and more.

So what does AOL do? Drive them all into the ground and suck Microsoft's cock. Oh I think some of these things are offhandedly in the AOL client (e.g. radio) but innovation? What's that?

The reason for all this is that AOL has a corporate culture of infighting and conservatism. If two groups compete for some work, it is the one that doesn't rock the boat, that promises the fastest results and with a vision compatible with marketing drones that wins. The AOL client feature requirements and schedule dictates what goes ahead. It doesn't matter that an inferior product will go in or that it will become a millstone in a year or two.

Meanwhile the innovative product withers on the vine and the group responsible is shitcanned. Why? I don't know but I reckon IE & WMP are like comfort blankets to AOL marketing. If you start going all scary on them by showing them something without 'Microsoft' in the title, they get nervous. I bet even the Mac group in AOL feels like an unwanted child.

Consider what could have been. Winamp 5.0 has streaming music, videos, a library, a CD burner, ripping, an integrated browser. With a little push it could have been iTMS. Time Warner has tens of thousands of tracks and movies to sell and AOL is (or was) the perfect outlet to sell them. The much vaunted 'synergy' they kept talking about was right under their noses. But apparantly that's not much use to a massive multi media conglomerate. Oh no, "let's sack them all".

Or consider Gecko. It was cross-platform, standards compliant and modular. AOL could free themselves from Microsoft forever. They could develop a cross-platform and modern client. They wouldn't have to wait for MS to fix bugs, or workaround some broken implementation - they could do whatever they liked with it. So what does AOL do? It stumps for the bitrotten piece of crap from their mortal enemy. And I'm sure Microsoft is ecstatic about that, since it basically ties AOL's hands.

It really does boil down to incompetance. Sheer bloody incompetance.

Re:It's successor?

[jsebrech]

Really, did we ever see evidence that AOL had any intention of using Netscape or Winamp for anything, or was it just to kill the projects?

Never attribute to malice what you can attribute to incompetence. I see no evidence AOL ever made any product that was truly good. Their corporate culture seems to discourage excellence. It's why nobody likes them, and why anything they try to "assimilate" ends up dead within a few years.

Re:It's successor?

[DrXym]

The problem was that Netscape was making Mozilla the open source world and not for their corporate masters at AOL. They five or six years dinking around writing UI toolkits and bugbases and pontificating on standards, and when they finally released something (NS 6), it was a pile of ass.

It wasn't 5 or 6 years. It was approximately 3 years to write a modern standards compliant brower from scratch to the point that AOL could have taken it up. Netscape 6 wasn't much to write home about, but even that was embeddable, as evidenced by the Compuserve 2000 client. The CS2000 client is basically an AOL client with some different DLLs, graphics and content. It was proof of concept that Gecko could run in the AOL client. By the time of Netscape 7, the performance was vastly improved and Gecko was miles better than IE - more stable, smaller footprint, better rendering. AOL could have used it and did use it in beta versions of the client. Betas running the Gecko engine actually crashed less than the IE version. The reason it never materialised in the final release was because marketing couldn't cope with the short term pain that might entail from the transition - sites running VBScript, ActiveX controls and so on. That's what it boiled down to.

They could have used XUL too, for example when AOL Communicator was being written, but they didn't. Netscape demonstrated a standalone AOL mail app written entirely in XUL. For reasons unfathomable, they chose to write an almost identical UI entirely in C++ instead. Gecko did make an appearance - providing HTML mail rendering support, but it's hardly an impressive use of the technology. Making apps like AOL Communicator is what XUL was designed for and it was ignored.

XUL could also have been used to replace the really ancient AOL format (whose name escapes me) used for the start page and elsewhere. Partners had been bitching about it forever. XUL would have been the perfect tool to replace it with.

In fact Netscape bent over backwards to get AOL to use Gecko in a lot of places, but there was a lot of infighting, inertia and conservatism that ultimately 'won'. I say 'won' because the result is that the AOL client is even more arcane looking than it was then. You can only polish a turd for so long. It's no wonder users are deserting in droves when their product is so ancient and monolithic.

As for WinAmp, basically AOL could have told the guys in Nullsoft to work up a music store and they would have done it. I'm sure they would have jumped at it. In fact I am certain that Nullsoft have pitched the idea of just such an idea on numerous occasions. Again, it would not surprise me if they were beaten down by the same conservatism and marketing stupidity that did in Netscape.

AOL Client is a revenue stream. Netscape and Winamp never got past being Internet Freebies.

Netscape was a revenue stream too. And clearly it still is since AOL recently paid Mozilla.org to produce Netscape 7.2.

And so were Winamp & Spinner. They all generated revenue. Of course if AOL were serious about generating revenue, they wouldn't have sidelined them the way they did.

Time to open it up!

[dogas]

Much like Netscape did when it was in its death throes, I think it would be great if they could open up the source and allow an online community to develop for it.

Just think, in a year or so it could be the next iTunes killer..

Re:Time to open it up!

[garcia]

Just think, in a year or so it could be the next iTunes killer..

Nah. Nullsoft/AOL would have had to have a music store from the getgo in order to compete with the vast library that iTMS has amassed. iTunes is now synonomous with cheap music with a decent interface.

Nullsoft/AOL would just not be able to compete at this late stage in the game. Others have tried but it seems that Apple is continuing to win that battle.

Is this good? Maybe not. We certainly don't want a single viable option for music playing/purchasing but I really don't think that an open source project from Nullsoft/AOL will be able to compete *now*.

Re:Time to open it up!

[martingunnarsson]

First, there might be licensed stuff in the Winamp source, codecs for different fileformats or whatnot.
Second, iTunes is one if the good guys, we don't wanna kill that!

Re:Time to open it up!

