Justin Frankel leaves Nullsoft

[az]

Justin Frankel, developer of the original Winamp and founder of Nullsoft, is leaving Nullsoft because he can't stand the pressure AOL puts on him anymore.

He developed an open source p2p file sharing client with encryption, which AOL forced him to take down. He went through this before, when he developed Gnutella, and was forced to take it back. He then helped other developers "reverse engineer" the Gnutella network.

So, what do you think des this mean for Winamp? Or will there be a new media player?

AZ

[GuchiGuh]

NNNgnngnnnn....AOL!!!!
Why cant they leave people alone??

[az]

Oh, maybe I should've included this little unimportant tidbit: Frankel sold Nullsoft to AOL some time ago, but continued as an employee there.

AZ

[GuchiGuh]

dumb****.
so that means no more winamp?

[az]

Nullsoft still exists, and Winamp continues being developed by the rest of the team. It's just that the founder and creative head is gone..

AZ

[drslump]

Actually why AOL did buy Nullsoft?
To have an optional AOL link after a WinAmp installation?

Anyway Winamp isn't that cool, IMO, what's cool are the dozens of free high quality plugins available. So it shouldn't be to difficult to develop a new player which can take advantage of Winamp's plugin framework. Perhaps there is one already.

btw I don't like WA3 it's too bloated, it takes so long to load
I'm still using the 2.9 branch, I don't need an audio player to watch my videos

Ivan

[GuchiGuh]

winamp3 screws up your registry..

[Technoid]

AOL probably bought nulsoft just to tell MS that "Hey we also got a mediaplayer, we don't need to use yourse"

[az]

AOL wanted to become a media giant, and everyone was buying everyone else at that time. They also bought Mirabilis (ICQ) and Netscape.

Guchi: Winamp 2.9 is much better than three.

AZ

[Gurm]

Yeah, AOL's acquisition of Winamp was really just that... an acquisition. It wasn't strategically motivated in any way.

I mean, c'mon they OWN Netscape but they're using IE6 in the new AOL. Bleh.

- Gurm

[az]

AOL's recent bigger business decisions were all stupid. The merger with Time Warner, the acquisition of Netscape and Nullsoft... one really starts to wonder how businesses that are run that way can be successful at all.

AZ

[Gurm]

They can't. There's a reason AOL has gone down the crapper.

- Gurm

[az]

I wonder how they managed to get so big in the first place.

AZ

[Ajax]

I'm convinced that AOL is just a virus. It has screwed up every machine I have ever seen it installed on.

[Nowhere]

Re: Justin Frankel leaves Nullsoft

Originally posted by az

...
So, what do you think des this mean for Winamp? Or will there be a new media player?

AZ

There already is.
foobar2000.

btw, created and maintained also by former winamp developer.

Originally posted by drslump

...
So it shouldn't be to difficult to develop a new player which can take advantage of Winamp's plugin framework. Perhaps there is one already.

btw I don't like WA3 it's too bloated, it takes so long to load
I'm still using the 2.9 branch, I don't need an audio player to watch my videos

Ivan

Actually, it is difficult apparently. Or at least unpractical/inconvenient/hard. Anyway...foobar developer said that - and he choose not to implement winamp plugins compatibility in his player - and he was afaik developer of main winamp plugins, so I'd rather believe his comments.

drslump, if you don't like audio player to play videos, you'll like foobar - it is perfect in what it does.
And does only that.