Winamp News

[MarkRH]

Well, as long as Winamp still runs on my PC I'll keep using it. I'm still using HomeSite 4.5.2 from 2000.

[Hanschke]

1 year for nothing only copy and search for strings and replace them

[Aminifu]

1 year for nothing only copy and search for strings and replace them

If you're talking about tagging, it is not that simple. You do want accurate tags, don't you?

Do you want a system that presents all the possible results it can find and then let you chose the correct ones, or do you want a system that 'fingerprints' songs and finds matching results in a quality controlled database, or something in between? There are dozens of songs with the same title by different artists and often several versions of the same song by the same artist (or the same version on different albums).

Other 'quality' services that need to be replaced are usually not free, do you want to pay for them or do you want Winamp to use 'good' low cost services that it can pay for thru alternate revenue streams?

[pbelkner]

There hasn't been a development team.

I just saw this. Thanks, Benski, for finally stating the obvious.

[ryerman]

There hasn't been a development team.....

What about these posts:

http://forums.winamp.com/showpost.php?p=3033444&postcount=1188

http://forums.winamp.com/showpost.php?p=3033490&postcount=1196

http://forums.winamp.com/showpost.php?p=3033511&postcount=1202

http://forums.winamp.com/showpost.php?p=3043447&postcount=1280

They seem to suggest that a team (albeit very small) was working towards a new release.

But, no matter what actually happened: It appears that any elation about the continued development of Winamp, after the Radionomy purchase, was premature.
Why expect anything different, merely because Vivendi is here?

Just call me Mr. Pessimistic.

[DJ Egg]

Ok...here it is....

For the 5.66x releases in 2013 and after the sale (between Jan-Sep 2014) there was just DrO and me working on Winamp.

SHOUTcast DNAS v2.4.7-v2.5 release then took priority and DrO was working full-time on this instead, and Winamp dev was put on hold.

Now it shouldn't have been up to me to break this news...
but all I can say is that things didn't work out and DrO is no longer part of the team

I would like to take this opportunity to thank DrO (again) for all the work he has done on Winamp and SHOUTcast over the years.
He will be sorely missed and very difficult to replace.
This has been very difficult for me, and any further details should come from either someone at Radionomy or DrO himself.

Between Jan-Sep 2014, DrO implemented lots of new features and made plenty of other changes, some in preparation for the required lib/decoder/service changes (as previously discussed).

DrO was the main/lead dev.
I just did/do things like QA, testing, research, suggestions/approvals, minor fixes, localization/translations, documentation, changelog, help, adding genres to Alt+3, lib updates, links.xml updates, minor skin updates, credits, resource updates (design/text/copyrights/etc), installer updates, beta builds, beta list management, translations management, support, etc etc.

Some of the stuff that DrO implemented/committed was unfinished...

So for the past few months, Benski has been helping out with coding new/replacement decoders (as previously discussed), amongst other things.

We got to a stage where we had a fairly decent 5.8 internal beta, but there were some issues related to some of DrO's unfinished work, namely: random crashes on skin changes and Alt+3/metadata reading, plus the 'Safe Mode' dialog appearing when it shouldn't, amongst other things.

We decided it would be easier to rollback to early 2014 and start cherry-picking/recommitting things rather than trying to fix things by working backwards (of course, if DrO were still here, then I'm sure he would've fixed all these issues).

So where we are at the moment is we've got two branches in the Git repo... an "abandoned" 5.8 branch and a rollback 5.67 branch.

The holiday season then hit us, so work has slowed down over the past few weeks.

It was my original intention to get the rollback branch back up-to-date with the abandoned 5.8 branch, minus the bugs/issues.

There's still also a fair bit of work to be done with CD ripping/burning (Sonic) and Gracenote replacement...

I guess based on Benski's post above, there's still a fair bit we need to discuss & decide on...

I'll keep you all informed as best I can.
Like I said...unforeseen circumstances. This really hasn't been easy for me.

And there we have it....

Happy New Year

[kzuse]

A big Thank You for this honest and helpful post. Now I think we understand much better the things that happend / didn't happen over the past weeks and months.

