If you’re a Gen Xer or Millennial who used to listen to music on your Windows XP computer back in the 2000s, you probably have fond memories of the llama-whipping Winamp.
Though Winamp was discontinued back in 2013, it was picked up by new owners a few years ago and re-released for a comeback that never quite crystallized. Earlier this year, those new developers announced that Winamp would be going open source.
Winamp’s source code, development tools, and relevant Windows libraries have all been uploaded to GitHub. If you have experience developing apps with DirectX 9 SDK, you may find this project worth participating in. However, keen users will quickly spot that Winamp’s license is none of the usual suspects you see in truly open-source projects.
The Winamp Collaborative License allows you to use, modify, and study Winamp’s code but allows no provision for forking the project, distributing the source/binaries, or using any of the Winamp code in other projects. It’s murky water at best. The main points to consider are:
Before contributing, make sure you give the terms a proper read and understand what you’re getting yourself into.
Winamp’s move to open source is a significant development, and it will be interesting to see how the community responds. Will you be contributing to the project?