I will play for anything I use consistantly and find significant value in.
Give you an example.
I purchased DiskKeeper back in it's 4.0 verion, after using it in a 'cracked' state for a few months in the 3.0 version I saw the value and wtf I waited for 4.0 and bought it for a couple hundred bucks (server version, which it like barely different then std. version.)

Well it's only just now 3 years later and they are on version 6! Has the program changes all that much.. NO. Has the NTFS file system changed all that much requiring a ton of work.. NO, has microsoft's native API's changes all that much.. no (in fact now they are documented)..

So I ask you where the real value is for me to buy version 6? just to get it to work correctly with XP.. I think not. Back to the cracked version thank you.. I paid my 399$ 3 years ago.. I think I should be able to have the software work on a current OS. Want to charge me like 19.95-24.95$ for an update.. ok maybe that's fair.. But another 399$ F**k you execusoft.
BTW I am a developer.

Same goes for winamp.. A great product! I got verion 1.7xx and forked over my 10$.. well worth it and they were charging an appropiate fee and I too wanted to support further development. 2.x does every thing I need..actually it does 10x more then what I need.. would I pay another 10$ for it in a year or too.. yeah probaby.. but I'm not going to.. they said lifetime.. and they dam well better stick to it.

knapier says: Well it's only just now 3 years later and they are on version 6! Has the program changes all that much.. NO. Has the NTFS file system changed all that much requiring a ton of work.. NO, has microsoft's native API's changes all that much.. no (in fact now they are documented)..

Doesn't matter. The developers have still put in their time and effort to make tha changes.

knapier says: So I ask you where the real value is for me to buy version 6? just to get it to work correctly with XP.. I think not. Back to the cracked version thank you..

So you're a thief. Plain and simple.

knapier says: I paid my 399$ 3 years ago..

And you got the value that you paid for back then.

knapier says: I think I should be able to have the software work on a current OS.

Tough luck. That isn't what you paid for.

knapier says: Want to charge me like 19.95-24.95$ for an update.. ok maybe that's fair.. But another 399$ F**k you execusoft.

Sorry, you're just a criminal and a thief. Stop trying to justify it. It won't help. You decided that the developers who put their time and effort into writing that code don't deserve to be compensated for it, so you stole it. You're a thief and are below contempt.

knapier says: BTW I am a developer.

No. You're a thief.

You should be able to purchace an upgrade, instead of having to buy a whole new version just so it can work with a current operating system. Then the developers suger coat it, to justify it as a new release.

Doesn't matter.

Not liking their upgrade policy is not sufficent justification for theft.

Hw was never promised that the version he bought would work on any future operating systems. He was never promised reduced price upgrades.

These are all things that he should have checked on BEFORE he purchased the software if they were important to him.

He chose not to, and now is deperately trying to find some justification that makes him feel better about being a thief.

Why can't developers charge for their work?, if you go into the supermarket you have to pay for your groceries, you use electro, you have to pay for it.. if you want a car you have to buy it, bmw isn't handing out restricted versions fo their cars for free are they?

Why should software be free?, just because its that magical computer that comes into play?, purrlease give me a break.

Is Winamp freeware or shareware or what?

Winamp was once a shareware application, however, we feel that you, the users, shouldn't have to pay for something you like so much. We are happy to announce that Winamp is now freeware since version 2.50. (Thanks Uncle Steve)

(from http://winamp.com/downlo...l&prevlayout=normal)

I guess they are trying to say we won't like the new version becasue we will have to pay for it???

Alot of the people on the internet today don't realize what made the internet what it was and is now.

In the beginning days of the internet, the ony charge you could expect beyond your basic computer's cost is the charge for access to the internet. No charges for content, players, music, videos, etc. There were NO charges.

The internet's popularity expanded at an astounding rate over the years mostly because of the free content and items you can get from the web. Heck, everything was free and that is what attracted people.

