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Neowin interviews Ben Goodger, Justin Frankel 80

Posted by CowboyNeal from the up-close-and-personal dept.
mr_tommy writes "Neowin has had the pleasure of talking to two prominent figures in the I.T. world. First, Ben Goodger, chief developer of the excellent browser Firefox, and secondly, Justin Frankel, creator of Winamp and many other products for Nullsoft. We've got Ben talking about Firefox, XUL, and the future at Mozilla; equally, Justin talks (humorously) about his past, Winamp, AOL, music, and what he's up to at the moment. Also, read on for some of his projects he thought about doing when he left Winamp, including setting up an interesting alternative to Windows 2000 based on Open Source software, similar to ReactOS."
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Neowin interviews Ben Goodger, Justin Frankel More

Neowin interviews Ben Goodger, Justin Frankel

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  • Keeping A Close Eye on Justin (Score:5, Informative)

    by lotsofno ( 733224 ) on Saturday May 29, 2004 @10:06AM (#9284699)
    Justin actually updates his weblog [1014.org] regularly. It's well worth checking out just to see what he's been up to lately.

    Winamp Unlimited [winampunlimited.com] also does a good job of tracking down any online activities with the Nullsoft staff, or any Winamp/NS-related projects that might be brewing.

  • Two people who have made an impact.... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Gopal.V ( 532678 ) on Saturday May 29, 2004 @10:09AM (#9284706) Homepage Journal
    As I listen to my CDs with Winamp and browse slashdot with FireFox 0.8 ... I've almost forgotten the people who made it possible... it's become second nature ... Thanks for reminding me :) Especially about the part about Justin Frankel using Vim... And maybe this was a first post ?... (but I did read the articles)

  • iPod Plugin (Score:5, Informative)

    by Will Fisher ( 731585 ) on Saturday May 29, 2004 @10:16AM (#9284728)
    "I have an iPod, and I must say I do love the iPod (btw, the iPod Winamp plugin rules, too -- I can't stand iTunes, either)."

    To find out more about this, go to mlipod.sf.net [sf.net]

    --will
    mlipod developer

    • Re:iPod Plugin (Score:4, Informative)

      by lotsofno ( 733224 ) on Saturday May 29, 2004 @10:23AM (#9284751)
      Winamp featured this iPod plug-in [sourceforge.net] not too long ago in this hilarious article: Have Winamp, Will Travel [winamp.com].

      This seriously is an awesome plug-in. It does pretty much everything I want it do with my iPod (file/playlist transfers, syncing, media management, etc..), except integrated with the media library in Winamp, which I much prefer over iTunes' interface. It even has a few features that other apps like ephpod doesn't have. The ads are great, too. [sourceforge.net]
      • I'd be happy if it converted various non-alphabetic characters (like Japanese) to the proper Unicode encodings, and could display said unicode in the media library.

        Handling my iPod is about the only thing winamp doesn't do with my music collection (well that and rip, which is done by EAC and LAME.)

        This plugin is nice, unless you speak/read/understand non-european languages.
        • I'm afraid thats a limitation imposed on us by winamp.

          • Re:iPod Plugin (Score:2, Interesting)

            by Microlith ( 54737 )
            Ogg uses unicode tags and those display fine (except in the media library.)

            So what's the difference between the reader in the playlist and main player, and the media library?

            Really it's quite sad, it'd be nice if winamp were... fixed.

  • NSIS is pretty sweet (Score:5, Informative)

    by harikiri ( 211017 ) on Saturday May 29, 2004 @10:29AM (#9284772)
    I haven't to-date investigated what other alternatives there are for windows-based installers, but these nullsoft guys have made one available [sourceforge.net] free.

    Definitely something useful for small developers who can't afford an installshield [installshield.com] license.

  • Holy shit... (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Way too hard to find the legitimate links among the useless other ones - that's what google's for - for those of us who actually want to read the articles.

    Took me three passes (quick, closer, pedantic mouseovering) to find the Firefox guy interview link.
    • It's really not that hard to tell which links to click. And I think the whole point of HTML is to link to other relevant pages, so that you don't have to look up everything.

      Way to call attention to your ADD.

  • Some useful background information... (Score:4, Informative)

    by Richard_L_James ( 714854 ) on Saturday May 29, 2004 @10:31AM (#9284780)
    ... about Justin [wikipedia.org] and Ben [bengoodger.com].

