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Winamp source code leak

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Re: Winamp source code leak

#121

For those looking for a lightweight but powerful music player, Foobar2000 is a good choice!

I've been quite liking musicbee. foobar2000 is definitely great as well, I just prefer musicbee's UI a bit more.

I'm going to second musicbee. It's really fast and the UI is very clean. I don't doubt that foobar can be customized to one's grandest desires - it's just that musicbee works well out of the box.

Re: Winamp source code leak

#123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember being jealous of my friend's Pentium (66? 90?) when mp3 playback slaughtered my 486.

When “Pentium” was the name of the very most precious metal one could obtain

That has to be one of the best advertising campaigns in history. I've heard non-technical people in the last few years still say things like "I think our new computer has a Pentium or something". The word Pentium was synonymous with quality and speed.

Re: Winamp source code leak

#124
post #54
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Winamp 2 was generally preferred. If I recall correctly, it skipped version 4 not because v2 + v3 = v5 but because nobody would want to download a Winamp 4 skin. Not kidding.

NB four and fore are sound the same in some accents

Thank you for so delicately pointing out the problem/joke here -- I hadn't noticed it, not even back then.

My question is: in what English accents do "four" and "fore" *not* sound alike?

Re: Winamp source code leak

#125
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then don't use it if you only want to use 100% OSS. I'm making something that I want to use (essentially a compatible implementation for my plug-ins to run under) & if it's of use to others then that's a bonus. At no point has WACUP claimed to be 100% OSS nor should I be expected to do that when I'm the only one working on my Winamp reimplementation. Aspects that need to be done that way are done so accordingly. -dro

Yikes, okay. I trust Justin Frankel, I don't know you, previous team or not.. The world can go on using Winamp 2.x forever and be just fine, its GRAS. If you're bringing something that isn't that, previous dev history or not, you're going to have to differentiate yourself from the folks who are also putting out winamp-alikes. I'm not trying to be a jerk, that's just the reality. Knowing what the code I'm running is d…

> you're going to have to differentiate yourself from the folks who are also putting out winamp-alikes.

No one giving away software has to do anything. Maybe they'd get more donations as OSS or something, but it's no guarantee.

Re: Winamp source code leak

#126

Interestingly enough, there has been a community project dedicated to keeping the last Winamp version alive (last version from the original creators), and it really great to use. https://getwacup.com/ It includes a skin that allows it to work on modern display resolutions. It's really interesting to see just how low-res screens were when it was in it's hey-day, given that they are nearly unusable on a 4k monitor. Edi…

hm, forgotten about that one. I get why it exists/independent/opensource whatever..... but why does it exist? Far as I can tell the 'official' v5.8 version that's been around for download on the main site and still is for a long time works great. Maybe I've just been using it for so long I don't notice any oddities (or don't need them, it's a music player for godssake), and I guess they've improved interface etc on w…

Well, reading the release notes may answer that question. Some highlights:

- running WACUP on Windows 10 for ARM on a Raspberry Pi 4 is now a known to work configuration

- Changed the shared metadata handling to do a better job in skipping trying to process requests for metadata requests that are always going to fail before triggering relatively time consuming calls

- Changed how the CD playback plug-in initialises itself to minimise the delays on loading that it can cause

- Fixed a crash when retrieving the raw lyrics data from a file's metadata tag on opening the Alt + 3 / View File Info dialog

Re: Winamp source code leak

#127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My memory is fuzzy on this but didn’t most consider Winamp 2.x the best. Winamp 3.x was considered bloated. So to help rectify the problems of 3.x, Winamp release version 5.x (the best of 2 + 3). Though I recall many still used version 2.x even after the 5.x release. Question: so when you say folks are trying to keep the "last version" alive, which version are you referring too since later versions weren’t loved.

I currently use 2.95 and see no reason to update. But I listen rarely mp3's in the last years.

Foodbar 2000 FTW. https://www.foobar2000.org/

Tiny, fast, simple, does the job.

There's an Android version too, which is my go-to audio player, because of its simplicity.

Both FOSS.

Re: Winamp source code leak

#128
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My memory is fuzzy on this but didn’t most consider Winamp 2.x the best. Winamp 3.x was considered bloated. So to help rectify the problems of 3.x, Winamp release version 5.x (the best of 2 + 3). Though I recall many still used version 2.x even after the 5.x release. Question: so when you say folks are trying to keep the "last version" alive, which version are you referring too since later versions weren’t loved.

If memory serves, the update from 2.x to 3.x was the one were suddenly skins no longer worked and they decided to base the program around a db instead of the file system. Which is not that bad (though still strictly inferior to file based) in modern cell phones, but at a time when computers were a lot slower and everybody had organized their music library around files instead of metadata it was a bloody disaster.

That reminds me of this classic JWZ : https://www.jwz.org/doc/mailsum.html

(Note: you want to copypaste that link, not click it)

Re: Winamp source code leak

#129
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is my pet peeve. Browsers should not allow any websites to hijack all computing cycles. This was already clear a few years ago during the Monero hype. The fact that most adblockers will detect such attempts today doesn't change the fact that any website can almost prevent you from doing other work just because you opened it. The current strategy of dealing with this problem ("this tab has become unresponsive") i…

There is another thread going on about bringing back web 1, but here is something I have been advocating for a while, make 2 different new web profiles, along the lines of: 1.) A subset of modern HTML / CSS, custom Javascript. Remove anything that isn't needed and especially anything that affects rendering negatively for no good reason. 1.1.) Possibly: Provide versioned, vendor neutral versions of js to allow for aut…

Sounds good, but I'd move for the total removal and banning of all JS and other scripting.

Otherwise, what's the point?

Re: Winamp source code leak

#130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My memory is fuzzy on this but didn’t most consider Winamp 2.x the best. Winamp 3.x was considered bloated. So to help rectify the problems of 3.x, Winamp release version 5.x (the best of 2 + 3). Though I recall many still used version 2.x even after the 5.x release. Question: so when you say folks are trying to keep the "last version" alive, which version are you referring too since later versions weren’t loved.

IIRC, Winamp 3 introduced the new skin engine which supported transparency and was slow as molasses on contemporary machines. Moreover, 2.x switched to the new MP3 decoder at some point, and many people didn't like it, either ripping the old decoder from the old versions or stopping upgrading past a certain 2.x version. (None of this is important today, I guess)

Winamp 3 was a complete rewrite from the ground up, built around the new skinning engine and the "Wasabi" scripting language. But as you say, it wasn't very performant, and it was also super buggy.

I believe there was some drama which resulted in the lead dev for 3 getting fired, and then the skinning engine (which was the most popular part of 3) was grafted onto the 2.x base for version "5".

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