Somewhere about mid way the corporate world took a look at the internet and said, "Hey, we could make millions off of this!". So, they came into the picture and bought up one site and program after another. Then, they started charging fees for access to content, music and videos. They eliminated free internet access. Instant messengers, FTP, media players - all now cost because the consumer allowed it to happen.

Now, consider this - there are very few, if any, pieces of software that are completely bug free. Most release patches and fixes every few months. I can't think of one single program out there that has no bugs. Simply put, it's working but defective software.

Would you buy a car that almost ran right, but had some 'problems that they're working on?". Would you buy a house that "may or may not work with all families" or contains "unknown rodents and pests"?

If software companies want to sell product - it should only be sold for cash if the code is absolutely perfect, has no bugs and will not require a fix three months down the road. These items should be fully tested before their release. Anyone selling software with bugs in it should be forced to issue a recall and refund their money.

Simply put, if this was a fair world - this is the way things would be. If you sell something - it better be right the first time. If it's not, then they should not be able to charge for it. Any consumer who purchases software with bugs only helps the corporations take over what's left of the internet - and trust me, at the rate they are destroying it there isn't much left to go around.

And, of course the best point I can make is this - the most popular piece of software likely in the world is Internet Explorer 5.0, 6.0. This software took years and years to write and perfect. It is given away free. Look at it's popularity. If the entire browser can be given away free, then a simple media player like Winamp should be too.

So you really really think cars are 100% bug (or problem) free? What type of car do you have? Can't be of this world. I doubt most products in other product cathegories are better than software. I don't know many products I am totally satisfied and believe that its best quality, be it software, be it hardware, be it some other device (car, television, ...), be it food, be it anything...

And: A lot of people who are complaining about non-free software in the internet always forget that programmers need to live as well. It seems that they are willed to pay for everything, like hardware, food, (cars in your case) and everything, but for software programmers they are not worth to get any money for their job they do. Do you live from air or something?? If not, I would suggest you give all your money you ever gained for doing work back to where you got it. If you never earned any money, ask your parents to give back their money. If software developers are not worth to get money, why should you!?

Your arguments makes no sense. The reason everything was free when the Internet was in its infancy is that it took a long time for the user base to grow to a point where it became a profitable medium.

The "everything for free" scenario was a totally unsustainable state of affairs. Even the dullest proponent of a Utopian society should realize that. Things cost money. Servers cost money to set up and maintain. Network time costs money. Securing all these things costs money. And who should pay? Volunteers? "Somebody else"? No, YOU, the user, should pay.

The car and house analogies were totally senseless as well. As a matter of fact, there is no car that is perfect. None of them are totally free from design flaws or shortcomings--NONE of them. And houses? Of course not every house is "compatible" with every family! Or would you see fit to put a family of eight in a two-bedroom colonial? Senseless. Better luck next time.

Internet Explorer is free because making it so helped make it possible for Microsoft to trounce Netscape. That's all. It's not because "software should be free", or because Microsoft is a kind-hearted organization, and it's not because you have some bizarre, god-given "right" to free stuff.

And by the way, you can stuff your assertion that software should be free. People deserve to get paid for what they produce, and that includes programmers. Obviously there is nothing wrong with an author deciding to give away the fruits of his labors for free, but there is also nothing wrong with him deciding to charge for it.

Instead of whining because evil, life-sucking corporations want you to pay for what you get, think about what you're saying: Even though Winamp in its current state will REMAIN free, you're complaining that advanced features--which don't presently exist in the product--won't be ADDED for free and shoved on a plate in front of you.

I get really sick of people who whine that they have to pay for technology. They are never very good at explaining their positions; they just don't like coughing up their own money. And why? Because money isn't easy to come by for most of us. You have to work for it, and that means investing time and effort. Kind of like... Uhh... WHAT THE PEOPLE WHO PROVIDE THE TECHNOLOGY IN THE FIRST PLACE HAVE TO DO!

