gonna fire on in here as a lot of stuff is getting blasted out and nothing coherant is coming from it..
can the panic! Ok 20Dec is not far away but no need to have major panic attacks yet. Things will just get messy and any good will be lost along with any possible future for winamp (As we know it anyway)..
As for forum software? Plenty of free stuff out there but none (imho) are robust enough as vBulletin - if a licence is needed then no problem I can donate one of those..
next server... your gonna need something beefy..and dedicated - vps/cloud just won't cut it and your gonna need someone who knows there way around the back end of setting up a server. Plenty of managed stuff out there but it's way expensive so unmanaged is the more cost effective approach. Here you want reliable..
http://www.servermania.com/ < check them out.. do a search for reviews on them. I've yet to find one bad one! And there support is top notch.
So guys look at the logistics. Get some basic management structure sorted out. Ask who can do/provide what..
management structure? Yes really it will be needed
your looking at servers dedicated (With CDN capability) (Notice I said 'Servers not server?)
want to maintain shoutcast? Then your going to need funding
Forum software - vBulletin
yada yada etc etc
Otherwise everything is gonna be so fragmented that it will just not work. I saw that happen with a support project I tried to help out with for firefox. It got so fragmented with no real structure that it exists all but in domain name now...
before all that happens though someone needs to reach out to AOL and see what out position is. What we can do or not do (The legal bit)...
It's no good saying but hey - without us and without the community we built (Even though some of us haven't been here for an age) winamp wouldn't exist yada yada etc etcNot the point. They own the trademark. If they do sell to Microsoft you can rest assured that take down requests will appear - thats the way M$ have always operated..it would be rare if that didn't happen.
It would be great if someone from the powers that be or who can negotiate on behalf of the community with teh management/owners of winamp to come by and post and at least give us an idea of where we stand or what we can possibly do or not do..
just saying like - as it seems to be a bit of running around in a mad panic
i reckon someone should send a message up the chain of command so to speak and see what we get in return, see if we do have a voice or at least deserve a bit of respect for staying loyal all these years... instead of specualting and reading the rumours from [the microsft fan boys] TechCrunch....
My Tuppence worth anyway....
edit: jaz - least that seems to be a move in the right direct dropping the winampforums for winampforum...