News is out that AOL has all but pulled the plug on Nullsoft, the company (and later, subsidiary of America Online) that brought Winamp into the world. AOL bought Nullsoft in 1999 in a bizarre acquisition that was doomed to discontent from the start. Almost immediately, Nullsoft founder and lead developer Justin Frankel made an unauthorized release of a radical software program: Gnutella. AOL reacted quickly, smashing access to the renegade software almost immediately, but it was out. And it stayed out: Gnutella is the foundation network of the Morpheus file-sharing program, LimeWire, BearShare, and dozens of other P2P clients. All birthed by a division of AOL, one of the largest media content companies in the world. Frankel later released WASTE in the same fashion, right under AOL's flaming-red face.

Frankel eventually left Nullsoft, but not before creating Winamp5, a badly-needed correction of the disastrous Winamp3 release. (Winamp5 is a combination of the best features of Winamp2 and Winamp3; hence the name.)

As Nullsoft fades into history, let me say this: Winamp5 is the finest desktop music player in the world, and is at the center of my MP3 life. It makes iTunes look like a swing set next to an Xbox. Furthermore, we wouldn't be talking about MP3, or downloading music, or dragging the majors into a new reality, or changing music consumerism forever, if it weren't for the original Winamp in 1997, which single-handedly bestowed legitimacy on the MP3 format. Justin Frankel is one of the very few true visionaries and revolutionaries in this field. His stellar, pioneering background makes all the visionary awards shoved at Steve Jobs look like a farce.