AOL Open Sourcing Audio & Video Technology

daria24 writes "BetaNews says that AOL is open sourcing Winamp AVS and Milkdrop, two popular Winamp plug-ins, and its Ultravox streaming media platform (the successor to Shoutcast). 'Despite helping to launch the Mozilla Foundation and releasing the code to its AOL Server software, America Online has never been synonymous with open source. But a number of new initiatives could change AOL's proprietary image, as the company strives to reach a broader audience on the open Web.' The next-generation AIM release will also be an open platform, which AOL says 'could rival even Mozilla due to its scale and the massive AIM user base.'"

Props to them

[m50d]

Anyone know how portable the code is? Any chance we could see milkdrop for xmms (yes I know there are clones around, none of them are as good as the original).

AOL does contribute to open source software

[fitsy]

AOL does contribute to useful open source software. AOL developers contribute to SQLite [sqlite.org] and have helped produce numerous useful additions to SQLite.

Quote: The primary purpose for version 3.2.0 is to add support for ALTER TABLE ADD COLUMN. The new ADD COLUMN capability is made possible by AOL developers supporting and embracing great open-source software. Thanks, AOL!

Re:Does it really matter?

[Synbiosis]

"It could rival in pure numbers, but I'd bet that MOST AOL users don't really understand or care what open source is. Most people who do stay clear of AOL to begin with."

AIM has an obscenely diverse user base. It's available on all platforms, and virtually everyone (except for Jabber guys who refuse to friend anyone not on Jabber) uses it.

Granted, there will be some people who don't care about open source, but there's definitely quite a few people who would be willing to switch to something less RAM hungry and ad-free for their IMing needs.

As for currently existing open source projects, there's Gaim & Miranda. Gaim is deent, but it's a ram hog and uses GTK, which is the bane of anyone running 1024x768 or less. Miranda IM is the exact opposite, but it's missing key features like *working file transfers*.

recompilation/proting of Winamp code

[bogaboga]

My wish is for an experienced hacker to port Winamp to Linux the moment the code is open sourced. Will this happen? I do not see any Linux native application that can stand in place of Winamp.

I know we have the likes of AmaroK, XMMS...but none of these does any video!

Open source abandonware?

[Animats]

This sounds more like open sourcing of abandonware at its end of life. After all, that's what they did with Netscape.

Does this mean Freeamp can start using its own name again? AOL made them change their name to Zinf [zinf.org] or something like that, and they were never heard from again. Especially since one of those directory spammers took over their "freeamp" domains, and AOL did nothing about that.

if AOL really wants to live, they need to head ...

[WindBourne]

to OSS. But even more than offering OSS, they would be wise to do a Linux connection, even possibly a Linux disc. One idea would be to work with major distros geared towards the desktop such as Novell, Mandrake, and Linspire.

Re:Leaks from other topics?

[Anonymous Coward]

I haven't been reading /. too heavily these last few days, but before that I had started noticing that -- totally unrelated replies, that seemed to belong to other topics. I believe they are always from ACs, so that leads me to believe it's someone's script trying to create havoc in /. (if it weren't for the AC factor, I could see it as being a server error and the replies were being sent to the wrong article).

tmegapscm

Re:Props to them

[m50d]

It's been around for a while, so it's probably not depending on new directx, so even if it is directx perhaps it could be compiled against winelib? I'm more concerned about the code assuming everything is windows (\ for directory separator, etc)

Re:Pixie-dust projects

[hey!]

quote the linked blog

Pixie-dust projects. Here I put big, commercial projects that were morphed in an open source variation, as in an attempt to sprinkle the open source pixie dust to help them to remain competitive. Examples: Netscape....

Not like anything could come of that kind of airy fairy pixie dust project, eh?

Taking this guy seriously, it's not hard to see that all of the classes of projects he describes do indeed exist. However, if you go the other way, from the important projects to the classifications, you see that none of them really fit any of his classifications.

Where would you put Apache HTTP server? Tomcat? Perl? Wine?

Or for that matter Linux. Sure, you can probably find some organizations that are supporting Linux so they can poke a competitor in the eye, but characterizing corporate support for Linux that way is simplistic.

Some organizations are simply scratching their itches, like that Nasa guy who wrote all those ethernet drivers.

Others just need Linux to exist to make their business viable. I think Red Hat doesn't really set itself up to compete with Microsoft, which is the classic land-war-in-Asia mistake. They'd be foolish to aim to "spoil things" for Microsoft; that's just a possible side effect. It's more like they're trying to create a business model that allows them to make money around Microsoft.

Another reason I see for supporting Linux that doesn't fit into this scheme is strategy. Microsoft is not an important competitor to IBM in any sphere, now that OS/2 is a dead business. Big Blue needs Linux to make sure it stays that way. Without Linux, IBM would have to compete with Microsoft in its business areas but allow Microsoft control over the underlying technology. You could say that is "disruptive", except that is more aimed at maintaining the status quo from IBM's perspective.

Re:Leaks from other topics?

[SirTalon42]

This happened a week or so ago with a massive amount of posts, then slashdot required ACs and low karma users to put in an authentication code for every post and they stopped for a while, I don't know if the authentication codes are still required or not (never had to use them), but I just started seeing them around yesterday again.

Re:You BASTARDS!

[darkain]

AOL layed off most of the Nullsoft team, and the ones that didnt, quit. Why is AOL opening all of their software now? So they can get development for free. A few of the developers actually asked to open-source various of the Nullsoft products under the condition that they would continue to work on the projects out-of-pocket. So, is this a good thing, or a bad thing? I really cant say, because it does pain me to live in IRC with these guys for the past several years and to hear all about the internal workings of the company. As for the AOL side of things tho? I dont really know anything about them. I just feel for the guys that used to work for Nullsoft that no longer have their jobs with them.