Please tone it down, I don't want Winamp to regret opensourcing

[grepwood]

From what I've seen so far, the only deserved criticism is that:

• the repository contains proprietary code (which is fixable)
• there are no written agreements attached that void the terms of the proprietary code (which is fixable)
• git history maintains evidence of the existence of infringing code and it can still be accessed (which is fixable)

Everything else I see, while may be funny to you, could be annoying for the proprietors of Winamp and could give them the idea that this just isn't worth it, that they should pull the plug on the repo and cite the behavior of GitHub users as a reason. I'd much rather prefer to see the source code of this once revered project stay afloat than see a bunch of randos boost their ego over someone else's mistakes. This could also give Winamp proprietors a perfect excuse to add a CoC. If this happens, just look in the mirror to see who's to blame.

Please keep your criticism constructive.

[Rua]

The licence in general is deserved criticism. It claims be FOSS and copyleft while putting so many restrictions on the code that it's exactly the opposite. It's proprietary code masquerading as FOSS, also known as "openwashing".

[nukeop]

You can release software under any license you wish. Crazy.

[Rua]

Sure, but if you call it FOSS while it's not, you get rightly mocked for it.

[grepwood]

@Rua the license is opensource. What the hell do you want? Opensource makes no guarantees that the source code is anything beyond readable by everyone. What you want is free software - not opensource.

[jakubtalich]

I do not think so. What is this "dog's breakfast" even? Open source, but not open source? Have you become Oracle itself?

[LennyLizowzskiy]

@grepwood it's not Open Source. It's Source Available

[Rua]

@Rua the license is opensource. What the hell do you want? Opensource makes no guarantees that the source code is anything beyond readable by everyone. What you want is free software - not opensource.

https://github.com/WinampDesktop/winamp/blob/community/LICENSE.md?plain=1#L7

[nukeop]

Sure, but if you call it FOSS while it's not, you get rightly mocked for it.

Did anyone do that?

[sebastian-meyer]

The README states "[...] but now, its source code was opened to the community, allowing developers to improve and modernize the player" and the LICENSE says "You are encouraged to contribute improvements, enhancements, and bug fixes back to the project. Contributions must be submitted to the official repository".

At the same time the LICENSE forbids even creating a fork. How the hell am I supposed to contribute to the project by submitting changes to the official repository when I am not even allowed to create a fork? It's impossible.

Also, the waiver of rights is illegal in most countries, as in #24.

So, it doesn't matter if anyone called this "FOSS", the license simply does not make any sense, because it disallows even those actions which you are explicitly encouraged to do by the very same license.

[nukeop]

The README states "[...] but now, its source code was opened to the community, allowing developers to improve and modernize the player" and the LICENSE says "You are encouraged to contribute improvements, enhancements, and bug fixes back to the project. Contributions must be submitted to the official repository".

At the same time the LICENSE forbids even creating a fork. How the hell am I supposed to contribute to the project by submitting changes to the official repository when I am not even allowed to create a fork? It's impossible.

Also, the waiver of rights is illegal in most countries, as in #24.

So, it doesn't matter if anyone called this "FOSS", the license simply does not make any sense, because it disallows even those actions which you are explicitly encouraged to do by the very same license.

Ignore the license and do whatever you want. Is it that hard to predict that they mean creating and maintaining forked versions of sotware distributed separately as contrasted to what passes as a "fork" on github which is just a copy of the repo for contribution purposes which is (as pointed out in other threads) - explicitly allowed by Github?

[grepwood]

Have you become Oracle itself?

@jakubtalich FSF made the distinction between open source and free software very clear. It's practically okay to expect open source to be free since a staggering majority of open source projects are - but in theory there is a place in open source for projects that do not conform to the "4 freedoms that free software should always have".

@Rua alright, let's take this statement apart.

The Winamp Collaborative License is a free

Yeah nah. It's not free the way that FSF labels freedom in software. It's maybe free as in free beer.

copyleft license for software and other kinds of works.

Okay. That can work.

It is designed to ensure that you have the freedom to use, Modify, and study the software

Which is normal in Source Available as @LennyLizowskiy put it.

but with certain restrictions on the distribution of modifications to maintain the integrity and collaboration of the project.