[urmensch]

Please explain to me why iTunes is one of the good guys? Is it because it's difficult to play iTunes files with other players and platforms?

Re:Time to open it up!

[Bequita]

"Second, iTunes is one if the good guys, we don't wanna kill that!"

Competition will be good for iTunes. If iTunes is one of the good guys, competition should help it stay that way. If it's not a good guy, well... the last thing we need is for iTunes to become the next IE.

Re:Time to open it up!

[mog007]

Perhaps in three years we'll have Mozzila SoundSiren, which will spark a lawsuit threat, so the name will be changed to PhonicPhoenix, which will cause ANOTHER lawsuit, making the offical product AcusticAvian.

Re:Time to open it up!

[damiam]

iTunes the program != iTMS.

Re:Time to open it up!

[BuhSnarf]

I'd say the complete opposite. WinAmp has (IMHO - obviously) *the* best UI of any music player around. It has the playlist, the buttons, a scrolly text bit to show the song and that was it. Everything else was hidden away. It felt like a little side app, which is how I like my media players, something in the background, not a full blown full screen app. And it hid away neatly.

And the best thing? It had keyboard shortcuts. For someone that rarely uses the mouse that's what got it for me.

I've no need for a successor. Winamp 2.9 or 5 is fine for me.

Re:Time to open it up!

[urmensch]

Oops, strike that last comment. Don't know where that came from... Maybe one too many Apple/Bonhead commercials have burned my brain.

Re:Time to open it up!

[fishdan]

iTunes isn't even CLOSE to cheap. These places are cheap.

Some places are cheaper still

Re:Time to open it up!

[njfuzzy]

"iTunes files"?

Do you mean MP3, MP4, or AAC? All of the many file formats supported by iTunes are playable on a variety of hardware and software.

Or are you confusing the player (which competes with WinAmp) with the iTunes store?

Expected Outcome.

[data1]

This has been the expected outcome of Nullsoft's assimilation into the corporate giant that is AOL.
Read more here: http://p2pnet.net/story/2965

Winamp 5

[jamesjw]

Finally they got something right and theyre cut down in their prime :(

Hopefully the programmers will leave and start some free Winamp like project in the Firefox vein..

Open Amp, here we come :)

-- Jim.

Re:Winamp 5

[jdew]

www.foobar2000.org

One of the guys who left a while ago started making foobar2000. The interface isn't anything close to winamp's, but the player itself is BSD licensed.

pours some beer on the ground..

[loconet]

Here is to the greatest mp3 player ...

Re:pours some beer on the ground..

[Oliver Defacszio]

What can you do with WA5 that you can't with iTunes?

I can't remember what song I wanted to hear by the time that iTunes finally loads.

tis a sad day

[kc0re]

This is a sad day in free software history. Screw you AOL. (I know this will be redundant)... Winamp is one of the better free programs out there, I guess the few remaining will have to migrate to xmms.

Now all we will get is bloatware

[spikexyz]

I like winamp since it doesn't suck up many more processor cycles or bytes of memory than necessary to play MP3s, at least relative to the other bloatware out there. It also doesn't have a million features I don't need, just a few that I never use. RIP

foobar

[maskedbishounen]

http://www.foobar2000.org/ ;)

Re:foobar

[Pleione]

There is a freeform skin plugin for foobar. I forget the name of it since I like my custom formatting strings. Check around on Hydrogen Audio.

Re:foobar

[DavidTC]

I was actually about to suggest foobar2000 myself. I use it all the time, I love it.

Why? Because it doesn't use a stupid ass interface. I hate winamp's interface. Yeah, let's waste space mimicing a fricking physical player. And while we're at it, why don't we draw a big pencil around the screen to write?

foobar2000 sits in the taskbar, and has global hotkeys to flip around with. If I want to do something the hotkeys can't handle, I can bring it up...it's just one window, a tabbed playlist window, where adding and deleting files is very intuitive. It actually maximizes logically, so I can see everything. I can have dozens of playlists on the top, all nice in a row. All the buttons on Winamp's main window take up a good 15x300 block in the menubar.

Winamp, in contrast, wants you to bring up extra windows to manage your song list, when that is, in fact, the only reason you need a media player in the first place. And, of course, the list is this tiny thing...hey, windows already has a perfectly good list control, with columns and everything.

I don't give a rat's ass about how pretty it looks, because 99.9999% of the time, I can't see the damn thing anyway. Do people really sit around and have winamp cover up a third of their screen while using their computer? Somehow I doubt it.

The only thing foobar2000 is lacking is easy access to the EQ. I'm sure there's a plugin somewhere for that.

That said, foobar2000 does apparently have some skins plugin you can use.

Re:foobar

[jack_csk]

Winamp always need write access to the program's directory, and there is always single environment setting. That makes a secure multi-user system difficult. I ended up using foobar2000.

Might as well...

[nordicfrost]

Winamp was one of those Must Have Apps for Windows, and heralded much of the MP3 success. After that half-yearly re-install of Windows, WA was one of the first apps to go back in. So you could play MP3s while reinstalling Office etc.

But after it went to version2, things became less rosy. Version 1.x worked a charm on my old 266/512mb peecee, but the 2.x series was dog slow and ridden with feature creep. I wonder if all the dumbass features in 2.x was something AOL mandated in the app. Rest of story: I went Linux, the Mac and never looked back.

Kudos to the original Nullsoft team, you did a great job!

Re:Might as well...

[BuhSnarf]

I think you mean version 3 was the dog ugly, slow and bloat version?

Versions 2 and 5 are the best versions ever released.

Version 2 if you have an old computer or just want pure music playing.

Version 5 if you want the Winamp library and new skin support.

Re:Might as well...