I'm not really a betting man, but I'm willing to take a bet that you're not a programmer.

You say that programs shouldn't be shiped untill the code is absolutly perfect? Any programer knows this isn't possible--at all. Have you any idea of the amount of configurations that exist out there? The PC isn't a closed system like a gaming counsel, every system is a bit different. There is no possible way that you can test a program on every one.

I say perfection doesn't exist. There are always ways to do somthing a little faster, a little more efficient. There is always some unimportant detail that pops up. For this reason, it is better that software is updated--and updated often.

I don't remember ever having to pull to the side of the road, shut my car off, and start it back up again because the idle control stopped working. Sure, cars have flaws.. The government regulates these flaws, they call them "recalls". I think software should also be regulated this way. If a design flaw causes an application to spew out credit card numbers, the government should force a recall just like it does when that little piece falls off of that fisher price toy. When was the last time a car had a life threatening problem and it was just shrugged off? Honestly, the software industry is a joke, as there is absolutely no accountability.

Well stated. Excellent post!

Has anyone died using software? People die every few minutes in a car. There is accountability to the point that if your software spews out credit cards, you can be sued to high heaven.

But now you want the government to regulate all types of software? You want Linux kernels to first go through a government "check-in" before being approved? Yeah, then we'll see Kernel 2.6 in what, 2015? To be honest it's a little strange to hear that coming from your mouth fewt.

I suppose I should say standards instead of regulation, the same sort of standards that automobiles are required to support.

wasnt the ford (explorer?) tyre problem "shugged off" for a long time?

Does that really matter?

nope! :) but it does answer your "When was the last time a car had a life threatening problem and it was just shrugged off?" question.

It wasn't shrugged off for long.

> In the beginning days of the internet, the ony charge
>you could expect beyond your basic computer's cost is
>the charge for access to the internet. No charges for
>content, players, music, videos, etc.

>There were NO charges.

Wow, obviously spoken by someone who has had internet access for only a few years and knows absolutely NOTHING about what the Internet was like in the early days.

Of course that's pretty obvious when he refers to "...players, music, videos..." in his description of the "beginning days of the internet". Hate to tell ya this megarock, but music, videos, and media players are a fairly recent addition to the Internet scene.

In the early days there was NO free ride. Windows users couldn't even make a TCP/IP connection without additional software to add a TCP/IP stack to Windows. Software that COST MONEY. Early web browsers COST MONEY. FTP and Telnet programs for Windows and Mac COST MONEY.

Un*x users, mostly at universities (remember, this was before Linux even existed) were primarily using software that didn't cost them anything, but that had no effect on home users since there was no such thing as a free Un*x OS for the PC. (The Un*x options for PC's were actually VERY expensive. I'll bet fewt remembers some of the same ones)

I won't even get into your ridiculous arguments regarding software development (which you also obviously know nothing about)

Of course that's pretty obvious when he refers to "...players, music, videos..." in his description of the "beginning days of the internet". Hate to tell ya this megarock, but music, videos, and media players are a fairly recent addition to the Internet scene.

In the early days there was NO free ride. Windows users couldn't even make a TCP/IP connection without additional software to add a TCP/IP stack to Windows. Software that COST MONEY. Early web browsers COST MONEY. FTP and Telnet programs for Windows and Mac COST MONEY.

Un*x users, mostly at universities (remember, this was before Linux even existed) were primarily using software that didn't cost them anything, but that had no effect on home users since there was no such thing as a free Un*x OS for the PC. (The Un*x options for PC's were actually VERY expensive. I'll bet fewt remembers some of the same ones)

I won't even get into your ridiculous arguments regarding software devlopment (which you also obviously know nothing about)

This story is very inaccurate. Though it has been discussed between the Nullsoft team members to make a pay version, the money made in that version would only be for the third party codecs. As is said in the article posted, this advanced version would contain features like CD burning and ripping, DVD playing, even more compatible audio formats and the like. These kinds of features aren’t free. If they were to distribute a DVD playing plugin, they would have to pay royalties, and the same thing goes for many formats. The money collected would only be used to offset these costs.

