I don't really understand why people complained.
The source is open, if don't want to contribute, don't. Just because something doesn't fit a specific definition it doesn't mean it's not worth of existence.
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The source is open, if don't want to contribute, don't. Just because something doesn't fit a specific definition it doesn't mean it's not worth of existence.
It's one thing to provide a source available codebase. That's a choice, and it's fine for various definitions of fine. What they did was legally put themselves in hot water with the inclusion of proprietary dependencies, misrepresent what their intentions were, and likely irrevocably damage their reputation to a small, but vocal minority, who likely have a sizeable overlap with folks that know what Winamp is/was.
It's okay if none of that matters to you, or if it doesn't resonate with you, but the things that were done were comically awful in terms of sharing a codebase.
>They ended up looking bad and exposing themselves to legal trouble, but I'm not sure this was awful
For a company, I can't think of anything less awful than purposefully choosing to expose oneself to legal trouble. I'd say that qualifies as "comically awful".
>they might even have known exactly what they were doing.
In what way? Are they going bankrupt (so nothing to sue for) and just want to send out readable source on the way out, without enough care to strip out copyright and list dependencies? That's certainly a hail Mary, but I think that move does more damage to the community than goodwill.