[shadow303]

According to dictionary.com, biannual can either mean semiannual (twice a year) or biennial (once every two year). English is such a fun language.

Re:Might as well...

[yic]

I agree that Winamp 5 is awesome ... I love it. Winamp 2 was great, but Winamp 5 is better, and I don't even use the skins. I like the library system, with their SQL-like language for you to specify things like "newly added items that haven't been played yet" etc. The UI is great for organizing media, and I need it cuz I have so much music. Since getting the version 5 I realise I don't need to categorize my music anymore ... just type "rock" and it gives you everything associated with rock, or type musician name, or whatever. And it's really nice the way the UI integrates the bookmarks, playlists, streaming TV and radio. The "rescan Watch folders" button is nice. The whole thing is a lot, lot better than Windows Media Player by far.

So I'm really sad there will be no more extensions :(

What's a good alternative for people stuck with...

[caluml]

Windows?
If anyone wanted to listen to my Icecast streams, or the ogg recordings I made, I always pointed them at Winamp, as it worked, and was free. And I couldn't be bothered answering lots of questions about codecs, and stuff.
What's the best thing now?

Don't really need more updates

[millwall]

I'm still using v.1 and it still "Kicks the Llama's Ass".

Why the programmers left.

[fireboy1919]

No, it wasn't AOL, or commercial business.

It was because the Llama really whipped Winamp's ass a couple of weeks ago.

I'm sure it surprised everyone when it happened.

What am I going to tell people now?

[WWWWolf]

"What's this ogg thing?" "Open it in Winamp! You have the full version, right?" "Uh, what are these s3m/mod/it files?" "Just open them in Winamp."

Okay, so Winamp will still exist as a reanimated corpse, but the question remains - what am I going to tell people to use now to open these obscure geek music formats? It's not like iTunes would particularly help here, and Microsoft definitely won't care either...

Re:What am I going to tell people now?

[julesh]

Just tell 'em to use winamp. It's not like it'll need any new features to continue doing its job. And it has a well defined plugin interface, just in case any are required.

Re:Well... What else is out there?

[advocate_one]

what other MP3 players out there have the same functionality as winamp

Well, there is XMMS... Zinf... to name a couple... Zinf has a windows version...

Re:So Why?

[micromoog]

1. AOL
2. iTunes
3. no more llamas to kick

iTunes (for Windows)

[kriegsman]

I know several people who are happy converts from WinAmp to iTunes.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Apple makes some really good software -- even for Windows.

-Mark

Re:iTunes (for Windows)

[Anonymous Custard]

Looking back, I don't know how I got along with WinAmp's retarded playlist system. It was literally just a list of however many hundreds or thousands of MP3's you had. iTunes was much better in terms of organizing your music.

Buying it from AOL

[LegendOfLink]

Anybody out there in Slashdot land think we might be able to put together an initiative, gather donations for funds, and buy the source from AOL?

Re:Buying it from AOL

[digime]

XMMS is almost an exact duplicate of WinAmp (if not completely identical) for Linux. You have the XMMS source, no money involved. Get porting.

Re:Oh no!

[lumpenprole]

Foobar 2000.

Tried it once, never looked back. And I was a huge Winamp fan.

http://www.foobar2000.org/

Looking for a good WinAmp replacement?

[B5_geek]

I strongly suggest trying FooBar2000 http://foobar2000.com/
I have loaded up the playlist with 15,000 songs, and it only used 2MB of RAM!!!

There are extensive plugin's available, it is compatable with shoutcast.

FooBar takes a very minimalistic approach to it's UI. You can add bell's & whistle's & visualizations if you want.

Re:Looking for a good WinAmp replacement?

[skadus]

By 'minimalist' you mean 'huge and clunky and not like a good unobtrusive audio player at all', right? There must be a better word for describing a low usage of resources... :p

I mean, it looks like CDex, only CDex isn't meant to be my media player.

Is there a plugin/interface that will make it look like Winamp/XMMS? Or even better, a XMMS port for Windows?

Re:Looking for a good WinAmp replacement?

[ricotest]

Wow? Only 2MB! I have a gig of ram, so I'm quite happy to load iTunes up instead. It might take up 38 MB of ram (!) but it's a hell of a lot nicer to use.

Re:Looking for a good WinAmp replacement?

[Idarubicin]

You can add bell's & whistle's & visualizations if you want.

Your forgot the apostrophe in "visualization's". :)

Re:sweet

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it's just you. What the hell does that even mean, it needs to move forward? It plays music files, it lets you choose them and fast forward them. What the hell else do you need? A built-in web browser and tax advisor?
Ridiculous. Or, in /. speak, rediculous.

Re:Oh no!

[John_Booty]

The alternative I like best is iTunes. I wouldn't run it on an older machine but it was decent on my 1.2ghz Athlon and perfectly okay on my AthlonXP 2500 and AthlonXP 3200...

+free
+excellent for LARGE (40GB+) music collections. their playlist and library features blow everybody else away. this is the "killer feature" for me. absolutely.
+iTunes music store if you're into that (I'm not)
+iPod support (I liked it even before I got an iPod)
+easy to add artwork to albums
+nice support for tagging multiple files
+if anybody else on your LAN is running iTunes, you can play their music (although not copy it)... this even works if they're on a Mac and you're on Windows

-not Free in the GNU sense, obviously
-uses like 50MB of RAM for my really huge collection (80GB); but I don't care because I have 1GB. sorry. :P
-Mac+PC only, no linux
-doesn't work with other portable players
-no built-in "windowshade" mode like Winamp, but there are plugins that accomplish this

Re:What's a good alternative for people stuck with

[Anonymous Coward]

Foobar 2K

Goodbye old pal.

