earlier this year the company who owns
Winamp announced that they were going to
be open sourcing the legendary MP3
player for windows we have Winamp and
now it's going to be open source this is
a very exciting thing everyone was very
positive about this because well it's
Winamp and open sourcing it is just a
great thing for the preservation of of
software right if we we need the source
code for famous software like this now
there was a lot we didn't know this was
this was back in May there was a lot we
didn't know we didn't even know what the
open- source license was going to be we
had no idea whatsoever well one thing we
did know was that it was going to be
released on September 24th that's it
that's the only tidbit we knew was
Winamp open source September 24th
everyone was very excited well yesterday
was September 24th and they followed
through they released winap as open
source and it went a little funky it
went real funky the response from
people for the most part not exactly
positive there was a lot of amused
poking and and making fun of how winap
did this and let's dive into that right
now um so so first of all if you go to
win app.com they have a whole page
dedicated to where you can join the
project where you can help develop uh do
you want to be a part of the community
of developers who improve and maintain
the historic Win app player and then you
can join their GitHub page great so if
you go to github.com winap desktop you
can find the source code this is great
this was all published yesterday
absolutely fantastic we've got the
source code to Winamp so let's look at
the source code license because here is
where things go off the rails more than
a little bit The Source license for
Winamp is a brand new license it is not
a pre-existing license it's not the GPL
it's not MIT it's not BSD it's not
really any of these things it is the
Winamp collaborative license the wcl
they've already had to modify it once
I'm going to read a little bit to you
and you tell me what jumps out at you
quote this license governs the use
modification and distribution of the win
apppp software by using modifying or
Distributing the software you agree to
the following terms okay it's good so
far it's a license just for Winamp
nothing but winap here we go the
Preamble quote the L the winap
collaborative license is a free copyleft
license for software and other kinds of
Works what is what else is it for if you
have a license that's named the win
apppp license and you say at the very
top that it is just for the win apppp
software what other kinds of works could
it be for besides the win apppp software
I wonder if they actually proof read a
lot of this it continues it is designed
to ensure that you have the freedom to
use modify and study the software but
with certain restrictions on the
distribution and modifications to
maintain the integrity and collaboration
of the project okay I also want to point
out that they they call it out as both
free and copy left that is an
interesting thing we'll be coming back
to that a little bit let's jump down a
bit here let's let's jump down to the
restrictions section because in a lot of
ways when you're when you're talking
about software licenses that's kind of
the important part like what can't you
do with this source code well they
currently have two bullet lists here two
under the restrictions they had a third
one until earlier earlier today I'm
going to read the first to you now then
we'll talk about the third the first one
no distribution of modified versions you
may not distribute modified versions of
the software whether in Source or binary
form okay so you can make changes but
you have to give those changes back to
wnab and it's just for the official
distribution which follows to the second
restriction official distribution only
the maintainer of the official
repository only the maintainers of the
official repository are allowed to
distribute the software and its
modifications all right so you're not
going to be taking Winamp and making
your own you know I'm not going to go
out and make lunduke amp right like I I
can't make it based on win amp right
that's what it's all about if I'm making
code changes it's to Winamp proper and
that's it and that's all I can see all
the code all I want but I can't use the
code in in part or in full for anything
else okay that's that's what they're
going with honestly there's still a real
benefit to having the source code out
there for winm it's great from a
historic perspective and a learning
perspective just the software
preservation aspect of it alone makes it
valuable I surely would love to have
seen it as under a different license
that made it possible for us to do other
things with it and make different
versions
but you know at least it's a little bit
of something but when this first
released there were some changes here
now you you'll note you'll note this is
version uh
1.0.1 of the Winamp collaborative
license the 1.0 version had an an
additional restriction here I'm going to
uh go ahead and read this to you now no
forking you may not create maintain or
distribute a forked version of the
software huh I mean that was kind of
implied with the no distribution of
modified versions right because if you
can't distribute a modified version
either in b or in source code then you
really can't do a fork right like you
can't Fork it um but they specifically
called out no forking well let's let's
see how the how the community took to
that shall we let's go to the win apppp
GitHub page as of right now the time of
recording this video there are
786
Forks official Fork projects on GitHub
because they they're hosting this on a
public GitHub repository right so people
there's a for button so people are
clicking the fork button and they're
making all sorts of forks uh Winamp how
about I fork anyway is an official Fork
of Winamp literally there's a fork
