Nullsoft, 1997-2004 (2004) • Hacker News Board

Re: Nullsoft, 1997-2004 (2004)

#11

Post by misnome » Mon, May 11, 2026, 4:58 PM UTC

Fwirt wrote: post #9

For anyone who was also curious what Justin Frankel got up to after the speculation at the end of the article, he founded Cockos Software and is the lead developer on the excellent REAPER DAW.

Oh, I had no idea. It's been a few years since I used it in anger but it was a very pleasant package to use, with an extremely friendly licensing scheme (purchasing a permanent license for got you all releases up until version )

Re: Nullsoft, 1997-2004 (2004)

#12

Post by arjie » Mon, May 11, 2026, 5:02 PM UTC

tombert wrote: post #3

I am always confused when BigTechCos buy SmallCos and then unceremoniously kill them off fairly shortly after. I guess it's basically to cannibalize the source code?

It could just be a failed acquisition but an variant sometimes happens. OpenAI bought Statsig and then sold the Statsig brand and customer base to Amplitude.

Re: Nullsoft, 1997-2004 (2004)

#13

Post by entropicdrifter » Mon, May 11, 2026, 5:03 PM UTC

misnome wrote: post #11

Fwirt wrote: post #9

For anyone who was also curious what Justin Frankel got up to after the speculation at the end of the article, he founded Cockos Software and is the lead developer on the excellent REAPER DAW.

Oh, I had no idea. It's been a few years since I used it in anger but it was a very pleasant package to use, with an extremely friendly licensing scheme (purchasing a permanent license for got you all releases up until version )

Not to mention it's about as easy to use without a license as WinRAR, so you can trial it indefinitely and then pay the mere $60 for it when you're ready to release some music commercially

Re: Nullsoft, 1997-2004 (2004)

#14

Post by SyneRyder » Mon, May 11, 2026, 5:08 PM UTC

For those who might not know:

> With Nullsoft gone and Frankel spending his time building a special-effects computer for his electric guitar...

I don't know what happened to the Jesusonic he was building then, but Justin Frankel ended up creating Reaper, the cross-platform Windows/Mac/Linux digital audio workstation that is a solid Pro Tools competitor in a mere 16 MB download:

https://www.reaper.fm/

The installer for the whole DAW is smaller than most add-on VST effects. Some of my favorite albums have been recorded with Reaper, and obviously I'm a Reaper fan and use it too. Just like Winamp, you can pay for it, but if you really can't afford it, there's no time limit and it won't stop you from using it.

Showing my age here, but if you have a copy of the Walnut Creek CD-ROMs with demoscene archives, there's a demo by "Nullsoft" from pre-Winamp days hiding somewhere in there as well.

EDIT: Aww, fwirt beat me to it while I was typing! I guess I'll leave my comment here to add the Nullsoft demo mention. Found a link to his MSDOS demos here: https://www.pouet.net/groups.php?which=1618

EDIT TWO: You can run his Ademo demo on archive.org, type "ademo 1" at the C:\ prompt in the web based DOSbox to run: https://archive.org/details/demoscene_Ademo-Nullsoft

Re: Nullsoft, 1997-2004 (2004)

#15

Post by esseph » Mon, May 11, 2026, 5:08 PM UTC

tombert wrote: post #3

I am always confused when BigTechCos buy SmallCos and then unceremoniously kill them off fairly shortly after. I guess it's basically to cannibalize the source code?

The want the: developers, IP, customers, to kill some competition, or some combination.

Re: Nullsoft, 1997-2004 (2004)

#16

Post by jackconsidine » Mon, May 11, 2026, 5:20 PM UTC

Went down the Frenkel (Nullsoft founder) rabbit hole. Check out his forum where they've recently discussed AI bots scraping his forum [0]. Or his question submission page; he hasn't "left a reasonable question unanswered since 2009" [1]

> nothing specific against cloudflare, but the point of the internet is that it's decentralized and I'd hate to contribute against that (though we already do somewhat, hosting on aws etc). anyway our homegrown solution is working nicely these days! for now - Justin January 2026

[0] https://www.1014.org/index.php?article=930#cl3

[1] https://www.askjf.com/

Re: Nullsoft, 1997-2004 (2004)

#17

Post by Aurornis » Mon, May 11, 2026, 5:20 PM UTC

tombert wrote: post #3

I am always confused when BigTechCos buy SmallCos and then unceremoniously kill them off fairly shortly after. I guess it's basically to cannibalize the source code?

The usual play is to acquire the customers and brand, with the team as a bonus.

Except for rare unique products, the source code might not matter at all. They're after the business, brand, and customers.

Having been in acquired SmallCos a couple times: There are always plans and justifications involving the products being acquired, but most don't survive impact with the acquiring company. People in a BigCo have their little fiefdoms established and everyone resists the sudden appearance of new developers and new code that weren't under their control. To be fair it goes both ways and the SmallCo developers who were previously in charge of everything don't like giving up control of parts of the system to the established teams and procedures in the BigCo.

Re: Nullsoft, 1997-2004 (2004)

#18

Post by sbuttgereit » Mon, May 11, 2026, 5:21 PM UTC

Fwirt wrote: post #9

For anyone who was also curious what Justin Frankel got up to after the speculation at the end of the article, he founded Cockos Software and is the lead developer on the excellent REAPER DAW.

Easily one of the best values in commercial software if you have a need for what it does. I think I paid something ~$70 a couple of years ago. While there's a limitation on the number of updates you get based on release version, I'm still getting updates under the license a couple years on. All that and you get a genuinely professional level tool for much less than what similar software from competitors offer.

I couldn't more highly recommend it.

Re: Nullsoft, 1997-2004 (2004)

#19

Post by rkagerer » Mon, May 11, 2026, 5:27 PM UTC

tombert wrote: post #3

I am always confused when BigTechCos buy SmallCos and then unceremoniously kill them off fairly shortly after. I guess it's basically to cannibalize the source code?

It's because BigCo's tend toward decisions with dumb outcomes, while SmallCo's still benefit from the strategic direction of their founders. Although not a hard and fast rule, if you take a good look at where innovation occurs you'll often find the most successful products of big tech companies (after the initial one that made them big in the first place) came from acquisitions. Just look at Google's case: Android, YouTube, Maps, etc.

Sometimes the aquisition doesn't pan out as planned, or they were just after the talent or to snuff out a potential competitor / snag its customers (like Postini), or it was a dumb move in the first place and the numbers finally bore that out. BigCo's don't usually have the same determined, long-term dedication to their acquisitions as the people who the founded them, so you also see premature shedding of ventures that could have a ton of potential over time.

Re: Nullsoft, 1997-2004 (2004)

#20

Post by ecliptik » Mon, May 11, 2026, 5:27 PM UTC

My favorite Nullsoft software that came out the end of this era was WASTE [1].

Peer-to-peer (back when P2P was all the rage), encrypted, decentralized private networks.

Group of friends and I used it post-college as a way to share files and chat, and was much better than AIM or other instant messaging at the time.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WASTE