In a swirl of posts, freedb.org died on Saturday, July 1. Lead developer Joerge Schilling issued a statement freedb.org terminating his six year involvement in the project. Schilling wrote:

Today, after six long years, it is time for me to say goodbye to freedb. I started off creating database archives for download and finding ftp mirrors to host it in 2000 and ended up being responsible for basically every aspect of freedb. I feel like freedb is a part of my identity and it is ripping me apart, having to leave it now.

Following his prompt, Ari, another integral developer issued the statement “I quit,” just two minutes after Schilling. Unfortunately, the project seems to have hinged entirely on those two people. Shortly after their departure, the domain owner decided “The future of freedb:”

About freedb.org freedb is not able to operate without Joerg and Ari. There are other - hopefully free - projects that will take over freedbs heritage in a better way and stay free. freedbs future did not seem to be kept free regarding the lastest developments, so I tried to steer against this as I felt it more important to stay free instead of getting fancy web 2.0 features. But unfortunately Joerg and Ari (the main doers behind freedb) disagreed with me and decided that they want to go another direction. I will refuse to comment their postings in plublic and I will thank both Ari anf Jörg for their work and their support.

The domain is now for sale, so any hopes of it bouncing back are slim. For the past six years, freedb has been instrumental to the cataloging of albums and mp3s. I’m quite intrigued to see how this will pan out.