• jonasw@discuss.tchncs.de
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    6 months ago

    WinAmp making their source code ‘source available’ instead of open source, and then dropping this phrase:

    The release of the Winamp player’s source code will enable developers from all over the world to actively participate in its evolution and improvement.

    Yeah I don’t think so

    • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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      6 months ago

      Yup, as much as I like Grayjay, I’m not going to help development much because it’s “source available” instead of open source. There was an annoying bug I wanted fixed, and I was willing to go set up my dev environment and track it down, but they don’t seem interested in contributions, so I won’t make the effort.

      Likewise for WinAmp. The main benefit to it being “source available” is that I can recompile it and researchers can look for bugs. That’s it. They’re not going to get developers interested.

      • solrize@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Even if they accept patches, contributing still sounds like a bad deal. It’s free labor for some company. FOSS at minimum means the right to fork, precisely what “source available” seeks to deny.

        Leaving aside the question of winamp vs comparable programs, does anyone even care about desktop music players any more? I’m a throwback and use command line players, but I thought the cool kids these days use phones for stuff like that.

        I understand there is some technical obstacle to porting Rockbox to Android, but idk what it is and haven’t tried to look into it.