In May 2024, Winamp’s owner company, Llama Group, announced that the legendary audio player for Windows PCs would become partially open source for developers worldwide on September 24, 2024.
The move aims to help this classic software evolve by enabling the entire community to contribute their expertise, ideas, and passion to its development.
Staying true to its words, Winamp has released the app’s source code on GitHub.
While admitting that the multimedia player’s development had slowed down, by opening the source code to the company, Winamp says it is giving “developers and retro lovers” a chance to improve and modernize the iconic player to “meet current user needs.”
The #Winamp Legacy player source code is now open!
Developers & retro lovers, it’s your chance to shape the iconic player’s future.
Explore, modify, and build on the classic you know and love.
Get the details & access the code here: https://t.co/TX3sOaSbS5 pic.twitter.com/ZvDeKiJ1uO
— Winamp (@winamp) September 24, 2024
The source code is written in C++ and C, and the GitHub repository for Winamp also has information about its library dependencies and build tools.
Currently, the Winamp desktop client is built around Visual Studio 2019 (VS2019) and Intel IPP libraries (you need to use v6.1.1.035).
Although the media player’s source code is now open for community collaboration, it is not “open source” in the conventional sense as it is governed by Winamp Collaborative License (WCL) Version 1.0.1.
This license allows users to view, access, study, and modify the software’s source code but for private use only. Also, no one can distribute modified versions of the software or even create forks of the codebase, whether in source or binary form.
Only the maintainers of the official repository have permission to distribute the software and its modifications. Anyone who releases a modified version of Winamp for any unauthorized use, reproduction, or distribution of the software or any portion thereof will face potential legal action from Llama Group in civil and criminal penalties.
Further, by submitting modified contributions, one agrees that they are granting Winamp a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to use, copy, modify, and distribute their contributions as part of the software, in exchange for any compensation.
Despite the restrictions imposed by the license, if you are still interested in trying out the nostalgic audio player, you can check out the source code on GitHub.