[lumpenprole]

A couple years ago I was tired of Winamp seeming to eat a crapload of system resources and switched to Foobar 2000 and never looked back.

But Winamp was the first free gui audio player that I ever really enjoyed. I remember sending playlists to friends as a way to encourage them to download it. Thanks for helping to make computers cool, Nullsoft. You were great.

Re:What's a good alternative for people stuck with

[Evangelion]

QCD is what I use.

Re:sweet

[BinLadenMyHero]

I don't think skinning and eye-candy is that important. Winamp2 interface is good enough. There are other more important fields to advance. I would like to have a MPlayer backend to play all the media files in XMMS. (There is also a plugin for video files, but why not a plugin to play *every* file through MPlayer?)

Winamp Unlimited, for Teh Win

[lotsofno]

.

The BetaNews article is a bit off, as is the story it spawned over at The Register (whose headline for the piece was just ridiculous.).

As usual, Winamp Unlimited sets it straight with not only details on an upcoming 5.06 version of Winamp, but details on what the former Nullsoft-ees are doing now and a naked picture of their ex-Product Manager.

"Winamp Unlimited is your #1 source for Winamp news, rumors,forum highlights, and general propoganda. Awesome!"

.

Re:Woah!

[swordboy]

I think that this is an opportunity for Google. They could buy up companies like this, combine them with various other companies or open source software and come up with a Google OS or a "fascia" for Windows.

- Google Winamp
- Google OpenOffice
- Google Firefox/Phoenix (complete with gmail integration)
- Google Linux (BSD?)

Now that they've sold their souls to the devil (i.e. - gone public), they've certainly got the resources to put it together with the much needed polish that the mainstream is looking for.

XMMS

[!Xabbu]

Time to start begging the folks over at xmms.org to make a windows port. :(

Never.

[Ride-My-Rocket]

So when are they releasing the source code?

The same time they release the source code to Netscape.

Re:Never.

[Dizzle]

Didn't they... do that already? ie (no, not IE), Mozilla?

Re:Never.

[elemental23]

Netscape released the Mozilla source, not AOL. It was already open source by the time they bought it, so they don't get credit for releasing it.

On the other hand, they did open source AOLserver, so they're actually somewhat friendly to the idea (surprisingly).

Re:What else can play Amiga MOD files?

[Marauder2]

I use ModPlug Player http://www.modplug.com/modplug/player.php3

It's not been updated since 2001, but can perfectly play just about every MOD, XM, S3M, IT, UMX, etc. I throw at it. It even plays zip encapsulated files without having to decompress them.

Open Source Winamp 3 = Wasabi

[motown]

Well, they have already released most of the Winamp 3 sourcecode (without any of the DRM stuff) under the Wasabi project.

Furthermore, the Nullsoft-guys already brought us the open Gnutella protocol.

All of this would indicate that the good people at Nullsoft are pretty cool with open source. So if the Winamp 5 source code is not going to be released, then I think we should blame AOL for that, not Nullsoft.

Re:Open Source Winamp 3 = Wasabi

[LiENUS]

Furthermore, the Nullsoft-guys already brought us the open Gnutella protocol.

Might want to check yourself on this, Nullsoft brought us the Gnutella protocol but they did not make it open. Other talented individuals reverse-engineered the Gnutella protocol. Nullsoft never released any source-code or specs.

All of this would indicate that the good people at Nullsoft are pretty cool with open source

Might want to check the license on wasabi http://www.wasabidev.org/license.php you can't even distribute the closed source wasabi.dll with what you write using that sdk, ie it is useless and windows only. It is most certainly NOT open source./p

Re:Open Source Winamp 3 = Wasabi

[lonedfx]

Might want to check the license on wasabi http://www.wasabidev.org/license.php you can't even distribute the closed source wasabi.dll with what you write using that sdk, ie it is useless and windows only.

That (old) SDK was meant to build extentions to Winamp3 and 5, which is why it was windows-only and one of the reason you couldn't redistribute the DLL (it was a part of winamp). Although some have used it to build full apps, that wasn't really what it was intended for.

Since then, wasabi has forked into a portable, fully open source effort (http://wasabi.t0x.org), whose license is zlib-like. That stuff has none of the skinning/scripting of Winamp3/5 (the DLL you talk about), that is proprietary to AOL. It will have its own in the future in a non proprietary way, leveraging other open source projects.

It is most certainly NOT open source

It was mostly open source, as the page you point to explains. Sure, those parts not in the DLL were not open source, but noone ever claimed they were. Open source does not mean compilable into standalone apps, it means the source is open : you could have taken any cpp/h file out of the open source sdk, changed it (or not), then used it in your own project (I certainly did), and you would even have had the liberty to open your modifications or not. That was legal, because the sdk was open source (zlib-like).

Anyway, the fork made that point moot.

Re:Open Source Winamp 3 = Wasabi

[Erik Hollensbe]

IIRC (and please correct me if I'm wrong, just this is how I remember it panning out)

Nullsoft released the initial Gnutella client with the intention of Open Sourcing it.

Within a day of release, AOL put a stop to that. You might be able to find all this in the /. archives.

Those who had copies of the clients started producing hacks of it and documenting the current protocol, and that's what lead to Gnutella 2, which is what most clients use today.

Re:Woah!

[SledgeHBK]

Wait, yeah, then they could make a internet service, you know... google 9.0 OPTIMIZED!!!!!1111

Wait......

Re:What's a good alternative for people stuck with

[meax]

foobar2000 maybe?