  • waitaminute (Score:4, Insightful)

    by davejenkins ( 99111 ) <slashdot@da[ ]enkins.com ['vej' in gap]> on Saturday May 29, 2004 @10:50AM (#9284829) Homepage
    ...make a well funded ($400M or more) startup that would develop something like ReactOS-- specifically, a win2k compatible (driver, application, UI, filesystem, everything) OS. You could base it on a lot of open source code, but make a commercial product....And do it all in 2 or 3 years.

    Riiiight. Commercial product off of OSS.
    Well, Red Hat has been trying that for 8 years now, and, while succesful, the desktop still gives them the willies. At that, RH is the only realy company to make OSS fly, and even that required "subscription" licence voodoo dealing with the GPL.

    Don't get me wrong-- I loved WinAmp back in the day. But making a W2K replacement just for the sake of it will never work financially-- what OEM would preload that? Which IHV would really REALLY risk pissing off MS just to save the few bucks they pay in royalties to MS?

    • Re:waitaminute (Score:4, Insightful)

      by harikiri ( 211017 ) on Saturday May 29, 2004 @11:05AM (#9284871)
      Riiiight. Commercial product off of OSS.

      May I direct you to a few companies/products that seem to be doing well in this regard:

      I'm sure other slashdot readers can provide further examples. The trick with GPL-based OSS and generating revenue, is to provide value-add (which may be through commercial closed-source tools). Alternatively, the tried and true position is through services, which IBM [ibm.com] and HP [hp.com] seem to have figured out.

      • Apple's MacOS X is not open source. Also, MySQL makes money off their commerical license which is non-GPL. A better example of a profitable GPL'd Open Source product would be Red Hat Linux.

        • Re:waitaminute (Score:3, Interesting)

          by killjoe ( 766577 )
          Mac OS X is based on open source. Open source saved them years of development time which is just what the parent poster was talking about.

          MySQL is able to sell commercial licenses because their product was GPLed which lead to it's widespread adoption.

          Red Hat makes most of their money off of support.

          I would also add to the list of the parent poster Novell. They in the end might end up making the most money off of open source (second most if you include IBM).
      • Except Qt was not an open source project turned commercial, it was a commercial project that they decided to give away under the GPL for those who want it. I'll admit that I don't know for sure (not exactly checking up on Trolltech's finances), but I would suspect that most of their revenue comes from licensing the code to people who want to write non-GPL Qt code (similiarly to MySQL in that respect).

        IPSO is based off Linux now, BTW.

    • Re:waitaminute (Score:4, Insightful)

      by CdBee ( 742846 ) on Saturday May 29, 2004 @12:33PM (#9285228)
      If it was anyone else but Justin Frankel, I'd agree with you. What can I say - he makes things happen.
      • My Grendel cluster will beat your Beowulf cluster.

        Let me just say: as someone who has taken 16 credit hours in Old English literature, this is a hilarious sig. Though to be honest, the Beowulf cluster would beat both the Grendel cluster and the mother of all Grendel clusters...and then lose to the Dragon cluster, which I believe uses G5s.
    • making a W2K replacement just for the sake of it will never work financially-- what OEM would preload that? Which IHV would really REALLY risk pissing off MS just to save the few bucks they pay in royalties to MS?

      Ultimately, I think the quality of the win2k clone would either make or break it. If it really rocked, and was completely solid with room to improve in ways that MS doesn't care about, it could be very interesting. Also, it wouldn't have to be completely OSS, it could be even completely propri
    • Don't get me wrong-- I loved WinAmp back in the day. But making a W2K replacement just for the sake of it will never work financially-- what OEM would preload that? Which IHV would really REALLY risk pissing off MS just to save the few bucks they pay in royalties to MS?

      Considering how behind-schedule Microsoft is on Longhorn, I am of the opinion that this is the direction that MS itself is going to go eventually.

      Here's the picture as I see it developing: MS decides that the current Win32 version of Long

      • And they fudged it. Xenix, my (wo?)man. I honesty think microsoft has invested too much time and money into their own API's to ditch the core of it now. And if they do take FreeBSD's code, i'm not sure how that would be a bad thing. FreeBSD will live on. Microsoft will (for a change) have a solid code base. If MS feeds patches back in, great. The FreeBSD coders won't submit crap code (forgoing any kind of "fuck you, open source bitches!" code). If MS sends nothing back, meh - big deal.

        One thing t

  • mp3 players (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mgkimsal2 ( 200677 ) on Saturday May 29, 2004 @11:15AM (#9284914) Homepage
    It really does amaze me that nobody else has produced an mp3 player whose UI is even in the same league of decent as the iPod's -- don't get me wrong, the iPod's UI is nowhere near perfect and pisses me off now and then too --but everything else I've seen is just an order of magnitude worse. What gives?
    It's NOT THAT HARD PEOPLE.

