Update October 16, 2024 – the authors have just deleted their entire repo almost one month after uploading the source code to GitHub. Lots of source code, and quite possibly, not all of it theirs. The deletion happened soon after The Register enquired about the seeming inclusion of Shoutcast DNAS code and some Microsoft and Intel codecs.

As reported here back on May 17th, the source files for the Windows music player Winamp were published on GitHub on September 24, 2024. From GitHub:

Winamp is a multimedia player launched in 1997, iconic for its flexibility and wide compatibility with audio formats. Originally developed by Nullsoft, it gained massive popularity with still millions of users.

Its development slowed down, but now, its source code was opened to the community, allowing developers to improve and modernize the player to meet current user needs.

The kicker is that, while the source is viewable and can be built for personal use, executables and changes to the code cannot be published. So the promise of “open source” has vanished. They have created their own license, the “Winamp Collaborative License (WCL) Version 1.0” with a restrictive paragraph:

5. Restrictions

• No Distribution of Modified Versions: You may not distribute modified versions of the software, whether in source or binary form.
• No Forking: You may not create, maintain, or distribute a forked version of the software.
• Official Distribution: Only the maintainers of the official repository are allowed to distribute the software and its modifications.

The maker community did not wish to participate with such restrictions. The new Llama Group updated the license to “WCL 1.0.1” (pre-deletion) allowing forking but no distribution of modified versions.

The good news is there are projects which either look like Winamp (but use zero code from them) or that are inspired by Winamp – check out this Adafruit guide for one such.