Quote from their site:

Features:
* Audio formats supported "out-of-the-box": WAV, AIFF, VOC, AU, SND, Ogg Vorbis, MPC, MP2, MP3, MPEG-4 AAC
* Audio formats supported through official addons: FLAC, OggFLAC, Monkey's Audio, WavPack, Speex, CDDA, TFMX, SPC, various MOD types; extraction on-the-fly from RAR, 7-ZIP & ZIP archives
* Full Unicode support on Windows NT
* ReplayGain support
* Low memory footprint, efficient handling of really large playlists
* Advanced file info processing capabilities (generic file info box and masstagger)
* Highly customizable playlist display
* Customizable keyboard shortcuts
* Most of standard components are opensourced under BSD license (source included with the SDK)

Re:What's a good alternative for people stuck with

[simong_oz]

I've tried lots, but none have been as satisfying as winamp. I wouldn't pretend to be an audiophile, but from a purely user perspective the best (windows) alternatives I found were

iTunes - great, I love the library/sorting features. It just works and works well. Uses a lot of memory though and not the most responsive app in the world. Ogg support through an experimental quiktime codec extension (I think).

Foobar2000 seemed very powerful and very customiseable, but I didn't really have the time to invest to get it set up like I wanted. The interface style sheets were very powerful, but it lacked volume control at the time - which was just a pain. Seemed to support every codec I've ever heard of (and lots I haven't).

everything else seemed to be a wmp/realplayer/jukebox ripoff.

still using it

[vivehosting]

I'm still going to continue using winamp even if there will be no more innovation... to be honest, what else do I need in a media player other than what winamp already offers me?

Re:sweet

[TravisWatkins]

Because then you might as well just use MPlayer?

Winamp is Dead, Long Live Winamp!

[WillDraven]

It deeply saddens me to learn of WinAmp's demise, having been an avid fan of the software for several years, I've used it since I was first introduced to Mp3's and digital audio (and filesharing). When version three first came out I was turned off by its annoying tendency to crash and thus have stayed behind at version 2.80 (oddly the most stable for my computer.) which conveniently interfaces with StarBar, Another piece of free software I have grown fondly attached to when in a windows envitonment. I hope somebody has the sense to open the source so winamp may continue to thrive in a bazzaar instead of dying in the dungeons of the dark cathedral known as AOL.

Why is this a big deal?

[Alphi1]

I know I'm going to be fighting the current on this one, but here goes anyways.

Why is this a big deal? Don't get me wrong, I've been a WinAmp user for years, and I love the program for playing my MP3s. But just because it's not going to get any more updates, why is that a big deal?

I mean, we're talking about a program designed for little more than playing audio (and later video) files. Once that is accomplished, and once the bugs have been relatively shaken out, anything else is just the beginnings of bloatware.

WinAmp has seemed to be relatively bug free to me, and works for what it was designed (audio/video) files. Why do we *NEED* more updates (other than if more bugs are found, of course)?

Steve Gedikian's farewell post...

[Silvercloud]

...off of the winamp forums:

To all of my friends and loyal users of Winamp,

I regret to inform you all that I have quit Nullsoft. To many of you, this news may come as quite a surprise, while those who know me best, it's no surprise at all.

It's hard to describe the experiences of the last year. Nearly a year ago, we released Winamp 5.0 and finally reclaimed our user's hearts. It was a very proud moment for our entire team.

Since then, for varying circumstances, much of the team has left the company. It's been tremendously difficult to recover from the losses of such core team members and close friends.

Those of us left behind have tried our best to pick up the pieces and keep moving forward. Unfortunately, given our current environment, continuing to move forward has become tremendously difficult and frustrating, to say the least.

That said; I was recently presented a wonderful opportunity to work at Apple with the iTunes team. I hope to bring much of my experience from Nullsoft to Apple with the hopes of making a tremendous difference there.

The fact is; there's never a good time to leave something that you love so much. Given the state of things today it was appropriate for me start planning a life after Nullsoft.

I want to thank you for how much you've all contributed to making Winamp such a huge success. I'd like to appreciate the efforts of all the volunteers who've poured their heart and soul into this place, all the skinners and developers who helped the rest of us customize Winamp to our hearts content, and all my friends at Nullsoft who made working here more than a job, but a family.

I ask that all of you who work so hard, please, keep working hard. There are still a few of us left at Nullsoft and they're doing their best to keep this ship afloat. You're the only thing that can help them do it.

For those of you who would like to keep in touch with me, feel free to reach me at 'steve at gedikian dot com'. You can also keep tabs on what I'm up to by going to my homepage at http://www.gedikian.com.

I love you all and I can't thank you enough for making this chapter of my life so wonderful.

Peace.

-s

I would say the emotional overtone of his post is well understandable, Winamp certainly did build itself up an immense fanbase with it's great (and free) software, it's climb to the top of the proverbial heap of MP3 players showing dedication of the programmers that built and maintained it.

Farewell, last of the true Nullsoft team, and good luck in future ventures!

What?? Winamp is dying?

[ESqVIP]

Bullshit. I won't believe it until Netcraft confirms so.

Re:What's a good alternative for people stuck with

[Dr. Smeegee]

I recently did an Ask Slashdot on this same question.

Had really good luck with jOrbis from www.jcraft.com. I just added the applet to my Shame of the 80's site. It seems to work everywhere, unlike most java applets... could be that it does exactly one thing: plays ogg streams. :-)

Re:Woah!

[WalksOnDirt]

You LIKED Winamp 3?

I and everyone else I've heard from thought Winamp 3 was much worse than Winamp 2. I tried 3 and quickly went back to 2.

Winamp 5 fixed most of the problems with Winamp 3. The stuff you have to pay for in Winamp 5 is strictly optional and for convenience, you could always use Lame and EAC to do at least as good a job with a little more work.

Re:What's a good alternative for people stuck with

[Mojojojo Monkey Inc.]

