A recent forum post on the Winamp forums caught my attention. Nullsoft is currently evaluating the steps to further develop their popular media player. This summer Nullsoft plans to release Winamp 5, the latest version of the player. According to the plan Nullsoft will take all popular features from the 2.x series and merge them with the well received innovations from the 3.x series, like the advanced skinning possibilities. The current working title for the merged version is Winamp 5. If this title will still be used at release is yet to be determined. The first step into this direction was the release of Winamp 2.90 Beta (2) which already includes new features such as video support and a media library. Winamp 2.9 will also provide some new APIs for tighter plug-in integration. Nullsoft plans to concentrate on further developing 2.9x as a priority to fix bugs and add minor improvements. Winamp 5 is scheduled to be released this summer. This version will integrate Winamp 3 skin and script support into the Winamp 2.x platform. This will allow users who do not wish to have complex freeform skins to use classic Winamp skin(s), with the full performance of Winamp 2.x. Those who wish to use more advanced Winamp3 skins can do so as well. The integration will be seamless. Initially this version of Winamp will not support Wasabi components. That may or may not change as Nullsoft goes forward, but we have yet to see how worthwhile that will be. Nullsoft has and will be extending Winamp 2.x's plug-in architecture greatly to allow much of the same functionality that can be accomplished with Wasabi. The Winamp team also plans on adding CD ripping and burning capability for this release. Finally the main reason for this new heading of Nullsoft is making profit of the time and resources they have invested in making Winamp the most popular media player to date. Source: Nullsoft