I believe this article was written from some cryptic clues that were posted on the Winamp Forums by Steve. Obviously, wherever they did get their info, they need to read a little harder.

-Justin Gruenberg (Ice)
Winamp Forums Moderator

I'll pay for something if its much better than the free stuff. Look at 3D software. Blender is free and pretty good. But Lightwave is so much better so I bought it. And lightwave was $1800 (at the time), so yeah, I'd pay $10 or $15 bucks for a really good media player if I needed it. However, quinnware's QCD works just fine for me. If I wanted to rip and burn and everything I'd probably spring for MusicMatch. And NaN the makers of Blender are now out of business. Obviously, the free business model isn't real effective.

I don't think they are going to get my money!

I will just stick to WinAMP 2.79...

I will stick to WinAmp 2.9x too.

Winamp 3 will be too bloated like ICQ is.
They should have in mind that I will NEVER use winamp for cd burning and watching videos. They must build a good Mp3 playerr like version 2.x is and nothing else.

Also Version 3 will use megatons of system memory.

Just upgrade the version 2 and make it better!!!!

Ummm, Winamp3 has already been in development for years. Winamp2 is just bug fixes and slight adjustments at this point, no real work is being done on it.

If you consider 10MB to be bloated, you need to visit www.pricewatch.com and pick up a 128MB stick of RAM for $3 dollars. Do that, and you will be able to run the software you WANT, not just the software with the least features that runs fast.

Just done a little test, Winamp 2.78 takes 7.3mb of ram playing a mp3 with the default settings/skin and just the main window open. I then opened play list equalizer, no change in memory.

Now Winamp 3 with the default settings/skin, just the main window open, and playing the same song takes just 3.7mb. Open a few of the extra windows like the equalizer/thinger and the memory goes up with all the windows open it was 13.3mb. that was using winamp3 wasabi #470.

So it looks like winamp 3 will load the blotware if you want it to. Test it for yourself. The nullsoft team have done a real nice job with the code for winamp3.

first of all as of 1 day after your post and several weeks before, 128mb is not $3. it's $19 +/-. and any memory that is on the frontpage of pricewatch is cheap crap anyways. good memory is always at least a 1/3 higher in price, more like double in some cases.

but that's not my point. when most people referee to software as bloatware, what they mean is "why the heck does this take up soo much memory just to do what it's doing?", as well a bunch of features that alot of people think are unnecessary. simply adding memory to your system doesn't make up for sloppy code. there are other resources that you make no mention of. it is entirely possible to get a powerful machine to the point where it won't open anymore programs FAR before all memory is consumed. so memory is NOT the only issue. whining about bloatware is a matter of principle. code is not efficient w/ alot of app's these days cause some coders think memory is not an issue (imo) and get lazy about efficiency in what they write. that's crap and no excuse.

As for this article, I would pay for ANY software that had some features that I think could make my life easier, how ever, I only use winamp for playing mp3's. the free version does that just fine (and I don't think v2.xx is bloatware).

as for version 3, it ads eye candy and some other things. as with all programs, this will take up more resources, so expect it. I have burning software that I use to burn and has far more features than winamp for that purpose. that goes for other software app's that go outside there original intent. now and then some one will add capabilities though that really do make it a better product. I think winamp should stick to audio, and maybe video, since the 2 are related. but leave the peripheral stuff to the plugins. that lets people have the base program, and only add the 'crap' that they want or need.

I too bought winamp way back when. that was way back when they were shareware and stated that in the purchase that it was like gamespy and came with lifetime updates . makes me wonder where we woul stand in that subject although if they needed money I guess I would be willing to pay again. Just a thought.

A few of us have paid for Winamp before, back when it was shareware. I'd buy it in the future, but only if it came on a CD that I could buy from my local PC store.