    Two obvious points:

    1. Anyone doing anything similar to Apple is charged with 'ripping them off'.
    2. Anyone doing something *different* from Apple is making it 'too complex'.

    IT IS HARD, PEOPLE, to replicate something which people love on an emotional level, differentiate yourself enough so as to not be seen as just a knock-off, and yet have it be close enough to the original to be seen as 'good'.

    Frankly, most iPod people will *never* use anything else because, like pretty much all Apple-buying people, they've paid top dollar and will never think anything less expensive has any merit.

    I do not think the ipod interface is all that hot. Let me take that back - the *wheel* thing isn't. The visual interface is OK (not much you can do there) but I don't like the wheel. Tried both a regular and a 'mini' - can't use either of them very well.

    I'm speaking from the standpoint of a new neuros owner, so yes I'm biased, but so are pretty much all pro-iPod zealots (either reviewers who got theirs free or the early-adopter raving "Apple can do no wrong" crowd).

    WOW - one more thing I just noticed - an iPod owner criticizing Apple! He even says the interface 'pisses him off' now and then! What's wrong in paradise? Why doesn't he design a 'better' one if is so damn easy? He says himself IT'S NOT THAT HARD.

    • Re:mp3 players (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Will Fisher ( 731585 ) on Saturday May 29, 2004 @11:51AM (#9285070)
      so after justin frankel has already:
      Made media playback rock with winamp
      Made streaming media rock with shoutcast and NSV
      Revolutionised peer2peer software (gnutella)
      Made WASTE ('nuff said)
      Made an installer system that doesn't suck (nsis)
      and other smaller projects (jnetlib, safesex, mlipod, plush, etc etc)

      You want him to make a portable player?

      He's not superman, dude.
      • Hey - he's the one saying 'IT'S NOT THAT HARD'. Granted, some of those projects have had a big impact on a lot of people. So have the myriad of companies who've developed various MP3 players. He was hoping to raise $400M to develop a win2k clone. If he *really* believes it 'easy' to develop a better mp3 player (one that doesn't 'piss him off' like he says his iPod does) then why not do it? There's more money to be made in an mp3 player than an open source win2k desktop clone (which surely the investors

    • Re:mp3 players (Score:3, Insightful)

      by ajayvb ( 657479 )
      I think Justin Frankel, more than anyone else has earned the right to say this.

      I've been using WinAmp for what, almost 6 years now, and the UI rocks. It is simple, uncluttered, and instinctive. I don't think iTunes or any others out there are half as good when it comes to organizing and playing music (my opinion, of course). The thing that iTunes is really good at is, you guessed it, when you want to buy stuff from their music store.

      Now, if I (who couldn't do a UI for nuts)were to say that...it'd be a dif
      • BUT this is someone who generally *does* write/build things themselves, and furthermore probably has more than enough ability to do it. Rather than complaining that no one else is doing it 'good enough' (although god knows there are dozens trying), if he really believes IT IS NOT THAT HARD, then demonstrate.

        I believe he probably would come to a different conclusiong.

        It's probably NOT THAT HARD to build something *HE* would use, but IT IS THAT HARD to build a physical device to be sold at the consumer lev
    • Gees what a wired post,

      First you accurse every ipod owner of becoming subjective or worse: narrow minded. Then you are suprised that the person you are quoting from is not.

      Ipod has a good interface and does what it does well but in 2 years it will look just as odd as a rio64 looks now or *gasp* a walkman.

    • Re:mp3 players (Score:4, Insightful)

      by jsebrech ( 525647 ) on Saturday May 29, 2004 @12:53PM (#9285313)
      Frankly, most iPod people will *never* use anything else because, like pretty much all Apple-buying people, they've paid top dollar and will never think anything less expensive has any merit.

      I do not think the ipod interface is all that hot. Let me take that back - the *wheel* thing isn't. The visual interface is OK (not much you can do there) but I don't like the wheel. Tried both a regular and a 'mini' - can't use either of them very well.

      Just because the wheel doesn't work for you is no reason to assume it obviously must not work for anyone and that all the people buying ipod's are elitist fashion whores.

      And, yes, I do own an ipod. I like the wheel. I personally think the ipod is a superior mp3 player to anything out there. But you won't see me going around saying all neuros owners are contrarian low-budget poor-taste schmucks, because I know that isn't true and there are good reasons why someone might prefer a neuros over an ipod.

