Further Reading Winamp’s woes: How the greatest MP3 player undid itself a report from TechCrunch, AOL is near to finalizing a deal to sell it and Shoutcast to an unnamed buyer. The news came out Thursday, one day before Winamp was set to shut down for good.

Ars confirmed the shutdown back in late November, which was planned despite annual revenues of around $6 million and an estimated user base that is still on the order of millions. A contingent of ardent fans set up a petition asking AOL to open the source code for Winamp, which has garnered over 46,000 signatures in less than a month.

TechCrunch reported shortly after the announcement of the shutdown that Microsoft had shown interest in buying both Winamp and Shoutcast. TechCrunch does not identify either its source or the potential buyer, but the unnamed source tells TechCrunch they are “confident” the deal will happen. The source also said they did not believe AOL would go through with the shutdown, which is set to go into effect on December 20.

Doug Serton, an AOL spokesperson, told Ars that AOL has no comment on the matter. Winamp General Director Geno Yoham did not return a request for comment. At the time of the announcement of the shutdown, venture capitalist and founder of Spinner.com Josh Felser told Ars that AOL has been trying unsuccessfully to sell Winamp “for months.”