Maybe they should do that, I mean, I'm sure a few bands would become sponsors to have their music on the CD as samples.
AOL could even put the AOL internet access setup on there too ;)
Wouldn't we all love that.

The internet is so crowded with this type of crap now. It's ridiculous....
I don't see how any company can expect to make money on a product that has so many free alternatives available. Kinda like the porn website spammers that go into newsgroups like alt.binaries.multimedia.erotica and post little 20-second teasers and expect people to go pay for that crap when there's like a million gig's of free porn right there. I guess some people must be dumb (or rich) enough to pay though and that's what nullsoft is counting on.

Personally, I buy new hardware every few months when mine becomes outdated (as it inevitably will), and I pay my roadrunner cable bill every month. That's all I'm willing to spend.
Software like that new Divx 5.0 or (the king of all a$$hole companies) real player make me wanna vomit. Thank god for freeware authors and the warez scene.

I really don't care what nullsoft decides but if they do come out with a pay version, I'll no doubt be at astalavista finding 1 for free just to spite them.

In other words, I'll only buy software that I'll benefit from finacially, end of subject.

Do you benefit financially from your television or the DVDs you watched last week? Or do you just steal those from Circuit City? When you need new clothes do you just walk out with them when no one is looking, or just borrow a stranger's credit card?

And people wonder why our economy is in the toilet :)

What he's saying is 'why pay for a program when you can get the same functionality for free elsewhere'.

IMHO many producers of freeware and free-services are realizing that they've skiped one too many lessions in basic economics. To my knowledge there's no other industry who based their core business plans on giving away products for free. Today many producers are trying to add some kind of value to the exsisting products and thus charge a fee. The essential problem, however, is that users have been educated to believe these products are free and won't accept a sudden change of that, hence they'll migrate to other brands or keep the current free versions.

I have something in Winamp people use every day and I didn't get anything for it. I think I deserve it for free

I already paid for Trillian voluntarily (and will continue to donate each 6 months I use the software) to get development to keep on going. When/if Trillian is bought by a big company (I'd say MS in a year or two), I'll stop paying and start stealing it (if possible).

Same for Winamp. I will steal as much as I can from a company like AOL with no guilt. And even if they come up with some absurdly tough-to-crack protections (50,000 "code sprinkled" server-based checks), I'd still not pay and just stick to a value player, i.e. the freeware Winamp (v2.79 does absolutely everything I _need_, though it's nice to have software that does MORE than you need right now).

So you're going to steal and hurt the developers simply because they are owned by a large company. Just because AOL has been extremely successful, does not mean they owe you anything. Methinks you have been spending too much time in Cuba.

And if AOL fired Nullsoft and stopped offering Winamp for download because too many people felt the same way as you, what would you say? They deserved it because AOL has been too successful?

Everyone starts out small, 10 years ago AOL barely existed. Lets just hope you never make a lot of money in your future endeavors, since obviously that's a bad thing.

/me remembers QLink at five cents a minute on a 300 baud...

Yup, it came on the back of my GEOS 1.3 disk. The only time I was ever an AOL(QLINK) customer. That was a great service haha!

I take that back, RoadRunner is an AOL owned service..

I wouldn't mind paying for a new fee.

Anyone remember that Winamp used to be a pay to use program. Sure everyone and their mom were using keys to make the program for free but I actually bought the program. Hey I buy what I use daily and I praise the developers. Now I sure had mixed feelings when they released Winamp totally for free, but I got over it. Maybe those who paid for it in the past should get the new enhancement for free... but if not... I'll pay for it with the guarentee that the enhancements don't go free in another year ;-).

Winamp became completely free about 2 weeks after I registered it. Grr. :)

No way I'm paying again, I'll just wait 'till it goes free again!