The use case of those restrictions is clearly stated and let's now look at those restrictions: mp/blob/community/LICENSE.md?plain=1#L31-L34

• No Distribution of Modified Versions: You may not distribute modified versions of the software, whether in source or binary form.
• No Forking: You may not create, maintain, or distribute a forked version of the software.
• Official Distribution: Only the maintainers of the official repository are allowed to distribute the software and its modifications.

To me it looks very clear cut - the proprietors of Winamp do not want 3rd parties (us) to drop everything we do and maintain a competing player based on Winamp or even go as far as to usurp their position as BDFL and "the de facto official place to get Winamp from". This looks like a very obvious way to protect their brand from contributions they may deem undesirable. I have no issues with this.

[sebastian-meyer]

Ignore the license and do whatever you want. Is it that hard to predict that they mean creating and maintaining forked versions of sotware distributed separately as contrasted to what passes as a "fork" on github which is just a copy of the repo for contribution purposes which is (as pointed out in other threads) - explicitly allowed by Github?

No, because that's not how licenses work. Since it is there, it must be followed and can't be ignored, just because you are quite sure to know that it is meant in a different way than it is written.

[Rua]

copyleft license for software and other kinds of works.

Okay. That can work.

No, this licence is not "copyleft" if you can't distribute modified copies of the licence. A copyleft licence is, at a minimum, a FOSS licence, and above that it requires releasing any derivative works with the same freedoms as the original (in practice, the same licence).

[sebastian-meyer]

Creating a fork, modifying it and then opening a pull request to the official repository (which is clearly encouraged and intended by the maintainers) does not work without publishing my fork on GitHub - thus violating the license by "distributing a forked version of the software". This has to be rephrased if anyone should be able to contribute to the project.

[makemake-kbo]

They should absolutely be regretting this marketing stunt. It should serve as a warning for other companies trying to do the same.

Its very clear that they do not care about free software but care about free contributions. The license is an embarrassment and they deserve all the bad PR x10.

[MaxGripe]

So if I understand correctly, you're concerned that something "could be annoying for the proprietors of Winamp" and that the code might disappear? The good news is that there are currently over 550 forks of this code.

Perhaps let's think about the people who find sharing code under a ridiculous license annoying?

[grepwood]

So if I understand correctly, you're concerned that ... the code might disappear?

Yes. This is a rare opportunity that a proprietary project releases its source, one that a lot of people seem to not appreciate. Fixing the outstanding legal compliance issues with 3rd party proprietary code is certainly going to help stay the repo afloat.

Perhaps let's think about the people who find sharing code under a ridiculous license annoying?

I used to be an idealist like this. GitHub doesn't care and I only wasted my time. I used to spend time reporting repositories that were clearly against GitHub ToS, clearly proprietary and closed and without even available source code. And what did GitHub do? Take 3-6 weeks to send a template response that they received the report, and nothing was ever done afterwards. GitHub doesn't care. Be careful you don't waste your time over things that don't really matter.

[GitMensch]

I agree with grepwood. Please also give people some time to work on things instead of fulling the plate with more rants. Also - the license is discussed (more than enough) in #6 so let's keep the discussion there.

Just for the subscribers of this issue...

jfmauguit wrote:

We are reviewing this issue, we'll adapt [the license] as soon as possible

[nukeop]

They should absolutely be regretting this marketing stunt. It should serve as a warning for other companies trying to do the same.

Its very clear that they do not care about free software but care about free contributions. The license is an embarrassment and they deserve all the bad PR x10.

There's no "bad PR"", just a bunch of people who have never contributed to anything open source whining on Github.

[nukeop]

Ignore the license and do whatever you want. Is it that hard to predict that they mean creating and maintaining forked versions of sotware distributed separately as contrasted to what passes as a "fork" on github which is just a copy of the repo for contribution purposes which is (as pointed out in other threads) - explicitly allowed by Github?

No, because that's not how licenses work. Since it is there, it must be followed and can't be ignored, just because you are quite sure to know that it is meant in a different way than it is written.

Creating a fork, modifying it and then opening a pull request to the official repository (which is clearly encouraged and intended by the maintainers) does not work without publishing my fork on GitHub - thus violating the license by "distributing a forked version of the software". This has to be rephrased if anyone should be able to contribute to the project.

A license is not like the laws of physics. It's obvious what they intend, so you can just do it without caring what words there are in a text file somewhere.