called how about I fork anyway um legal
win illegal Winamp
Fork wind champ wamp wamp um like
there's just tons and tons and tons of
forks there's hundreds and hundreds of
forks when I went to bed last night it
was around 300 something when I woke up
this morning we're getting close to 800
I I would not be surprised if by the
time I publish this video there's over a
thousand Forks of winap now they went
ahead and and and after there was a bit
of backlash around this they removed
that no forking restriction so you can
Fork it now the problem is that that
also uh runs a foul of the no
distribution of modified versions
requirement unless all of those modified
all of those Forks don't change a single
line of code unless they they change no
code whatsoever they are going to be
running a foul of of this particular
license anyway now interesting here
interesting GitHub has a term of service
uh if you go to doc. github.com you can
find a GitHub terms of service and there
is uh item five of the GitHub terms of
service deals with license Grant to
other users um I'm going to read the
first paragraph to you
because it's kind of relevant here any
user generated content you post publicly
including issues comments and
contributions to other users
repositories may be viewed by others
okay by setting your repository to be
viewed publicly you agree to allow
others to view and Fork your
repositories this means that others may
make their own copies of content from
your repositories in repositories they
control
ahuh UHA if you set the your pages and
repositories to be viewed publicly you
grant each user of GitHub a
non-exclusive worldwide license to use
display and perform your content uh
through GitHub service and to produce
your content solely on GitHub as
permitted through github's functionality
all right so basically what that's
saying is if you put a repository
containing software and anything else
else on GitHub and you flag it as public
you agree that other people can Fork it
inside of GitHub now that that term of
service only applies to GitHub
specifically right so th this this uh
Winamp collaborative license when it
originally said you can't Fork it uh
that was running a foul of github's
terms of service which obviously was was
a no no if you're going to host on
GitHub so they deleted that forking line
however however all people are allowed
to do based on this license is click the
fork button name the fork and that's it
if they change one character which many
of them have already outside of that
they are going to be running a foul of
the Winamp collaborative license version
1.0.1 which based on the fact that
there's already close to a thousand
Forks you got to know a bunch of them
are editing things just to be snarky
about it and that number is only going
to go up obviously this was going to
happen right I mean we're we're talking
about open-source nerds here they're
going to get snarky about it they're
going to see what they can get away with
they're just gonna whether they should
or not I'll leave that up as a as an
exercise to the viewers uh the listeners
out there but just the
same it's going to happen uh now
interestingly they announced this wiip
announced this all over the place they
announced this over on their their ex
account um uh which you know isn't huge
it's got like 20,000 followers or so but
it went poorly people were pointing out
non-stop how the license was incredibly
limiting you couldn't Fork it that was a
problem uh you can't modify any of the
code and release it to people other than
to give other than to send it to to the
Win app developers themselves they
didn't like that please use a different
license on and on and on and on Winamp
has gone in and deleted every post that
they have
made since um November of 2021 onwards
with the one exception of uh their
pinned post that they made back in May
that the winap source code will be
available and that one is just flooded
with uh with people uh talking about you
know hey you did this wrong you needed
to use a different license blah blah
blah blah blah but Winamp is is went
through and when they announced it they
announced the source code yesterday
early yesterday morning uh they deleted
that post they deleted all sorts of
stuff uh basically they're they're going
in and trying to cover stuff up as as
best they can and cover their tracks
here
um here's where I stand on this first
they can make it whatever license they
want it's their software it's their
right to release it however they want to
the fact that they release the source
code at all is nice uh it's nice from a
historical software preservation point
of view I wish more companies would do
that sort of thing um even if they're
not comfortable releasing it under like
a BSD MIT uh Apache GPL whatever license
at least it's under a license that
allows us to look at the code
and um make new builds of the code and
and whatnot I I think I think having it
under such a such a restrictive license
is difficult because as it currently
stands if win apppp just doesn't do
anything with the software there's not
much that we as developers or we as
nerds can legally do to continue to keep
the software operational under newer
systems as new systems come out
backwards back compatibility breaks and
if we want to get it running again it's
going to require some modifications even
if small ones and currently the the
license prohibits that um so I I think
it was a mistake to put it under such a
restrictive license but again it's their
code they get to decide what to do with
it that said they stated that it is a
free copy left license now let's parse
that out a little bit here they say free
as in lower case f which means free as
in cost which means we are free to use
the license we we if I want to use this
license I don't have to pay them a
royalty to use the license that's really
