Recently (within the past 2 years) I lost a very good friend of mine. I only knew him by his handle until his death, dethvader. Unlike most of the other posts, I did not know him from a game, just an IRC channel. He had been dead for months before we heard the news. We thought he moved away. A blood-clot a doctor missed travelled from his leg and deposited itself in such a place as to kill him. He was gone for months before we knew. One of our mutual friends saw him connect to ICQ. But it wasn't him, it was his mother. Our friend told us the news. She stayed online for the next few days receiving our condolences and prayers that the rest of the family would make it though ok.
I never knew what he looked like. I had to ask her. It's....an interesting feeling to confide in someone you trust and appreciate and go through their entire short life (he wasn't even 20) not knowing what they look like. Perhaps there is something to be said for a race of beings that can seperate friendship and companionship from a corporal body -- that we can still connect even if we can't ever see each other. Something about our passions and intellect can allow us to comfort each other and help those in need without ever being there.
I know my friend is gone now, but there is much to remember him by. When we all heard the news, we had a wake where we each perused our logs for any of his quotes or conversations we had. Many of us still have those logs. There is even a website dedicated to his memory, one he frequented often. The community back then was in its height...but now..well it's not like the good ole days. But those of us still in the community will always remember him and what he contributed.
I know alot of people might find this lame, but there is alot to be said about how we express our feelings through media. Be it art, poetry, music, or even fellowship. There is still humanity in all we create, even the internet. Even if we choose not to use it, notice it, or even laugh at the people who do, it is still there. It is there for those of us who don't have to let physical boundries seperate friends and who aren't concerned about what the internet should and should not be used for. It is here for us to express ourselves --- sometimes, unfortunately...it is our grief.
This shows that at one time Winamp was working on a version of Winamp 3 for Linux. It seems to have had its problems, and some people seemed to feel it might have been overlap, but now it seems the Linux community has a very large secret gorilla as an ally. Wouldn't we be better spending our energy lobbying Nullsoft to step-up development of a current build of Winamp for Linux than complaining about what has already happened? Now, please don't dismiss the idea since the Linux community already has Ogg/Vorbis. I have nothing but praise for Ogg, but as deeply entrenched in the market as MP3 is, it would be foolish for every distro to suddenly drop support for it and coerce people into re-encoding to another format as their only option. One solitary solution, although Free and Open, can never be a good solution. For those of you who have already re-encoded their library, kudos for you. But for the rest of us, the possibilities are looking fairly grim. Either even more lossy compression or a
total re-encode of our libraries. But hear me out:
Since Nullsoft works off of "mindshare", and the Linux community seems to be a as-of-yet untapped source of said "mindshare" for Winamp, the Linux community could be in a good position to rally for more development. Plus all the coverage of Linux in the news lately could add more weight to that argument making it something Nullsoft couldn't easily turn down. This could be seen as expanding into a new market for them, and once the muscle starts flexing over the encoder fees, Linux shouldn't be so quick to turn any help from them down.
Although, I don't know if this would be considered a kluge since it doesn't address the issue of the possible loss of other great free players like XMMS. It definitely is a limiting possibility, but for those of us/you that don't want to re-encode MP3s to Ogg (Sorry Ogg Supporters) it could prove a viable option. Plus, out of all the people we can blame/complain about, Nullsoft seems the most receptive to the Linux Way of Life. Either way, something needs to
be done that doesn't exclude new users and fills in our new loss of free players.
Slashdot Mirror
Recently (within the past 2 years) I lost a very good friend of mine. I only knew him by his handle until his death, dethvader. Unlike most of the other posts, I did not know him from a game, just an IRC channel. He had been dead for months before we heard the news. We thought he moved away. A blood-clot a doctor missed travelled from his leg and deposited itself in such a place as to kill him. He was gone for months before we knew. One of our mutual friends saw him connect to ICQ. But it wasn't him, it was his mother. Our friend told us the news. She stayed online for the next few days receiving our condolences and prayers that the rest of the family would make it though ok.
I never knew what he looked like. I had to ask her. It's....an interesting feeling to confide in someone you trust and appreciate and go through their entire short life (he wasn't even 20) not knowing what they look like. Perhaps there is something to be said for a race of beings that can seperate friendship and companionship from a corporal body -- that we can still connect even if we can't ever see each other. Something about our passions and intellect can allow us to comfort each other and help those in need without ever being there.
I know my friend is gone now, but there is much to remember him by. When we all heard the news, we had a wake where we each perused our logs for any of his quotes or conversations we had. Many of us still have those logs. There is even a website dedicated to his memory, one he frequented often. The community back then was in its height...but now..well it's not like the good ole days. But those of us still in the community will always remember him and what he contributed.
I know alot of people might find this lame, but there is alot to be said about how we express our feelings through media. Be it art, poetry, music, or even fellowship. There is still humanity in all we create, even the internet. Even if we choose not to use it, notice it, or even laugh at the people who do, it is still there. It is there for those of us who don't have to let physical boundries seperate friends and who aren't concerned about what the internet should and should not be used for. It is here for us to express ourselves --- sometimes, unfortunately...it is our grief.
This shows that at one time Winamp was working on a version of Winamp 3 for Linux. It seems to have had its problems, and some people seemed to feel it might have been overlap, but now it seems the Linux community has a very large secret gorilla as an ally. Wouldn't we be better spending our energy lobbying Nullsoft to step-up development of a current build of Winamp for Linux than complaining about what has already happened? Now, please don't dismiss the idea since the Linux community already has Ogg/Vorbis. I have nothing but praise for Ogg, but as deeply entrenched in the market as MP3 is, it would be foolish for every distro to suddenly drop support for it and coerce people into re-encoding to another format as their only option. One solitary solution, although Free and Open, can never be a good solution. For those of you who have already re-encoded their library, kudos for you. But for the rest of us, the possibilities are looking fairly grim. Either even more lossy compression or a total re-encode of our libraries. But hear me out:
Since Nullsoft works off of "mindshare", and the Linux community seems to be a as-of-yet untapped source of said "mindshare" for Winamp, the Linux community could be in a good position to rally for more development. Plus all the coverage of Linux in the news lately could add more weight to that argument making it something Nullsoft couldn't easily turn down. This could be seen as expanding into a new market for them, and once the muscle starts flexing over the encoder fees, Linux shouldn't be so quick to turn any help from them down.
Although, I don't know if this would be considered a kluge since it doesn't address the issue of the possible loss of other great free players like XMMS. It definitely is a limiting possibility, but for those of us/you that don't want to re-encode MP3s to Ogg (Sorry Ogg Supporters) it could prove a viable option. Plus, out of all the people we can blame/complain about, Nullsoft seems the most receptive to the Linux Way of Life. Either way, something needs to be done that doesn't exclude new users and fills in our new loss of free players.