Winamp deletes entire GitHub source code repo after a rocky few weeks

We've lost a lot with the deletion of this repo. Not the code - that's already out in the ether - but the absurdist comedy of the issues, pull requests, and commit history of trying to piecemeal delete third party non-FOSS software.

The other thing we lost is that future companies will think again before making their code public. It's already such an incredibly rare thing in the wild, but now companies and their lawyers will see that Winamp was exposed to potentially lawsuitable behavior that wouldn't have come to light had they never opened the code.

All of this happened because the company didn't want to open source the code, they wanted to openwash it and get free labor from the open source community. If another company wants to do the same and they decide not to because of this, nothing of value is lost.

> they wanted to openwash it and get free labor from the open source community.

This is such a ridiculous accusation. Why do discussions about source-available models often turn into accusations of soliciting free labor? Why can't authors just provide access to source code, but reserve some or all of the distribution rights? It's their code, after all. Nobody is forcing 'the open source community' to contribute under the terms set forth; anybody who does contribute does so under their own free will, under the terms set forth by the license.

It doesn't always have to be a binary choice between open source and closed source, nor does it justify further accusations of "openwashing."

What is the point of 'open source' where you're not even allowed to fork the damn repo?

In case of security sensitive software, you could verify the security claims.

Look at Apple, they claim E2EE, but don't even allow to verify that defeating the purpose of E2EE entirely (lack of need to trust the provider)

You can do that with source-available software too, I'm not sure where you think open source comes in?