Well I am a software developer, and I use free software. The company I work for makes a fortune outta my services. I am a corporate slave. If I leave the company, all my intellectual property related to their business belongs to them. I probably get paid somewhere in the region of 1/10th of what gets earned for the company. I cannot leave and use those clients afterwards.

What a boring sob story. Cut to the chase. Please dont waste your time with too much loyalty to large corporations. When someone does not pay for software - IMHO they are making a political statement (as well as stealing :)

IMHO if it were not for the fact that these corporates post massive profits to line the pockets of a few greedy investors (i.e. absent workers, or parasites) the product would be cheaper, and we would be paid more to buy the damn thing in the first place.

We would not be at this pathetic juncture in the first place.

I wouldn't mind paying a one time license fee for Winamp. If it has to come down to that... however I know back in the day it was very easy to crack, and if the new key is also very easy to crack then there is really no point in puttin it there in the first place.

Although im still happily collecting my versions of winamp. I have Every release version except for maybe 1 or 2 from .02a till now. :)

Most software is very easy to crack. However, some people realize that the right thing to do is pay for the software and do it anyways. If everyone were to use cracked software, companies would go out of business and there would be no software available at all. These people stealing software they use every day are just shooting themselves in the foot. Plus, we're talking about $20, not $400 - even college students can afford that.

"Cracking" the old Winamp was just about the lamest thing in the world for someone to do. The total sum of the features available only to registered users was the "Congratulations, you registered!" message in the about dialog.

Do you also print out fake charity donation receipts to show your friends how generous you are?

"If everyone were to use cracked software, companies would go out of business and there would be no software available at all."

Actually, only free software (GNU, etc.) would remain. Might be a good thing? :)

You're forgetting who funds most open source projects - people who sell software.

Unfortunately, there is no open source money tree as many like to think. I wish there was. Then good projects like Enlightenment, WordPerfect for Linux, etc. would still be advancing.

I never 'cracked' winamp. I purchased it. I am saying back then it was a very simple thing to do. However since you have a stick up your a** for some reason I never minded supporting nullsoft. They make several applications/scripts I use on a daily baisis.

Paying for something you use everyday, what a novle idea.. he he... :)

I remember waaaaaaaaaayy back, when Nullsoft was JUST nullsoft, not the new AOL/Nullsoft. And at that time, they actually asked people to register with them if you used winamp and actually liked it (Version 1.23 I believe). It was only $10 back then, so I did, and I would again, as long as it's resonable, and I don't have to "re-buy" the software for every update.

If they want me to pay for the "advanced" or "Full" version of Winamp, and it was like $10. I gladly would. It's a great program, I've been using it almost since Mp3's came out. My first Mp3 cd included a copy of Winamp so I wouldn't lose it. (That was version 1.55)

So if they decide to go with the pay for play, if needed, yes I would gladly purchase a licence for the player.

The problem with this idea is that winamp (even winamp3 already) has such an incredible following by plugin developers. There is already a cd burning plugin for winamp3 and it hasnt even got out of beta yet. There will without doubt be free versions of any extras nullsoft considers charging for.

Plus, if they charge for too many features, people may choose to just stick with winamp2.

The free version of Winamp3 already has more features than Winamp2, why would people stick with Winamp2? The pay-for features would be things Winamp does not have (CD burning - which will be removed from future installs I imagine, DVD playback, MP3 encoding, etc.).

People will stick with Winamp 2 because it has everything they need.

people will stick with winamp2 for a long time because of the huge support it already has. It does what people want, it will continue to advance with developers still developing new plugins for it. It will probably be smaller, faster, lower footprint than the free version of winamp3 (and even more so a bloated pay for version of winamp3).

It comes down to the quite common question of convergence again, would you rather have separate products that are close to perfect at what they were designed for (and in this case free!) or would you rather have one product that does all, but has major disadvantages against the separate products? The disadvantages in this case are having to pay for it, as it does more it will require more memory if you leave it open all the time and probably just not as good as separate products.

