The legendary Winamp has now become an open source media player

This week, Llama Group open sourced the Winamp player and switched the project to a collaborative development model. The application source code, written in C++ and C, is published on GitHub under the Winamp Collaborative License Version 1.0. Currently, the build of the desktop version of the player is based on Visual Studio 2019 and Intel IPP v6.1.1.035 libraries.

Image source: forums.winamp.com

According to available data, the transition to an open development model is due to a reorganization in the Llama Group, which was carried out due to financial problems. For the same reason, last year the company had to sell the Shoutcast project, as well as fire the development team that was involved in maintaining the classic Winamp application for Windows. At the same time, the developers continued to develop the streaming service of the same name with subscriptions to musicians, as well as mobile versions of Winamp for devices based on Android and iOS.

The Winamp project has been around since 1997 and is one of the longest-running multimedia players that is still developing. Due to the high popularity of the player for Windows, several clones have appeared for Linux, such as XMMS, XMMS2 and Beep Media Player. In 2022, Radionomy Group, which at that time owned Winamp developer Nullsoft, sold the audio business to Azerion and renamed itself Llama Group. Llama Group later announced the relaunch of the Winamp project as a music streaming service. The current available version of Winamp Full is 5.9.2.10042.