what that word there means um if they
use a capital f it means something
entirely differently blah blah blah blah
blah but the part I want to focus on
here is the copy left Winamp
collaborative license is a free copy
left license well what is a copyleft
license now a copy left is a is a legal
license that allows for the free as in
no cost distribution of copyrighted
Works while
maintaining um okay free actually means
both no cost as and uncovered but of
copyrighted Works while maintaining the
same rights in any derivative works okay
so so really break that down for a
second here so can we do that with the
Winamp collaborative license right if
it's a copyleft license that means that
we can freely unencumbered as long as we
adhere to the license distribute the
work as long as we maintain the same
rights in the derivative works well this
particular license Pro prohibits
derivative works so therefore it is not
a copyle license because you can't do
derivative works now of course you could
build this code but you cannot
distribute even unmodified binaries
right so you can't according to the
restrictions um only the maintainers of
the official repository are allowed to
distribute the software and its
modifications okay so you cannot
distribute the software you cannot
distribute the code you cannot
distribute the binaries which means if
you have forked it just like all these
Forks did both you and GitHub are
violating to the letter the terms or
this legal uh document that they've put
forth here the winap collaborative
license which in theory we are all
agreeing to by working with the software
therefore you cannot distribute it
therefore this is not a copyleft license
now if if people could
distribute um versions of win apppp like
if you could take it build it and
distribute it or just say package up the
source code without changing it and send
it to someone else then you could make
the argument that it is a copyleft
license albeit an
extraordinarily restrictive one but the
fact that it's limited where you cannot
give people the code or the binaries
even unmodified means it is not a copyle
license so this it looks like whoever
put this license together didn't fully
understand how source code licenses work
how open source Works U from a legal
perspective um and so I I would suggest
to whoever is running win apppp get a
hold of someone who actually understands
how these software licenses work because
there's many different contradictory
statements within the license that Al
ultimately is going to make it difficult
for you to enforce the license so if it
says it's a copyleft license that's that
has a specific legal meaning meaning
that you can distribute derivative works
as long as you maintain the same license
the same rights from the same license or
compatible license with the same
rights in this case you cannot
distribute therefore it is not a copy
left but it says it's a copy left so
that means you can distribute you've got
to you've got to figure that out so this
is it's it's kind of funny my guesses
we're already at version 1.0.1 of this
license we'll see
1.0.2
and3 very very soon
um just the same kudos to the Winamp
team for releasing the source code
albeit weirdly they're going to get
yelled at a lot because they really
screwed up on how they do it did it but
just the same if they hadn't screwed up
at all if they had released it under a a
BSD license someone would have yelled at
him they' have gotten yelled at for not
releasing it under a GPL license right
no matter how they release it there's
going to be some segment of of open
sorcery that is going to get pissed off
and snarky and I raate about it and go
on rants about it that's
how computer nerds work that's how the
open- source world is what can you do
but man they really stepped into it in
how they handled this uh hopefully
hopefully they get this fixed up
hopefully they Rectify some of the
problems with the license so that people
can actually work on it specifically I
would recommend to them that they they
modify the license such that um it is
possible to uh to distribute derivative
works for the specific reason of
historical preservation of the software
uh it looks like if you go to win
app.com it looks like the company is
really focusing its its earnings future
its Future profitability on You know uh
Android and iOS versions of win apppp
and on selling songs and and and and all
different sort of things so this classic
win apppp software is really is really
being put out there right now for
Goodwill and good press and good PR
right it's it's trying to drum up
enthusiasm for this great thing from our
digital music past right people have
Nostalgia for winap and it's trying to
build upon that and I would suggest them
if they're really trying to capitalize
on that find a license that you like it
can be fairly restrictive but one that
one that allows the publication of
derivative Works in some forms at least
in some
capacities that way you're going to
allow people to get Winamp running on
more machines you're going to ensure
that winep will run well into the future
and you're going to make a lot a lot of
nerds a lot happier just a suggestion
because I know they're going to end up
listening to this show I I would suggest
they go down that route but in the
meantime I'm going to amusedly be
scrolling through the great names of the
different the different Win app forks I
like I like wamp wamp personally wamp
wamp is great along with uh Winamp how
about I fork anyway those are two of my
favorites so far and with that ladies
and Gentlemen by the way go to luk.com
and luke. lo.com blah blah blah blah
blah that's where you find all the shows
and the Articles and me hanging out it's
great you love it very much ladies and
gentlemen boys and girls nerds and nerds
across the whole inner tubes I do
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