Editing OpenMPT (section)

=== MOD Plugin and ModPlug Tracker ===

OpenMPT was initially developed as a [[browser plug-in]] called '''MOD Plugin''',<ref name=wired>{{cite web |url=https://www.wired.com/news/news/culture/sonic_boom/story/7978.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/19981206062519/http://www.wired.com/news/news/culture/sonic_boom/story/7978.html |title=A Cheat Sheet for Internet Sound |archive-date=6 December 1998 |date=1997-10-30 |first=Ian |last=Christe |publisher=[[Wired (magazine)|Wired]].com |access-date=2011-02-05 |quote=''MOD: The lingua franca of the Internet's large network of Amiga musicians, MODs are ingenious self-contained sound files that include raw audio data and sequencing information.(Link to modplugcentral)'' |url-status=dead |df=dmy-all }}</ref> which enabled users to play music and other sounds encoded in [[module file]]s. ModPlug Tracker, along with a player application named [[ModPlug Player]], evolved from this plug-in.<ref>{{cite web |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/19980222214727/http://www.castlex.com/modplug/tech.html |url=http://www.castlex.com/modplug/tech.html |title=MODPlug Central - Technical Support Features |date=1998-02-22 |archive-date=22 February 1998 |publisher=MODPlug Central |access-date=2011-02-05 |url-status=dead |df=dmy-all }}</ref>

In December 1999, Olivier Lapicque sent the module-playing parts of ModPlug Tracker's source code to Kenton Varda, under the [[GNU General Public License|GPL-2.0-or-later]], to write a plugin for [[XMMS]] based on the code. In 2001, the [[source code]] was released in the [[public domain]],<ref name="PD">[http://modplug-xmms.sourceforge.net/ ModPlug XMMS Plugin - News] on sourceforge.com ''"27 October 2001: ModPlug-XMMS v2.0 (including libmodplug v0.7) - Changes: [...] License changed to public domain."''</ref> and the mod-playing code was split off into a separate library, ''libmodplug'', maintained as part of the ModPlug XMMS Plugin project. This project lay dormant from late 2003 until early 2006, when it was picked up again. Today, ''libmodplug'' is included in many Linux distributions as a default audio plugin for playing module files and is a part of the popular open source multimedia framework [[gstreamer]].<ref>[https://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/data/doc/gstreamer/head/gst-plugins-bad-plugins/html/gst-plugins-bad-plugins-modplug.html GStreamer Bad Plugins 0.10 Plugins Reference Manual]</ref>

Due to lack of time, Olivier Lapicque discontinued development of ModPlug Tracker itself, and in January 2004, he released the entire source code under an [[open-source license]]. The ModPlug Player [[source code]] is still closed as of May 2020.