eclectica
2005-09-21, 15:19
Currently Winmx can only be used for connecting to SlavaNap and OpenNap servers. The WinMX network itself, known as the WPNP, is not working. The program connects to that network at first through the cache servers located at winmx.com. Winmx.com is not resolving to an IP address, but frontcode.com is working, though it has created the appearance it is not working by having the following as the source code of its index page:
<HTML>
<HEAD><TITLE>404 Not Found</TITLE></HEAD>
<BODY BGCOLOR="#cc9999" TEXT="#000000" LINK="#2020ff" VLINK="#4040cc">
<H2>404 Not Found</H2>
The requested URL '/' was not found on this server.
<HR>
</BODY>
</HTML>
Some people when visiting frontcode.com think that the site is not working, but it is fully working on the same IP address it has been working on, which is http://64.246.15.43/. What has changed is that the former html pages are no longer to be found.
The whois information for frontcode.com is:
Role, Domain Registrations
Frontcode Technologies
PO Box 27010
Windsor
Ontario
N8T 3N5
CA
Phone: +1.5199873632
The IP address for winmx.com used to resolve to http://66.98.186.39/, but now winmx.com can not be reached by way of the domain name, though the old site is still working when connecting directly by way of the IP address. Its page is the same looking as frontcode.com. The whois information for winmx.com used to be similar to that of frontcode.com through the end of 2004. But on 2005-01-15 their whois information was changed to:
Registrations, Domain
PO Box 50
Port Vila,
VU
+44 141 005 0251
Some people speculate that the reason winmx.com has been offline in the last day or so is because of a threatening letter sent to it and a few other filesharing companies by the RIAA. A lot of people were thinking that WinMX was immune from the RIAA because they were Canadian, but in fact both WinMX and Frontcode Technologies had their servers located in Houston Texas with Everyones Internet (http://www.ev1.net/) as their webhoster.
WinMX saw little development after its release of WinMX 3.31 in 2002-10-19. It slowly degraded in quality with a high amount of leeching and unreliable performance, but still retained a loyal base that prevented it from quickly degrading in quality. In June of 2004 someone made a public announcement on an eMule page of the intention to build an open source version of WinMX called OpenMX (http://www.3-3-3.org/forum/showthread.php?t=547), and the very next day that caused developer Kevin Hearn, who felt threatened, to announce beta testing for a new release of WinMX. Many of the devout WinMX fans were drooling like hungry dogs being thrown scraps of old meat and bones over that announcement. But the subsequent updates that WinMX saw involved small changes and the beta testing was behind schedule. The last full release of WinMX was version 3.53, released 2004-07-02.
The downfall of WinMX was that Kevin Hearn refused to release the source code and to develop it vigilantly, so that in his desire to maintain control of it, he clipped its wings and smothered it. With so many p2p applications out there being open source already, along with the converts to open source: Limewire, Shareaza, and Ares, there was no good reason for WinMX not to go open source.
WinMX was the first p2p application I used after Napster. But I gradually lost interest in it and migrated to other p2p applications such as eMule, and by 2004 I quit using it at all. I hope that this is finally the end of WinMX, because there are so many better p2p applications out there that people ought to be using. The death of this program is like euthanasia, and will bring dignity and peace to this sickly miserable p2p application.
<HTML>
<HEAD><TITLE>404 Not Found</TITLE></HEAD>
<BODY BGCOLOR="#cc9999" TEXT="#000000" LINK="#2020ff" VLINK="#4040cc">
<H2>404 Not Found</H2>
The requested URL '/' was not found on this server.
<HR>
</BODY>
</HTML>
Some people when visiting frontcode.com think that the site is not working, but it is fully working on the same IP address it has been working on, which is http://64.246.15.43/. What has changed is that the former html pages are no longer to be found.
The whois information for frontcode.com is:
Role, Domain Registrations
Frontcode Technologies
PO Box 27010
Windsor
Ontario
N8T 3N5
CA
Phone: +1.5199873632
The IP address for winmx.com used to resolve to http://66.98.186.39/, but now winmx.com can not be reached by way of the domain name, though the old site is still working when connecting directly by way of the IP address. Its page is the same looking as frontcode.com. The whois information for winmx.com used to be similar to that of frontcode.com through the end of 2004. But on 2005-01-15 their whois information was changed to:
Registrations, Domain
PO Box 50
Port Vila,
VU
+44 141 005 0251
Some people speculate that the reason winmx.com has been offline in the last day or so is because of a threatening letter sent to it and a few other filesharing companies by the RIAA. A lot of people were thinking that WinMX was immune from the RIAA because they were Canadian, but in fact both WinMX and Frontcode Technologies had their servers located in Houston Texas with Everyones Internet (http://www.ev1.net/) as their webhoster.
WinMX saw little development after its release of WinMX 3.31 in 2002-10-19. It slowly degraded in quality with a high amount of leeching and unreliable performance, but still retained a loyal base that prevented it from quickly degrading in quality. In June of 2004 someone made a public announcement on an eMule page of the intention to build an open source version of WinMX called OpenMX (http://www.3-3-3.org/forum/showthread.php?t=547), and the very next day that caused developer Kevin Hearn, who felt threatened, to announce beta testing for a new release of WinMX. Many of the devout WinMX fans were drooling like hungry dogs being thrown scraps of old meat and bones over that announcement. But the subsequent updates that WinMX saw involved small changes and the beta testing was behind schedule. The last full release of WinMX was version 3.53, released 2004-07-02.
The downfall of WinMX was that Kevin Hearn refused to release the source code and to develop it vigilantly, so that in his desire to maintain control of it, he clipped its wings and smothered it. With so many p2p applications out there being open source already, along with the converts to open source: Limewire, Shareaza, and Ares, there was no good reason for WinMX not to go open source.
WinMX was the first p2p application I used after Napster. But I gradually lost interest in it and migrated to other p2p applications such as eMule, and by 2004 I quit using it at all. I hope that this is finally the end of WinMX, because there are so many better p2p applications out there that people ought to be using. The death of this program is like euthanasia, and will bring dignity and peace to this sickly miserable p2p application.