Nullsoft team announced its new development plans for Winamp. They said that they will continue to provide the best media playback experience and functionality.
According to the new plan, they are intending to combine everything users like about Winamp 2.81 and Winamp3 into one version of Winamp. As first step, they will release Winamp 2.9 this March and in the next phase they are planning to release Winamp "5" this summer. The "5" is just a working title, and may or may not be used.
Winamp 2.9 will be built on Winamp 2.x, and include new features such as video support and a media library. Winamp 2.9 will also provide some new APIs for tighter plug-in integration. In its development, you should expect lots of updates to Winamp 2.9x, to fix bugs and add minor improvements.
Winamp "5"(Winamp 2 + Winamp 3 = Winamp 5) which is expected in Late Summer 2003 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 but it may have this suppot later on. Their team is extending Winamp 2.x's plug-in architecture greatly to allow much of the same functionality that can be accomplished with Wasabi. Nullsoft also plans on adding CD ripping and burning capability for this release.
In all this development process, will Nullsoft continue Winamp3 in future, its still a question not yet answered!