Winamp's source code released, but licensing issues
'Winamp' is a long-established media player that was released in 1997 and was once discontinued but has been revived. Although the source code of Winamp has been released on GitHub, problems with the license have been pointed out.
Winamp Press - Winamp has announced that it is opening up its source code to enable collaborative development of its legendary player for Windows.
GitHub - WinampDesktop/winamp: Iconic media player
https://github.com/WinampDesktop/winamp
Winamp gained popularity among many users with the rise of mp3, but development was discontinued in 2013. Winamp was then acquired by Radionomy , and after four years of development, a new version was released in 2022.
Winamp version 5.9 release candidate officially released after four years of development - GIGAZINE
And on September 24, 2024, the Winamp source code was made public on GitHub. Winamp's official statement was, 'We're allowing the entire community to participate in the development. This is an invitation to global collaboration where developers from all over the world can contribute their expertise, ideas and passion to contribute to the evolution of this iconic software,' and the CEO said, 'This is a decision that will delight millions of users around the world.'
The source code of Winamp is released under a unique license called ' Winamp Collaborative License (WCL) Version 1.0 ', which states 'a free, copyleft license'. However, the actual license text clearly prohibits the creation and redistribution of forks, which has led to criticism from the community that 'it is not actually free or copyleft'.
In addition, the clause prohibiting the creation of forks conflicts with GitHub's terms of use, which state that 'by publishing a repository, you grant others a license to fork it .' It also poses other problems, such as preventing the standard GitHub workflow of forking a repository, making changes, and submitting a pull request.
The license also states that 'you are encouraged to contribute improvements, enhancements, and bug fixes to the project.' This prompted an issue called ' Licensing Paradox ,' and a number of comments on Hacker News, a news site for engineers, included, 'I wonder what kind of contributions they expect people to make.'
At the time of writing, 322 forks had already been created.
Related Posts:
in Software, Posted by log1d_ts