The classic Winamp music player is now (technically) open source, in a move that its parent company hopes will improve the app and accelerate feature development. However, the app’s code release has been a mess, to put it lightly.

Llama Group, the Belgium-based company that owns Winamp, announced back in May that it planned to release the source code for the Winamp music player. Winamp was first released in 1997, gaining popularity for its simplicity and customizable interface, and it maintained a dedicated core user base even after development slowed down. It has been sold off a few times, and Llama Group has been providing minor updates while it works on a larger streaming service and music player with the Winamp name.

The source code for the classic Winamp player, which the company is also calling “Winamp for Windows,” is now live on GitHub. However, the code was released under a licensing agreement that forbids the distribution of modified versions, or even creating forks of the codebase—as of the time of writing, it has been forked over 700 times. Other projects also can’t use the Winamp name. Anyone who releases a modified version of Winamp faces potential legal action from Llama Group, which is generally not how open-source projects work.

For comparison, Mozilla Firefox has similar rules for its trademarks, but the code itself is available under a more permissive Mozilla Public License. Developers can create their own modified Firefox builds, but they are not allowed to call it “Firefox” or use any of Mozilla’s other trademarks. That’s why the Firefox browser on Debian Linux was called “Iceweasel” for several years. Llama Group is not allowing people to use the Winamp name or the Winamp code in other projects, and it retains full ownership of any work contributed to the core project. It seems like Llama Group mostly just wants free development work for its own Winamp application.

The initial Winamp code on GitHub also included code for the third-party SHOUTcast server software, which Llama Group seemingly did not have legal permission to release. The external code was quickly removed, but it’s still present in many of the code forks and in the commit history for the main repository.

Llama Group said in a statement that the code release will “enable the entire developer community to participate in maintaining and developing new features.” However, with the official codebase having a restrictive license and (seemingly) including illegal code, there probably won’t be much community work on the official Winamp project. At most, we might see some Winamp spin-offs from developers not worried about getting sued.

Source: Business Wire