I can only speak for myself (but I think this also applies to most parts of the whole Winamp community), that I still have the full patience to wait for whatever will come there, and the optimism that it will be good! The news about DrO are sad, but it is still a pleasure to hear that it is still being worked on by you and Benski. I would like to say a huge "Thank you" to both of you for that.

For now, all I can say is keep it up, we really, really appreciate your work. And a Happy (healthy, lucky, optimistic, musical, joyful, peaceful, inspired and inspiring, ...) New Year to Everyone!!!

Best regards,
kzuse

[Raj_09]

A big Thank You for this honest and helpful post. Now I think we understand much better the things that happend / didn't happen over the past weeks and months.

I can only speak for myself (but I think this also applies to most parts of the whole Winamp community), that I still have the full patience to wait for whatever will come there, and the optimism that it will be good! The news about DrO are sad, but it is still a pleasure to hear that it is still being worked on by you and Benski. I would like to say a huge "Thank you" to both of you for that.

For now, all I can say is keep it up, we really, really appreciate your work. And a Happy (healthy, lucky, optimistic, musical, joyful, peaceful, inspired and inspiring, ...) New Year to Everyone!!!

Best regards,
kzuse

You said it all kzuse . Thank you to both of you again and Happy new year to all!

[coolR123]

Why DrO left middle and left it to the middle? (If I may ask). DJ Egg, you can not convince DrO return to finish the job? Or at least what he started? (Then already look for yourselves a new project manager team). Must not under any circumstances give up what that DrO made so far, and if he would be willing to go back - to look for someone else who can continue from that point!!

Anyway, Happy new year to everyone

[GorillaCat]

Thanks for putting it out there DJ Egg, happy new year.

[MrSinatra]

i want to first say thanks for the honest update DJ Egg!

secondly, i want to thank DrO as well. i'm probably the last person he ever wants to speak with again, but i truly admire his dev skills. he really did amazing work. winamp would have become forgotten without him, imo.

i would like to add to that, that i hope all his "unfinished" work is not abandoned and forgotten completely. i think most of his goals were worthy, so maybe lets try to achieve them, even if its by "your way" under the hood, instead of his.

i wish DrO the best of luck whatever he does next, and hope he lets us know and posts occasionally.

finally, i would like to suggest that the next new version does NOT need to be "complete." it would be a really, really good idea to just get SOMETHING out there that is post AOL code, if only to show it isn't dead and allow for some feedback. so if there is no gracenote replacement for instance, so what? it hasn't worked for a couple years now anyway... just put something stable out and build on it. the longer this gets put off, the worse it is imo.

thanks again for the post!

http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?t=388425

[ShreksDad]

Thanks DJ Egg for the update. I've been an avid WinAmp user since around 1997/98. I am desperate for it to return to it's former glory when it was the best media player on the web. I posted at the time of the AOL takeover that it would be the end of WinAmp, I so wish it hadn't come true.

From what I've read from various sources it seems that gross mismanagement by AOL allowed the defacto standard in media players to fall by the wayside whilst I-Tunes rose to dominance.

I wish you every success with your quest to put WinAmp back in it's rightful place. Good luck.

[djpete]

Shame it had to take this long to get something concrete on progress. All the hearsay and rumours has not done Winamp any good at all.
I think one word summarizes most of this..politics.

Anyway keeping it positive, thanks to DrO. DrO and Winamp just went together.
Wish the new team all the best moving forward.

[ryerman]

Wish the new team all the best moving forward.

New team? What new team?
Benski says "There hasn't been a development team."
DJEgg gives no information about a new team.

It looks more like a few friends enjoying a hobby together.
And there's nothing wrong with that.

Radionomy has provided little or no information about a "reborn" Winamp.
Apparently, that is because there was no corporate interest in continued development.
Maybe Vivendi will change that, but don't hold your breath.

[pbelkner]

It looks more like a few friends enjoying a hobby together.

They definitely don't have a good time. According to Benski they have to remove some libraries they don't have the right to re-distribute:

this release will be just be a small update to replace or remove software libraries that were not transferred during the sale (such as Gracenote).

If they are not able to do that guess what will happen ...

In such a situation the only one on board with know-how, DrO, was forced to leave / left. Fortunately they where able to hire Benski ...