Winamp was a media player for Windows, built in 1997 by Justin Frankel and Dmitry Boldyrev at Nullsoft, that rode the wave of MP3 file sharing straight into our hearts. With its plug-ins, skins, music visualization, and playlists, it became one of the most downloaded Windows applications — 25 million registered users by 2000, and 60 million by 2001. For a generation, it wasn't just software; it was the soundtrack's front door. You could dress it up however you liked, watch the visualizer dance to your mix, and feel like your computer belonged to you.
The trouble started after Nullsoft sold to AOL for $80 million in 1999. A poorly received rewrite, Winamp3, arrived in 2002 and was patched over by Winamp 5 in 2003, but the magic had dimmed. The last AOL-developed version, pointedly numbered 5.666, shipped in 2013, and after that the lights went out on the player that whupped the llama's behind. What was lost wasn't just an app — it was a whole culture of skins, plug-ins, and a community that made listening to music feel like a hobby instead of a background hum.
We ask that Winamp be brought back — even a limited run, even a modest, respectful revival under the Winamp Group's stewardship. The community that made it great never really disbanded; it just stopped having anywhere to gather. The signatures below belong to people who downloaded, skinned, and loved this player, and every name here is proof that the demand didn't disappear with the software. Really whips the llama's behind, and always will.
— filed by the fans of Winamp, at products.rip
Read the full story and sources on the memorial page.