Back in May, the CEO of Winamp revealed that the source code for this legendary media player would be publicly available on September 24th. With little announcement, the code was released yesterday. However, the licensing model stands in stark contrast to the principles of open-source software. Despite this, some initial forks—which are not permitted under the licensing agreement—have already surfaced online.
Licensing Conflicts
During the May announcement, Alexandre Saboundjian, the CEO of Winamp, stated, "Winamp will remain the owner of the software and will decide on the innovations made in the official version." A significant issue arises from a partial contradiction between the Winamp Collaborative License (WCL) Version 1.0 and GitHub's Terms of Service. This conflict primarily concerns how Winamp plans to manage the distribution of modified versions and forking. According to GitHub's ToS,
"By setting your repositories 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)."
Community Reactions
Moreover, every public page and repository on GitHub grants users of the platform
"a nonexclusive, worldwide license to use, display, and perform Your Content through the GitHub Service and to reproduce Your Content solely on GitHub as permitted through GitHub's functionality (for example, through forking)."
Reactions to Winamp's licensing model on GitHub have been quite critical, with some users referring to it as "a dogwater license" and "unpaid labor." Discussions are also happening on Reddit, particularly in the r/linux community, where a post titled "The source code to Winamp was released. No Forking allowed, but people forked anyway" captures the sentiment (refer to the Source(s) section for the link).
Future Considerations
The unfortunate reality is that while Winamp claims to have "opened the source code," they are offering very limited access and asserting copyright over any community contributions to this code. It is likely that several unofficial forks will gain traction in the coming weeks, forcing Winamp to either revise its licensing model to align with GitHub's ToS or remove the code from the platform altogether.
Perhaps the Winamp team should have consulted "GitHub For Dummies" before finalizing the WCL 1.0, but it's not too late for them to take action. This guide is available on Amazon in Kindle format for $18, with a paperback version priced at $25 for new copies and starting at $19.39 for used ones.