[LennyLizowzskiy]

@nukeop that's not how the law works lol

[LennyLizowzskiy]

They should absolutely be regretting this marketing stunt. It should serve as a warning for other companies trying to do the same.

Its very clear that they do not care about free software but care about free contributions. The license is an embarrassment and they deserve all the bad PR x10.

There's no "bad PR"", just a bunch of people who have never contributed to anything open source whining on Github.

The only exception being that the discussed software is not open source and is violating GitHub TOS

[MaxGripe]

Seriously speaking, I think there are many valuable points in this thread, but there's one thing I can't understand. Can someone explain to me whether this specific license can be interpreted in any other way than: "You can help us improve our product and we allow you to work for us for free"?

I've been a fan of Winamp from the very beginning and I still use it every day. However, if this license is what I think it is, then yes, I have to admit that I do not appreciate it and I don't particularly care about the well-being of the company that controls this product.

[LennyLizowzskiy]

Seriously speaking, I think there are many valuable points in this thread, but there's one thing I can't understand. Can someone explain to me whether this specific license can be interpreted in any other way than: "You can help us improve our product and we allow you to work for us for free"?

I've been a fan of Winamp from the very beginning and I still use it every day. However, if this license is what I think it is, then yes, I have to admit that I do not appreciate it and I don't particularly care about the well-being of the company that controls this product.

As of now it's more like "you can work for us for free but we really don't want even that"

[nukeop]

@nukeop that's not how the law works lol

Yes it is. Intent matters a lot in law.

[nukeop]

Why is it always people with 0 contributions ever that are the loudest and most obnoxious?

[grepwood]

Why is it always people with 0 contributions ever that are the loudest and most obnoxious?

If you wanted to write a hot take, would you risk writing it on your main account?

[GitMensch]

@MaxGripe wrote

Seriously speaking, [...]

... one should read the interesting points one references and if the devs say they recognize that the license file is wrong and not what was intended and they want to fix that... just take it that way for at least some days?

@grepwood

If you wanted to write a hot take, would you risk writing it on your main account?

Yes, totally. There's a thing that is named "character" and "honesty" - and also "hot take" from an active account (and often GH stats are only a minor part of people's contributions, at least in my case, so I assume that from others as well) have much more weight than from a user that is possibly "very fresh".

... but we're drifting this post even more, so I'll try to keep that down myself. Sorry if I spammed someones inbox.

[MaxGripe]

I have created a pull request to change the license to a simplified and easier-to-understand version

[m6502]

I think it's all just a big misunderstanding and an error they will correct. They didn't have any reason to put the source here so that fact alone is telling me the whole story. Never assume bad faith when an ambiguous situation arises.

[sebastian-meyer]

Ignore the license and do whatever you want. Is it that hard to predict that they mean creating and maintaining forked versions of sotware distributed separately as contrasted to what passes as a "fork" on github which is just a copy of the repo for contribution purposes which is (as pointed out in other threads) - explicitly allowed by Github?

No, because that's not how licenses work. Since it is there, it must be followed and can't be ignored, just because you are quite sure to know that it is meant in a different way than it is written.

Creating a fork, modifying it and then opening a pull request to the official repository (which is clearly encouraged and intended by the maintainers) does not work without publishing my fork on GitHub - thus violating the license by "distributing a forked version of the software". This has to be rephrased if anyone should be able to contribute to the project.

A license is not like the laws of physics. It's obvious what they intend, so you can just do it without caring what words there are in a text file somewhere.

Please consult your lawyer about this very wrong understanding of how licenses work.

[nukeop]

Ignore the license and do whatever you want. Is it that hard to predict that they mean creating and maintaining forked versions of sotware distributed separately as contrasted to what passes as a "fork" on github which is just a copy of the repo for contribution purposes which is (as pointed out in other threads) - explicitly allowed by Github?

No, because that's not how licenses work. Since it is there, it must be followed and can't be ignored, just because you are quite sure to know that it is meant in a different way than it is written.

Creating a fork, modifying it and then opening a pull request to the official repository (which is clearly encouraged and intended by the maintainers) does not work without publishing my fork on GitHub - thus violating the license by "distributing a forked version of the software". This has to be rephrased if anyone should be able to contribute to the project.