Hmm... how about Winamp? You can continue to download Winamp 5.05 from their website, and the announcement said they will continue to release minor updates, such as security patches and plugin support. Unless you change to a brand-new streaming format that only a new player supports, why should people switch away from Winamp? Just because AOL is letting the rest of the Nullsoft team go, it doesn't mean that you have to stop using a program that really whips the llama's ass.

Cui bono?

[revscat]

Why would Google do any of those things? WA never made a dime for AOL, and in that respect was a poor investment. I'd say the same thing if Google were to do what you suggested. Unless they can make money off of it, it wouldn't be worth their time.

Open sourcing it would be much better.

Re:Cui bono?

[FCAdcock]

Open Sourcing Winamp? What would they call it, XMMS?

Re:Cui bono?

[blowdart]

"Why would Google do any of those things?"

You have searched for "U2 leaked CD vertigo.mp3

Would you like to purchase it for your gplayer?

Or more worryingly

You have searched for "Paris Hilton sex video"

Would you like a new packet of gTissues sent to your home?

Re:Cui bono?

[Anonymous Coward]

WA never made a dime for AOL, and in that respect was a poor investment.

Compeltely untrue. AOL gets a lot of mileage out of Shoutcast/NSV. Plus, the NS team developed their internal media player, Unagi. Shoutcast is enough reason to believe that AOL will never sell off Nullsoft or Winamp.

Re:Cui bono?

[jrockway]

They do the same fucking thing. Play MP3s.

Re:Cui bono?

[jekewa]

I see your intent. Yes, same interface, same output.

Therefore, Linux with Gnome, KDE, or one of the other Windows-like interfaces is the same as Windows. And the Mac interface is like CDE, so Mac and Solaris are the same. Yeah, I see it now...

Or maybe it's just that Word and all of it's work-alikes are the same? OpenOffice/StarOffice, Corel's products, even KDE Write, or maybe even Windows Write (almost the same, right)?

Yes, there is an alternative in XMMS (heck, I prefer it), and even in Windows MediaPlayer or RealPlayer. But, no, they don't do the same thing.

Be sad in the loss of quality software, even when there are alternatives. At least for a moment.

Then, after the moment passes, start looking for the leaked source on the torrents...

Re:Cui bono?

[default luser]

Nullsoft never made a dime for AOL for the same reason that Netscape never made a dime for AOL...because AOL never had the balls to bundle them as the default media players and browsers, even though it was their intent when they purchased said companies.

I mean, why the hell do you think Winamp added video capability? They were gearing it up as a WiMP competitor, and got cold feet. Same thing for Netscape...they developed it, then got cold feet and signed a contract to continue including IE with AOL.

I suppose if Google REALLY wanted to become a solid competitor to AOL / MSN / Yahoo and the rest of the internet junkie companies, they could grab this opportunity and run with it. But I don't think they're THAT determined.

Textbook Example of "What Not To Do(tm)"

[slcdb]

Pay a hundred-million bucks for a company with a killer app and a helluva group of innovative engineers. Now that you own the company, make sure all those engineers know you are in charge by stifling the creative process. Strangle that som'bitch til' it's dead; I mean, until there is virtually NO innovation left. Revoke all of the "Next Big Things" that the engineers create. Casually compel the founder and creative genius to leave the company while you're at it. Persevere until all development -- whether it's creative development, or even just suck-ass development -- has all but ceased.

Voila! You've just shown the world, in textbook fashion, how to flush $100m down the toilet. Not to mention the fumbling of a precious opportunity.

Re:Textbook Example of "What Not To Do(tm)"

[bay43270]

You're looking at this over the long term. Think about it in 6-month chunks (like the execs at AOL do):

Exec 1 buys a great little company for a reasonable price considering the boom (later known as a bubble). He gets a lot of credit and a promotion.

Exec 2 takes over and refocuses the division on its strengths - service. Exec 2 keeps costs down by discouraging research and development and promoting 'synergy'. Since AOL owns two of every type of software out there, they underfund half the company in the name of savings. Exec 2 gets a promotion.

Exec 3 takes the new position and wonders why Exec 2 was so highly regarded. Why underfund a product when you can cut funding all together and save even more. Exec 3 takes a CEO job with another fortune 500 company.

Exec 4 takes the job in 2005 and finds a small upstart making a great new music player. They buy the company for $200 million. Exec 4 gets a promotion.

Re:Textbook Example of "What Not To Do(tm)"

[bay43270]

Funny? I was going for Insightful. Does that speak to my horrible communication skills, or our rose colored glasses?

Re:Woah!

[LWATCDR]

Well if Google wants to stray from it's core business this could be a good idea. Buy nulsoft and turn winamp into an Itunes killer. Buy Rio and and intergrate there players into the whole Google Music Store. Or they could just keep doing what they do and making money.

The last guy out...

[Chief Typist]

... looks like Steve Gedikian finally shut off the lights:

I Haven't Forgotten, And We Will Never Forget.

An insider's view of the end of Nullsoft...

-ch

A Winamp Tale

[poena.dare]

So I had heard about this kewl file format called MP3 and I needed a player. I looked around and found Winamp for $10...

From: Nullsoft [mailto:sales@winamp.com]
Sent: Tuesday, May 04, 1999 3:59 PM
To: M Smith
Subject: Winamp Registration Code

*** Thank you for registering Winamp ***
(etc, etc)
Since Winamp is uncrippled nag-free shareware, this key doesn't do anything in Winamp. You can, however, for fun, enter the key into the 'shareware' tab of Winamp's about box.
(etc etc) Now here's the important part:
This registration is valid for ALL versions of Winamp, past, present and future.
(etc, etc)
---
Justin Frankel
Nullsoft, Inc.
---

...and it did kick the Llama's ass. I've got bad eyes and it let me make the control panel DOUBLE SIZE, which was a godsend.

