Nullsoft & Winamp now defunct.

[Stuart]

Very sad news today.

After nearly five years, AOL have effectively pulled the plug on Winamp by shutting down Nullsoft.

Originally Posted by El Reg

Writing on his homepage, departing developer Steve Gedikian concluded, "At this point, I feel like I no longer have the power to make any positive impact on Winamp." He speculates that with only a skeleton staff, further development of Winamp is unlikely.

Quote taken from the Original Article

Even though I didn't use Winamp (version 3 put me off), it was the first MP3 player software I used. It probably helped introduce MP3 to a lot of people. Version 2 still has the best visualisation plug ins I have ever seen (far better than the pathetic efforts in iTunes, Windows Media Player and Real Player).

A fiurther nail in the coffin of competition.

[poolking]

Oh crap, its my favourite player.

Originally Posted by scastle

(far better than the pathetic efforts in iTunes, Windows Media Player and Real Player).

A fiurther nail in the coffin of competition.

Hands off the iTunes visualiser! Our wee boy loves it, he calls it the "dancin' pattern" and will watch it for ages ...

... sorry to hear about winamp though. I've never used it or even seen it, but one less quality player out there is one less reason for the big boys to stay on their toes.

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by Chris T

Hands off the iTunes visualiser! Our wee boy loves it, he calls it the "dancin' pattern" and will watch it for ages ...

I actually like iTunes now, just a bit bored with it's visualiser. The nice thing about WinAmp 2 was that although the visualisations supplied with it were, to use my term from above, pathetic, it exposed the functions they used so that people could write their own visualisation plug ins in C++(much the same as Firebird's extensions), and because the programmers were able to use C++, they could write some pretty amazing looking plug ins.

One was written by the programmers of Superscape (long defunct Virtual Reality modelling system) and showed a 3d view of a night club, complete with dancers (who danced to the tune playing) and a DJ. The virtual camera also moved and changed angles in time to the music.

[AndrewJ]

bad news and a sad day I always used Winamp from version 2.5 till the current day and own the Pro version of 5.05, best player out there.

I've used WinAmp since version 1 to version 5.05, and I'm well shocked to hear this

My favourite and ONLY media player is now going

[Tezcatlipoca]

No more WinAmp?!


I've been using it for ages.

[Graham M]

I hope somebody else takes it on!

[Gareth]

This is scandalous. /me is shocked and saddened

Corporate America sucks

[MetaWraith]

I still use v2.78 for broadcasting on shoutcast. Winamp rocks !!!!!!!

[andygrif]

Will they not release it to become open source like AOL did with Netscape?

[Stuart]

Well, the author the report says any further development is unlikely, but he doesn't say it's impossible..

Hopefully it does go open source, so then WinAmp can continue to grow strong!

[Gareth]

Hadn't thought of them releasing it into the open source community - that would indeed be such a good idea.

I have to admit that I didn't particularly like the last few releases - it became bloatware and tried to be too much of everything. I use Winamp for MP3s, I have other apps I prefer to use for other purposes. Winamp 2 was easily the best version.

[AndrewJ]

yay go open source winamp today just got it on pc again after a format on my laptop.


Listening to shoutcast all day long various channels nothing sounds with anywhere near the same quality as Winamp does it is by far the best out there and I am using 5.05 Pro and I love it.

LONG LIVE WINAMP