A license is not like the laws of physics. It's obvious what they intend, so you can just do it without caring what words there are in a text file somewhere.

Please consult your lawyer about this very wrong understanding of how licenses work.

I don't have a lawyer. In the real world nobody cares about licenses, people copy code verbatim from wherever they can find it, especially if it's going to land in a proprietary codebase. Licenses start becoming a problem if you have a startup that you're trying to sell and somebody's doing due dilligence. Words in a text file will not prevent anyone from doing what they want. Especially in this case, where there's a bunch of people playing armchair lawyers.

[grepwood]

Yes, totally. There's a thing that is named "character" and "honesty" - and also "hot take" from an active account (and often GH stats are only a minor part of people's contributions, at least in my case, so I assume that from others as well) have much more weight than from a user that is possibly "very fresh".

@GitMensch my point is that making a new account is GitHub's closest thing to commenting anonymously.

[nofishonfriday]

Imo it's not only the license to be criticized, but the whole source release here leaves a bad taste. I.e. violating of GitHub TOS, leaking proprietary code, the one 'maintainer' doing delete commits and thinking the code is gone then and so on. All showing the code owners seem to have no clue/interest in actual open source software. :(

[grepwood]

violating of GitHub TOS

I have yet to see which part of the ToS is being broken. And even if I do get to see it, Winamp would have to upload malware or get a DMCA strike for GitHub to do anything about it. Speaking from over a decade of experience.

[LennyLizowzskiy]

I don't have a lawyer. In the real world nobody cares about licenses, people copy code verbatim from wherever they can find it, especially if it's going to land in a proprietary codebase. Licenses start becoming a problem if you have a startup that you're trying to sell and somebody's doing due dilligence. Words in a text file will not prevent anyone from doing what they want. Especially in this case, where there's a bunch of people playing armchair lawyers.

If "nobody cares about licenses" then why are you releasing software under AGPL 3 and not MIT-0? 🤔

[morsik]

I have yet to see which part of the ToS is being broken

@grepwood are you serious? The part that explicitly grants permission to fork any project on GitHub while License says you can't.

[LovelyA72]

If Winamp got their license right(and know how git works), it could be one epic open source move... And yes, please be nice to the devs. Just imagine what you feel if you are under this kind of situation from your mistake.

[morsik]

@LovelyA72 mistake is when you buy wrong kind of paper or meal.

This is deliberate action to get free labor at no cost no strings attached.

[grepwood]

@morsik thanks, I've read it. We'll see how it goes then. From my experience on how the ToS is enforced, I really doubt GitHub will take this repo down though.

[LordRishav]

They could regret opensourcing if they did it in the first place. This is a source-available license, not open source. Read the Open Source Initiative's definition of "open source" here: https://opensource.org/osd. This confusion is what Stallman warned us about.

[sebastian-meyer]

In the real world nobody cares about licenses, people copy code verbatim from wherever they can find it, especially if it's going to land in a proprietary codebase. Licenses start becoming a problem if you have a startup that you're trying to sell and somebody's doing due dilligence. Words in a text file will not prevent anyone from doing what they want. Especially in this case, where there's a bunch of people playing armchair lawyers.

Just because you can physically kill someone even if the law says you are not allowed to (and some people actually do), we can now all simply ignore that law, because it is just "words in a text file not preventing anyone from doing what they want"? This is really your understanding of how this should be handled? A license is a legally binding document and just ignoring it is a criminal offense. So if a license is so badly written that you can't legally do anything the licensor on the other hand clearly wants you to do, this is a problem. I agree that it is fixable and no big deal if it gets fixed, but just ignoring the fact that there is a problem doesn't help at all.

[dinnerbird]

Nobody wants the massive Winamp style interfaces and visualizations we used in 2001, in the year 2025. These days, we just want a webapp/phoneapp, you open, and you click play. And, then you hear music.

Some of us who actually use our computers for things other than web browsers prefer to not have to use 800 MB of RAM just to listen to music.

[jaredcobb]

I heard @benpbolton was going to fork this and just slap a GPLv2 license on it anyway

[sebastian-meyer]

I heard @benpbolton was going to fork this and just slap a GPLv2 license on it anyway

Which doesn't fix the problem, but just violates the license. How does that help anyone? Whoever wants to ignore the license (like @nukeop) can do that anyway and doesn't need a middleman to illegally slap a new license on it, because that doesn't make ignoring the license any more legal.

