The famous media player, Winamp, has officially transitioned to open-source. However, the details of its licensing have sparked controversy within the open-source community.
Several months prior, Llama Group SA, the entity behind Winamp, announced that it would unveil the source code for Winamp on September 24. This promise has now been fulfilled.
The source code of Winamp is accessible on GitHub
The source code provided pertains to the traditional version of the music player. The licensing documentation, which is available on Winamp’s official GitHub page, is referred to as the “Winamp Collaborative License (WCL).” This designation raises considerable concerns among onlookers.
Is Winamp truly open-source? Not exactly
Essentially, it appears that the company expects users to examine the code, rectify bugs on their behalf, and subsequently await consent from the maintainers before implementing any modifications. This strategy implies that developers’ contributions, including improvements or fresh features, could be denied, effectively limiting the potential for genuine innovation.
Furthermore, the license asserts that all intellectual property rights and copyrights associated with contributions are assigned to Winamp. This indicates that contributors must relinquish any rights of authorship or dispute any modifications made to their submissions, granting Winamp the authority to utilize these contributions at will, without recompensing the individuals who provided their code. This mandatory “waiving of rights” is outlawed in numerous countries, including Belgium, where Llama Group SA is headquartered.
Are you following along? Ultimately, this arrangement equates to volunteer labor, with only the official application enabled to implement features or improvements. Contributors find themselves lacking control over their submissions. The majority of responses to the announcement on X (formerly Twitter) have been irate, and rightfully so.
The situation is complicated further by Section 5. Restrictions (as outlined in the accompanying screenshot).
Contributors are prohibited from distributing any altered versions of Winamp, even in the form of source code. This privilege is exclusively retained for the maintainers, or the company itself. This approach to licensing is unusual. Other developers would be unable to create or share their versions of Winamp. Is this genuinely open source? It certainly appears otherwise. What was the reason for releasing the source code initially? If it was meant as a public relations strategy, it has misfired. Intriguingly, they unintentionally included the source code for SHOUTcast Server’s software along with Winamp’s code but subsequently retracted it.
Winamp revised the license to permit forking, but…
Unexpectedly, Winamp’s initial license breached GitHub’s Terms of Service, which state: “By setting your repositories to be viewed publicly, you agree to allow others to view and ‘fork’ your repositories (meaning others may create their own copies of content from your repositories in repositories they control).” There is an active discussion about this matter on Winamp’s GitHub page.
The company has since updated the licensing provisions (WCL 1.0.1) to permit forking of the code for private use only, suggesting that the distribution of any modified versions remains prohibited. Currently, Winamp’s source code has garnered nearly 1,000 forks—somewhat positive news amid the ongoing debate.
DrO, the creator of WACUP (Winamp Community Update Project), has openly criticized the licensing restrictions on Reddit and shared a statement on WACUP’s Facebook page, announcing he would refrain from using the source code for his version of the music player.
Image Source: Andreas Cahyo @ Shutterstock