What computer do you work on? It may be time to upgrade if you considering a program taking 8MB of memory to be "bloated." Besides, Winamp2 may work just fine for what it does, but for people who actually have a lot of music and care about the music they listen to, a media library and ability to load multiple playlists simultaneously are must-have features. Plus if you want any sort of cross-fading or advanced audio, Winamp3 is where it's at.

Now some people on the other hand can listen to the radio and hear no difference than a CD, and only have a few MP3s on their computer. Those people will probably find Winamp3 too cumbersome for their needs, but any advanced user will be able to recognize and appreciate the differences.

So did IE5, yet 30% of the Internet population has already upgraded to IE6. People may be lazy, but they will upgrade to a better product when it comes out - even if it takes some time.

there are media library, crossfade and other plugins that make winamp2 just as usable (and all free). I have um well several thousand mp3s and am quite happy using winamp2 to find them quickly and listen to them.

By bloated I (maybe wrongly) mean extra generally unwanted code that slows the app down and generally makes it sluggish. Yes winamp3 is only beta, but it currently already takes 8 seconds to load on my pc where was winamp2 only takes 2 seconds to load. Even MSword only takes 5 seconds. I doubt they will shave over 6 seconds no matter how much beta code is in there and optimisation left to do.

I want a simple little program which is just there when I want it and is very responsive - which I dont think the pay for version of winamp3 will be especially compared to winamp2.

I would gladly pay the small fee for the enhanced version when I got a job, simply because the people at Nullsoft have been such great guys (minus that insignificant but little bit annoying AOL desktop icon). Hell, I would give them donation right now if I had the money. Damn banner ads aren't making nearly as much money as they used to, not that I care much for them.

*doesn't get sites extra revenue by clicking annoying ads, shame*

You can opt not to get that AOL icon (it is an install option).

It's surprising how many people don't seem to bother looking at installer options when they download new software and yet they take it personally when they find spyware like SaveNow on their system. I guess that's why these spyware companies stay in business :)

But overall there is nothing bad about the AOL icon. You can always delete it even if there was no option and if it keeps AOL funding new work on Winamp, why complain?

this has been debated for a while on the Winamp boards. there will always remain a free player. the enhanced version offer features such as DVD playback, CD-ripping and the like.

if you want to use winamp 3 to play your music files, continue to use the free version. if you'd want additional capabilities, by all means pay up.

Kind of like you can always tell who is an idiot because they have that stupid realplayer icon on their taskbar.

It's not too hard to turn off - either that or most of the rest of the world is as dumb as I think.

does anyone here know how much it costs to implement a mpeg2 encoder/decoder legally?(for DVD burning and playback).......how about mp3pro?.....A cd burning plug-in is already avaliable(for windows XP)...if anyone bothered to look.......Why are you posting your views here anyway......nullsoft isn't gonna look here on your views.... http://forums.winamp.com

You misunderstand, I never install the desktop icon, I'm just saying! Ewwwww, now people think I'm a newbie. I feel dirty.

hi

To pay for Winamp 3 full versions ?

First : they actually exists some >freeware

This is kinda off topic but everyone mentions IE is free. How is it still free when you cannot use it on anything but Windows. I would imagine it's free if you could use it on linux or something else. It may be free for Mac users but it's defintely not free to windows users because it's integrated into the OS and "can't be removed". So to say it's free doesn't really fit into what IE has become since version 4.0+. If you didn't buy windows, you don't get IE for free (exception to mac users).

4.0 however could be considered free because you didn't have to have active desktop and even IE installed or anything to get 4.0.

IS Winamp not free then because I can't play it on a Mac or a Linux box.... crap.

I can only play it on a windows machine.

Actually, you can run Winamp3 on Linux.

And I think his point was that Microsoft ships IE as part of Windows, which you purchase at a store. When you download IE, you are simply getting upgrades for free - not the software for free, since that software came as an "integral" part of Windows. I don't know if I agree with that, but it does bring up an interesting point.