[makemake-kbo]

They should absolutely be regretting this marketing stunt. It should serve as a warning for other companies trying to do the same. Its very clear that they do not care about free software but care about free contributions. The license is an embarrassment and they deserve all the bad PR x10.

There's no "bad PR"", just a bunch of people who have never contributed to anything open source whining on Github.

@nukeop lol r u serious? you shouldnt have to contribute to open source to call out corporate greed and anti user practices.

and besides that, there are a LOT of technical users with open source contribution experience who are complaining. me included.

[sebastian-meyer]

I don't have a lawyer. In the real world nobody cares about licenses, people copy code verbatim from wherever they can find it, especially if it's going to land in a proprietary codebase. Licenses start becoming a problem if you have a startup that you're trying to sell and somebody's doing due dilligence. Words in a text file will not prevent anyone from doing what they want. Especially in this case, where there's a bunch of people playing armchair lawyers.

If "nobody cares about licenses" then why are you releasing software under AGPL 3 and not MIT-0? 🤔

Also, maybe someone should have a closer look into your projects if this is how much you care about other's code and licenses? Did you also just "copy code verbatim from wherever you can find it" for your own music player https://github.com/nukeop/nuclear?

[LordRishav]

Just so WinAmp developers know, this source code is going straight to OpenAI's LLM training lmao

[Hypfer]

To me this looks more like the result of good intentions than anything else.

I don't know Winamp internals, but it seems to me as if there was someone (probably an engineer) pushing towards open-sourcing, likely because of believing in the spirit and all. This to no surprise was met with resistance by the management, because they rightfully worried about drama, about accidentally publishing something that shouldn't be published, about net-negative outcomes etc.

Apparently, the one pushing towards publishing the source did win them over. Probably with something like "but you see, the community could improve Winamp then".

The execs - still worried - are okay with it, but only if they don't have to worry people instantly creating a competing product based on the same codebase; hence the "no forks" is added to the license

Marketing/PR then creates the announcement and then this all plays out as it did.

Where does that leave us?

1. We have more than reasonable worries that have been confirmed. In fact, the real situation likely exceeded said worries probably tenfold.
2. We have someone who pushed for doing something good being publicly humiliated and now probably having to answer to their leadership for bringing this trouble.
3. We have another cautionary tale telling people that FOSS is no place any sane person wants to set their foot in.

How could this have been done better?

Well, first of all, all of this dogpiling was wrong. That's not the fault of Winamp. It's the fault of each and everyone who took part in it. There is no excuse for doing so. Anyone who did should be ashamed of themselves.

Apart from that, I think that this could've worked a lot better, if the team had involved someone with in-depth experience with FOSS as a helping hand to provide guidance and review stuff internally before making stuff public.

tbf, I can't know if they did, but if they did, then maybe the advisor was a bit too optimistic about the FOSS space in 2024.

I don't want to blame them for not doing so though. After all, believing that this would work out well and that any misunderstandings/conflicts would be mild and easy to solve is a good thing. It is how FOSS should be.

It shouldn't be necessary to review every word you're going to say 10 times before saying it just to ensure that no bad actor will somehow find a way to use it against you. That's not how it was Pre-GitHub and it also shouldn't continue to be like this.

But what if it was like we think?

If you think about it, even just a "source-available" Winamp is a huge gift to the world.

That is still an old, battle-tested and well-used codebase where one can learn from. It's also a historical artifact that has been preserved in a way that should make it actually last.

And of course you can modify it all you want locally. There's nothing stopping you from doing that. That was at its core the FOSS spirit. Being able to tinker with the stuff you own.

FOSS does not mean GitHub.

[XtremeOwnageDotCom]

FOSS does not mean GitHub.

FOSS LITERALLY means, FREE, and Open source.

Aka, you can literally do ANYTHING you want with it.

This is NOT FOSS.

You can't distribute it. You can't make a derivative work of it.

If winamp as a company dies, you can't keep it alive. (Although, suppose nobody is going to be around to sue you.... but, legally speaking- you still can't do this)

You can only compile it locally, and make local changes. You can't give that modified copy to a friend.

FREE- doesn't specifically mean, no cost. Free means, you are free to use, modify, distribute this software (for free). You don't have those rights here.