      WOW - one more thing I just noticed - an iPod owner criticizing Apple!

      Apparently you've never read the apple ipod support boards.
      • Just because the wheel doesn't work for you is no reason to assume it obviously must not work for anyone and that all the people buying ipod's are elitist fashion whores.

        Read the post again. Nowhere do I say that it obviously doesn't work for anyone. On the contrary - it's selling, and must work for some people.

        However, read comments (or listen to comments) by iPod owners about other players. Invariably, they will end-up bashing the other player, on 'ease of use' or 'intuitiveness' or something else.
    • "IT IS HARD, PEOPLE, to replicate something which people love on an emotional level, differentiate yourself enough so as to not be seen as just a knock-off, and yet have it be close enough to the original to be seen as 'good'."

      But you're missing the point. A decent UI should be somewhat usable (in control and speed) and somewhat powerful. Many portable devices these days are neither. Getting a decently fast, decently usable UI that is decently powerful is EASY. If you spend any time on it, anyway. Trying
    • I don't know if you've used the Rio Karma before, but it has a fairly intuitive UI. All the navigating is pretty much down with it's sexy little red nipple. It's actually kind of a turn on to use. It's all one-finger navigation, hierarchical menus with the most used menus at the top (it's not per-use based and dynamic, they're statically placed, but the placement seems pretty intelligent). I even broke the little scrolly wheel dealie on the side, and it still is completely usable just with that one nipp
  • Neowin has had the pleasure of talking to two prominent figures in the I.T. world. First, Ben Goodger, chief developer of the excellent browser Firefox, and secondly, Justin Frankel, creator of Winamp and many other products for Nullsoft.

    Aside from occasionally coming up with some cute, trendy toy to piss off AOL, could someone explain how exactly Justin Frankel is "prominent" in the "IT world"?

    • Aside from occasionally coming up with some cute, trendy toy to piss off AOL, could someone explain how exactly Justin Frankel is "prominent" in the "IT world"?

      Anyone who went to university in the last 5 years has probably had WinAmp on their computer for at least 50% of that time. And a lot of them 100%.

      Not to mention that Gnutella was the first non-centralized P2P protocol, and although it didn't work out all that well in the end, it provided a starting point for research in the real world.

      And WASTE i
    • I too find the use of "prominent" unsuitable in this context. Ben Goodger and a handful friends merely nicked the work of hundreds of Mozilla developers and testers. "We're standing on the shoulders of a Giant" Goodger wrote - with his head in the sky and an unusually clouded vision. Firefox code isn't optimized like he claims. All optimization has till now happened in the Seamonkey code first. Firefox' contribution to "new" is mostly hype, headlines and funny name changes. Oh.. and new graphics! They are n
  • I can't wait until they have a well documented standalone XUL runtime. I would love to have more info on using XUL as a cross-platform GUI toolkit.

    Also, does XUL have any vector capabilities? Or does this solely depend on the underlying graphics system's support?
  • I wonder what he meant that it is all downhill from MS WXP...

    Does he mean he thinks MS 'quality' has gone down -- never touched MS WXP, but I know some usually quite reliable people who vouch MS WXP is less stable than MS W2K on white boxen -- and he expects for some reason -- which? -- to get even worse?

    Or is it about DRM, Treacherous Computing and the such?
    • XP is 2000, only with an optional new UI. Anyone who likes 2000 and hates XP is talking about the UI and hasn't realized you can turn it off, or they don't know what they're talking about at all.

  • Compared to say the straight-forward CDPlayer.app for NeXTSTEP I always thought WinAmp was crap, but compared to Microsoft was 24K crap.

    Interviewing a person who programs the application that competes with another application to give objective, indifferent,non-emotionally tied observations is like asking Steve Jobs to compare NeXT to Apple.

    If you can't guess already, all the sleekness and class of computer styling went into NeXT, unfortunately at a time when people couldn't appreciate its grace.

    No

  • Before you all continue talking about how winamp is great and all, I think you should know that the history is not so nice. Especially when Justin Frankel says "In 1997 I ported AMP (a free mp3 decoder at the time)". AMP code was free for non-commercial use, but...

    Check out this [findarticles.com] and this [internetnews.com] and this [com.com].

    What Frankel "forgot" to mention is that Nullsoft made money without even mentioning that they used AMP code, and only after they got sued, Nullsoft "admitted" that they used "a bit of AMP code" which just so

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