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How did Nullsoft come to exist?
The name Nullsoft1 was chosen by Justin Frankel in 1995 to label software that he would develop for fun in his free time. The name was half a play on the name of certain other software companies, and half joking about the fact that there was nothing that was made by Nullsoft, hence Null. In 1997, Justin began working on Winamp, which quickly became the focus of his efforts. In the middle of 1997, Tom Pepper got himself involved by hosting a web site2 for Winamp. Later that year Winamp became shareware and soon after Nullsoft, Inc. was incorporated in Arizona. Nullsoft, Inc. expanded in the year following and in May of 1999, Nullsoft was acquired by America Online. Since the acquisition, the structure of Nullsoft has gradually evolved into what it is today: about 15 people who work within AOL Time Warner, and share a state of mind.
What we do, and why?3
We make the architectures and applications that we would want to use -- in hopes that others might too. We do this because it is what we enjoy and it is all we know how to do.
What's the deal with the llama?
We like llamas. Justin hopes to have a llama (or alpaca) farm soon.
1. Other names
momentarily used were "Happy Software", "C Graphics". Justin's
friend Jaben Cargman was using Retro Software Designs at the
time. 2. The first web site for Winamp was actually hosted at Tom's other company, Lighthouse. The URL for the first web site was http://winamp.lh.net. 3. Though gramatically incorrect, we overlook this one for consistency. |
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What does Nullsoft make?
Winamp - The de facto audio player for the Windows platform, as well as a powerful web site to accompany it. Soon to be the multi-platform audio playback platform (phew!). We also make a variety of plug-ins for Winamp, including the revolutionary visualization plug-in AVS. SHOUTcast - A simple, highly scaleable audio streaming platform and directory system. NSIS - A free, lightweight though extremely powerful software installation system for Windows (95 to present). Research - Nullsoft Research provides many tools and technologies (many that are open source and others that quietly get integrated into the world around us). Free Shit - Stuff we have developed over the years, now in exciting open source packaging. |
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