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Winamp Legacy player source code

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Re: Winamp Legacy player source code

#141

Post by derefr »

CrankyBear wrote: post #61
revscat wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The language is pretty clear to me. I understand what you’re saying, and suspect that this is an honest oversight on their part, but as it currently reads forks are prohibited. They may have meant something else, but what it says now is “no forking.”

They know exactly what they're doing. They're open-washing the program to get attention. It worked. As I write this, it's the number one YComb story. But, it's in no way, shape, or form open source.

Well, it's at least slightly more open than e.g. Microsoft's source-available repositories, let alone leaked proprietary source; as you do have the freedom to e.g. read the Winamp source code and then ground-up reimplement a Winamp-alike program, without their lawyers coming after you. (Orgs like ReactOS don't let people contribute if they've ever read code from a Microsoft source-available repos, lest ideas inspired by that code end up in the ReactOS codebase, and Microsoft sue them for that.)

I'm not sure what to call a codebase that only grants you the (implicit) right to not be sued for reading the source and then getting inspired by it, though.

Re: Winamp Legacy player source code

#144

Post by thedoctor_o »

sionisrecur wrote: post #137
benmmurphy wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

its probably an easter egg

Yes, by the cracker team not by the Winamp devs.

Those names were some of the original devs & they're the ones who put it in the easter egg on the about dialog that it relates to as a hacker-like joke. The source code is what aol sold on as a stripped down copy of 5.666 & then what radionomy/audiovalley/llama group iterated on afterwards. As much as I dislike what now calls itself "winamp", it's nothing nefarious & you can find old 2.x installs with that about easter egg text.

-dro

Re: Winamp Legacy player source code

#146

Post by mrgoldenbrown »

xx_ns wrote: post #43
eminence32 wrote: post #12

Open sourcing is always good, because maybe you can learn some things by reading it. Also, Winamp Legacy is a fairly important piece of software, so having an archive of its source is a great thing. But the restrictions on the source are interesting. To quote the license file: * No Distribution of Modified Versions: You may not distribute modified versions of the software, whether in source or binary form. * No Forki…

This seems to go against GitHub's own ToS[1]: > By setting your repositories to be viewed publicly, you agree to allow others to view and "fork" your repositories (this means that others may make their own copies of Content from your repositories in repositories they control). [1] https://docs.github.com/en/site-policy/github-terms/github-t...

There are two distinct meanings of fork and you are conflating them I think. I suspect winamp's license is using the sense of the (pre GitHub) idea of creating a distinct version of a project maintained by a different group, and the GitHub ToS specifically refers to forking within the GitHub platform.

Re: Winamp Legacy player source code

#147

Post by derefr »

netsharc wrote: post #56
mikepurvis wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably the prohibition is around creating a forked release , with the language being intentionally a bit vague to cover their bases. Unfortunate that that's how these things are, though.

Interestingly the first line says, even distributing a modified version in source form is not allowed... so a GitHub fork with a tiny modification already violates this line.

In a very specific technical sense, it could be argued that it doesn't — the data for GitHub forks (i.e. their branches and the commits of such) is actually stored within the base repo forked from.

In other words, by forking something on Github, you're not distributing anything; rather, the original org is now distributing an additional thing you made — your fork branch[es].

This is the source of many confusing things about the security of GH forks; and the source of some recent GH vulnerabilities.

Also, if you're curious, this isn't a meaningless "implementation-level distinction", as it has semantic implications for repo management: it means that the branch attached to a PR coming from a fork repo continues to exist in the base repo, even if the fork repo that that branch originated from gets deleted. Because that branch was always "in" the base repo to begin with; the PR just changed the branch's GH ACLs to make it accessible to the owners of the base repo.

(Really, the "fork repo" itself is an illusion — it's like a SQL view. There's only the base repo, which contains both regular branches, and user-fork-namespaced branches. This is in part why forks can't be private; they're just a view of resources in another repo, already security-controlled by that other repo; so they can't have their own additional security logic acting on those same resources!)

Re: Winamp Legacy player source code

#148

Post by somat »

eminence32 wrote: post #12

Open sourcing is always good, because maybe you can learn some things by reading it. Also, Winamp Legacy is a fairly important piece of software, so having an archive of its source is a great thing. But the restrictions on the source are interesting. To quote the license file: * No Distribution of Modified Versions: You may not distribute modified versions of the software, whether in source or binary form. * No Forki…

It's not open source. however I like it. I wish closed source licenses were more of a thing. as it is, our software tends to fall under two two extremes very liberal open source. closed build artifact only. with very little in the middle.

I think a "here is the copyrighted(with all that implies) source for you to compile on your machine" software distribution would be a great middle ground. but it is a thing you normally only see on large screwball enterprise contracts. because the normal practice of here is the compiled build artifact really sucks when trying to trouble shoot why it is not working on your machine.

Re: Winamp Legacy player source code

#149

Post by yason »

This is the license equivalent of a specific automotive spare part for an old car where the dealer asks $1300 for it just to say they don't want to stock and sell those. "Yeah, it's available, sure, but...you don't want it."
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