I went through, hrm, 8 or 10 OS upgrades. I almost never downloaded a new version. It did only a few things and it did it well.

My happy world came to an end when I moved to Windows XP and Winamp stopped working. So I got the latest version and found that after 5 years my registration code didn't work anymore. So I wrote NullSoft:

From: M Smith
Sent: Sunday, March 28, 2004 3:24 PM
To: 'support@winamp.com'
Subject: Ode to a support person

In a desperate attempt to contact someone at NullSoft, I send this letter to you.

Dear Human Being, presumably one employed by NullSoft:

Back in 1997 I paid 10 hard earned dollars for Winamp. I just downloaded the 5 Pro version and discovered that my registration key doesn't work! Could this please be remedied? Here's the text of the email you sent me ages ago: (etc, etc)

To which I got back this message:

From: support@winamp.com
Sent: Friday, April 02, 2004 12:46 AM
To: M Smith
Subject: Re: Ode to a support person

Dear M Smith,

Thank you for writing WinAmp, My name is Larry, I will be assisting you today.

You can find your Registration Key in your confirmation e-mail. If you do not have your confirmation e-mail, you can also retrieve your Registration Key by viewing the details of your purchase using the lookup at the address listed below: (etc, etc)

Hrm. Larry appears to not have read my email, for, Lo! I did have a conformation email, in fact, I sent him a copy of it.

NOW, I remembered the whole "AOL buys NullSoft" thing and it occurs to me that I'm in the hands of an organization with infinite cruelty and infinite patience. I tried to break through again:

From: M Smith
Sent: Friday, April 02, 2004 7:28 AM
To: 'support@winamp.com'
Subject: FW: Ode to a support person

Larry,

You obviously are not a human being, because a real human being would notice:

1) I DO have my confirmation email - it was pasted at the end of my email.

2) My registration key (NNNNNNNN) is obviously not the format that Winamp uses today.

3) Since I paid for the product BEFORE Nullsoft ever used Digitalriver for order fulfillment, looking up my order would be fruitless.

Either the human Larry was incensed at my sarcasm or the Perl Script Larry couldn't handle the language for I haven't heard back from NullSoft/AOL/Time/Warner yet.

So I bumble along with the latest freebie version of Winamp feeling generally dispossessed - I have a lifetime agreement with NullSoft and the parent company won't take my phone calls, so to speak. I tried sending email to Justin Frankel and it bounced - now I know why.

Anyone know know a lawyer who will take on a class-action lawsuit for 1/3rd of $10?

Re:Woah!

[halightw]

Version 2? wow... that's way up there, I still use the command line based pre-release version 0.00001 beta ;)

Re:Context menu for iTunes?

[slcdb]

I don't like nor need playlists, I just want to play an album the files of which are in this folder, please.

You can do exactly what you want, right in iTunes, without playlists. Use the "Browse" button at the top-right corner.

I've found that the best way to make iTunes organize your music the way you want is to trust iTunes. It took a giant leap of faith for me (having always been a launch-winamp-from-windows-explorer kind of guy). But if you let iTunes handle the music organization, you'll find that it gives you the flexibility to do more than any other method out there.

I've now stopped organizing my music by hand (creating a folder for each artists, and album, and blah blah blah) and just let iTunes keep everything organized. It works much better since it synchronizes folder and file names with changes you make in the ID3 tags (and whatever the tags for AAC files are called). I also (usually) no longer browse my music collection from Windows Explorer, but just browse with iTunes. Even without playlists you'll find it's just as efficient (if not more so) than browsing files directly.

Free the llama!

[Doc Ruby]

If AOL is halting its development of WinAmp, it could score lots of credit with the open source crowd by publishing the WinAmp source code under GPL. They'd be done with it just the same, but they'd continue to stymie their competitors with the player that wouldn't die, at no cost to them. Including the low management wind-up cost of releasing under the GPL, rather than some other license (especially one they roll themselves). OTOH, if they have more unholy alliances with "competitors" like Microsoft (like their IE AOL browser), they might strangle this beast just to hear it scream.

Correction

[Compact Dick]

Winamp 5 was a steaming turd compared to 3.

Don't you mean Winamp 3 was a steaming turd compared to 2? Unless of course, you are a Winamp programmer and the shitty 2.x plugin API turned you off.

Re: Foobar - foo_looks

[Mr Fodder]

You're thinking of foo_looks 2.0. I've been using this plugin for a couple of months, it's rock-solid and has some great looking skins out. You can read up on it at the foo_looks 2.0 Guide.

Re:Strange definition of "legal"

[tricops]

Well, I don't know where the OP is, but that is legal in Canada, at least I think it is still for mp3s. If we borrow a cd from a friend, we're allowed to burn ourselves a copy of it for personal use (but they're not legally allowed to just give us a copy). It's a weird distinction, but there yah go.

Re:Woah!

[aasania]

So would that be:

-gamp?
-goffice?
-gbrowser?
-glinux?

There's other software they could do, too! Too bad "gimp" is already taken, though...

Re:I disagree

[Mr. Cancelled]

Sorry, but you and I strongly disagree on this! Winamp 5 is the best Winamp I've used. I really wish there was an OSX version of it, as a matter of fact!

iTunes is nice, and since getting an ipod, it's more or less a requirement, but it still lacks features that Winamp 5 brings to the table.

