Alittle bit late on this, as it happened June 2, '03.. but it's still terrible news.
Here's an exerpt from his personal Blog.
June 2 2003 @ 10:03pm
For me, coding is a form of self-expression.
It's probably the form I'm most effective at.
Everything I code is arguably owned by the company.
The company controls what I do with my code [in the past, it seemed I had
freedom, but it turns out all of that was not really the case--rather, I
was somehow avoiding the control illicitly (for 4 years)]
The company controls the most effective means of self-expression I have.
This is unacceptable to me as an individual, therefore I must leav.
I don't know when it will be, but I'm not going to last much longer.
I have nothing but respect for the company--I've just come to realize that
it is time to do something different.
Their's another article on Slashdot referring to why Justin might have left ..
AOL Pulls Nullsoft's WASTE
America Online, parent company of Nullsoft, has pulled what it views as a controversial project called WASTE from Nullsoft's servers. This is not the only time it has stepped in to Nullsoft's doings. It had quickly taken down Gnutella, developed by Nullsoft co-founder Justin Frankel, and shut down an MP3 search engine. CNET's News.com has more details." For those not keeping track, WASTE was only recently released.
The last 'Recently Released' link... is quoted below.
"Nullsoft, makers of the venerable Winamp MP3 player, released today a secure, distributed mesh-like networking protocal and platform called Waste. This v1.0 beta release uses RSA (key based) and Blowfish encryption for security, and features Instant Messanging and group chat, along with file browsing, searching, and transfer. Waste has been released under the GPL, with source and binaries available here."
An unauthorized copy of Nullsoft's copyrighted software was briefly posted on this website on or about Wednesday May 28, 2003. The software was identified as "WASTE" (the "Software") and includes the files "waste-setup.exe", "waste-source.zip", "waste-source.tar.gz" and any additional files contained in these files.
Nullsoft is the exclusive owner of all right, title and interest in the Software. The posting of the Software on this website was not authorized by Nullsoft.
If you downloaded or otherwise obtained a copy of the Software, you acquired no lawful rights to the Software and must destroy any and all copies of the Software, including by deleting it from your computer. Any license that you may believe you acquired with the Software is void, revoked and terminated.
Any reproduction, distribution, display or other use of the Software by you is unauthorized and an infringement of Nullsoft's copyright in the Software as well as a potential violation of other laws.
I remember reading something about that back win it happen. I forgot where and I had to run so i could not post it here. But I think he left because AOL limited Winamp so much
Heh...I got waste! Its pretty cool. Add your friends to your name and their friends get added to your list. Its also extremely stable (thus far). I use it to transfer songs and such.
-Matt
Timelessblur wrote:I only know 4 langueges. Engish, Band Engish, Really bad Engish and Timelessblurain
Or... He could do a 100% rewrite of "winamp" and name it something diffrent... Maybe even get his friends to quit their jobs at AOL. It could work out just like Palm/Handspring... Except for the entire remarriage part.
Most likely AOL made him sign a NCA (Non-Compete Agreement). Most of those last for about 12 months after you sever your ties with the company. Some are more strict than that
... All the more time to write it... I don't think he could do a full rewrite with out any existing code of such a great product in that amount of time.
Most likely he possess the entire source code at home. Most developers have copies of their code in some sort of digital portfolio just like an artist has a portfolio of their art.
