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

Someone found a prehistoric hand axe on their property. They realize it must have been one of the nicest hand axes of its time. They decide to donate it to a museum, so everyone can appreciate that marvel of human civilization.

Being an extraordinarily nice axe, its original creator must surely have taken proper care of it and kept it clean, but over the years it clearly accumulated some dirt and a few modifications. Not wanting to damage an important historic artifact, the finder decides to leave the patina alone and donates the axe as found.

The museum requires the donor to add an exhibit label. Unfortunately, the finder being Belgian and speaking only French, there is a severe misunderstanding about the purpose of the axe.

On the day the exhibit is first shown to the public, hell breaks loose. People threaten to sue because the dirty prehistoric axe is against all regulations that apply to contemporary axes. Some attempts are made to remove the dirt, but only in a way that preserves the dirt, which enrages the other camp even more.

Ultimately, the exhibit is withdrawn from the museum, but luckily many had a chance to make copies and 3D copies that they keep safely in their private collections.

Isn't it more apt to say that the people who donated the axe to the museum were the same people who originally made it, and that the axe was illegal when it was made as well as today?

I may totally have missed details here, I haven't paid attention much, so please do correct me if I'm wrong

This is a good question and I have to admit that I have not thoroughly researched it. My understanding is that the original creators (Justin Frankel and Dmitry Boldyrev, later Nullsoft) the people who spoiled it (AOL) and the finder (Radionomy = Llama Group) are separate entities.

Most of the blame should be with the people who spoiled it, and while it doesn't excuse their deeds they are unsurprising from a historical context.

The current owners of Winamp share some blame too, but I see it more in the neglect of due diligence when they acquired Winamp and less in the release of the source. Arguably I see more incompetence (which, of course, is no defense against punishment) than malice in the later.

Finally, that the original authors kept the Winamp source clean is a reasonable and likely assumption, but as far as I know there is no 100% way to be sure.

> and I have to admit that I have not thoroughly researched it

So basically anything you say is speculation?

Im going to add my own unfounded speculation by claiming that the original winamp source did actually contain licence violations which is why the project was never re-released after being acquired by AOL.

Only after buying the project did AOL realise that the code wasn't usable as-is, so it needed further investment to rewrite and replace all the violations, and since at that point the value of local media-players was quickly diminishing they just let it be.