You mention that Winamp5 is unstable and slow, and that may be on your hardware, but on mine it flies (On both a 3Ghz P4, and a AMD1600 system), and it resolved all instability that Winamp3 brought to the table. In contrast, itunes is a f'in power hungry beast! On Windows it slows the whole system down at times, something Winamp5 has never done, and even on my dual 2ghz. Mac, it can freeze the whole system at times. Not too cool... If Winamp5 were out for the Mac, and gave me ipod features simuilar to itunes, itunes would never be used again on my systems.

You also bitch (sorry... When you call things a "steaming turd", you're bitching, rather than making a point) about how Winamp 5 was moving away from being free, but only the pro version was. The regular version has more than enough capabilities for 99% of the users out there, and for those who wanted more, they could pay a small fee to upgrade it to the pro version. Not a bad deal IMHO, and it's a helluva lot better than a time-limited trial.

Not to mention the streaming media capabilities that Winamp5 offers: The .nv video format provides freekin' great quality, considering it's rather meager bandwidth requirements. It allows you to do much more than itunes does in this respect, and again... All for free.

As for your comments about people reverting to winamp3... I haven't met anyone who feels that way. In fact the opposite's true, from what I've seen. I know several people who had wrote Winamp off after v3, but came back loving it after v5 hit the streets.

Finally, I have to point out that their library is the best I've seen. It automatically updated and removed dead tracks as they were shuffled around, which is something itunes still doesn't pull off that well, and the way it imports both video and audio files has allowed me to do some very granular sorting by putting the files into named folders.

As an example, I can search for, and find items with such wide-ranging search terms as "Rated-G animation", "Industrial music", "Sheep on Drugs", "The Simpsons", "Rock Music", "Rated-R movies", and "Kids Television", and get very specific, meaningful results. This allows anyone in my house to quickly pull up media without having to know how I've sorted my collection. itunes doesn't even come close to this level of organization.

Summary: I hope this isn't the end of Winamp. They lost me w/Winamp3, but really made up for it with v5. I hope someone either buys the source, or it's open-sourced. This would be a very sad ending for such a great piece of software!

I Owe My Job To Winamp

[szyzyg]

Well kinda.....
Back in 1997 I wrote an mp3 streaming server that was originally intended as the audio equivalent of a webcam I could chat and play music.... obviously this quickly turned into the webs first live mp3 radio station. Problem was that there were no mp3 players that could stream content, I had to give my friends a perl script wrapped around mpg123. (as it happened this script also turned the client into a relay server, creating the earliest p2p streaming distribution system).

So it laboured in obscurity for a while until Winamp added HTTP streaming support and suddenly I could tell all those windows users to download winamp and point it at port 3223 on the server cluster. The code was released under the GPL, and I had a few downloads, but it required some real hackish thinking to get it to work for most people. That's when I started getting job offers in California (I was working as an astronomer in Northern Ireland).

Of course then Shoutcast got released and it pretty much did what mp3serv did, mp3serv promptly became even less interesting. But that didn't matter, because mp3serv was so obscure that nobody ever found it, it was only once there was a proprietory solution that people started to look for an open source solution. Icecast came along, it was much cleaner and smarter than mp3serv, so I took all the good bits from mp3serv and integrated them into Icecast and LiveIce.

That was 1999, by that point I was ready to quit my PhD and take a real job......

RealPlayer, Go Away

[kfergos]

While the loss of Winamp is sad. Now, how can we go about losing RealPlayer and its disgustingly insidious spyware (which pisses everybody off and only works on the most clueless of users anyway)? Success would probably spawn parties all over the web. Too bad there's no AOL to ditch RealPlayer...
Can we vote them off the island soon?

RTFAQ

[Anonymous Coward]

I registered Winamp when it was shareware circa 1999. Can I use my old serial number to unlock Winamp Pro?
No, Winamp 5 Pro requires you to re-register in order to unlock the latest features.

Winamp Pro is a different product from Winamp, which your key is still valid for.

Re:Woah!

[isecore]

and took ages to get out of beta

And IIRC I first tried an alpha of Winamp5 and about three months later it popped up on their site. It shocked the hell out of me, since alpha usually is developer-speak for "yup, in another year or so we might release this, regardless of how 'finished' it is!". It's also quite stable for being such a "quick" development.

As for the "liking" I really don't see much wrong with WA5. WA3 was not good, focus was on skins and not usability, while WA5 managed to combine these two. WA3 was full of really funky stuff (such as the hassle to get hotkeys working) while WA5 worked flawlessly and has a functional AND good-looking default interface. In fact, the default interface is so good that I'm using it, since there's no other skin/theme/hotdog that does what I want.

Re:Woah!

[MsGeek]

For Windows, Foobar 2000 is lighter and uses less resources than WinAmp. It's also 100% free of nasty hitchhikers, aka spyware. Although WinAmp never had spyware either, some competitors do.

XMMS under Linux is what WinAmp should have been...light footprint, does what it needs to, and nothing it does not.

Under MacOS, SoundApp is my choice for the same reasons. Light, does what it should and nothing else.

Well ..

[ciupman]

I just stopped using winamp when it got to the 3.0 version. By then that thing had load times bigger then MSWORD, just to listen to music ... i thought they would improve in 5.0 but no, the same thing happened. I Got a little prog, very small and very fast loading (eats very little memory), has skinning capabilities, and supports winamp input plugins .. it's called XMPLAY .. and i forgot .. it's one of the best modules players around.. so one advice to developers all around, use the GOOGLE paradigm, that is, small, fast and very functional. So in this case the function is to play music, SO WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT GRAPHICAL BLOAT FOR???

*blink*

[TWX]

"They all have bugs, none of them are perfect, and arguing about that stuff is as stupid as Window$ users.."

Ow! The irony is making my stomach hurt!

Prime Versions

[magnum3065]

Well technically 2, 3, and 5 were all prime and people used to say 1 was prime, but it's not considered to be prime anymore.