[ Thanks to Augusto
Campos for this link. ]
“Gnapster is probably the best alternative Napster client
available for Linux. Full-featured and easy enough to use, it’s
certainly a recommended download. And to know what’s behind this
free software project, nothing is better than to ask its author in
an interview. But if don’t already have the software, don’t forget
to start the download before you read on!”
“[Q:] Do you have a personal view on the
copyrights abuse normally associated with Napster? What will
the future bring to this matter?
[A:] My very strong personal opinion on all
of that is this: Napster helps starving artists by increasing
awareness about the band/group/artist, whereas it takes money away
from already overpaid trendy musicians who obviously think
they deserve the money they make for their pop crap (sorry to
offend anyone who likes pop, but it sucks ;)”
“[Q:] …I like many features of Gnapster not
found on the others. But of course there are features found on the
other clients that Gnapster doesn’t offer. Do you intend to keep
adding these features, so as to make Gnapster a full-featured,
all-in-one napster client…?
[A:] Most of Gnapster’s features are spawned
from direct input from my users and features that I find to be
useful for me personally. I rarely ever try to mirror other clients
in hopes to “compete”. I feel that the best thing about open source
software is that every author can put his own personal style into
the program, and the users can then choose which they think is the
most appealing, easy to use, and most importantly stable.”
“[Q:] Is there enough documentation (official
or otherwise) available about the Napster protocol? Did you have to
guess many things?
[A:] When I first started, there was literally
no information available, however, the opennap team have put
together an excellent description of all known numerics and
protocol specs. The document can be found at the opennap page
(opennap.sourceforge.net).”