For the past few years we’ve watched Microsoft’s love toward open source by making many of its popular software open source. From Microsoft Edge to Powershell, it has been trying to prove its love for OSS community. And this time, the company has made its Calculator application open source.
Microsoft love for OSS Community
No matter what M$ used to think about the vast OSS community but now the giant company has adopted so many open source projects. And not just by adopting we can say Microsoft is pushing hard to show its love for OSS community but also it has made a large amount of its applications’ code available to the world.
The list is really large. For the entire list of code that MS has made open source, it launched a website, opensource.microsoft.com. So check it out for more information.
Why Microsoft has open sourced Windows Calculator?
The reason behind making Windows Calculator open source is simple, they want OSS community support in building new features or improving the ones it already has. The announcement also mentions that the parts of its code such as Calculator login, user-interface, etc. can also be used for building new applications.
As developers, if you would like to know how different parts of the Calculator app work, easily integrate Calculator logic or UI into your own applications, or contribute directly to something that ships in Windows, now you can.
This must be the most momentous event since the JFK assassination. With this released as open source, Linux will at last be able to have an application that has eluded the best minds in the open source world, despite their very best efforts, for several decades. Microsoft deserves a lot of kudos for the enormous generosity and altruism that they have shown by allowing the whole world to gain access to this incredibly important and unique application. I think it is safe to say that this is an absolute tour de force, and that, from now on, the history of the hi-tech world will be divided between what happened before, and what is about to happen after this epoch-making event has taken place.
Obviously, this act of releasing code of Windows Calculator to the world should be appreciated. This is a news article so I didn’t talk about what else they should release.
It’ll be awesome and real love for open source community if they start by making any Windows version or MS Office open source. 😀 😀
ROTFLMAO!!!
This is ridiculous. People are going around touting Microsoft’s releases of their bullsh*t wares as if they’re releasing their cure for cancer to the world. I’ve read through about 10 of those 899 some-odd pages, and ALL those apps are GARBAGE!…..LoL! so THIS is how they show the Open Source Community “love”…..by wrapping up yesterday’s scraps from dinner, soaking it in gravy, tying a pink bow on it and calling it “making an effort”?….Where’s Office?…(not like we need THAT anymore!….Hahaha!) where’s the apps people in the Open Source community REALLY want?
Oh. Wait.
Wow….this just gets worse and worse for Microsoft doesn’t it? Because from the viewpoint of where I’m standing? there’s NOTHING that Microsoft HAS…that any of me or my peeps who work and “live” in the Open Source community WANT from Microsoft. ESPECIALLY NOT SOME STUPID FREEKIN CALCULATOR!…YOU know how many of those we ALREADY HAVE in the Open Source world? Smdh. I can’t even come down on them and say they have to “try harder”…because JUST like their phone? Windows is dying a slow death. I understand their need to find a way to stay relevant and all that?….but to try and ride the coat tails of the FOSS world in the hopes that they’ll embrace your buggy, kludgy, totally closed and possibly-corrupt software? just speaks volumes about exactly WHERE you are in the food-chain of software.
But I’m sure SOMEONE will thank you kindly for your contributions to the free software initiative!….Hahahaha! Too funny!
And for those who DON’T know how many calculators we have?…HERE”S A LIST!….LoL!
https://alternativeto.net/software/windows-calculator/?license=opensource
First of all, I completely understand what you’re saying and I also agree that they should’ve started with something big.
But since it was a news article so I didn’t comment on other things. I think open source community is intelligent enough to understand what M$ is trying to do here by making these little software open source. But at the same time, we appreciate the effort of making transparency between them and their customers. It’s a little start but I’m glad it is there. 4 or 5 years ago we didn’t expect M$ would do something like this
I personally will stop writing ‘$’ sign in M$ once they start by making any of Windows version (supported) or M$ Office open source.
If Microsoft truly “loves” open source, then they should stop these ridiculous patent shake-downs against companies that use Linux-based systems (e. g. Android, TomTom, all them). But they keep suing them for some ambiguous (to us) “patent infringement” threat and won’t tell the Linux dev team (Linus and Co.) what these supposedly-infringed patents are. That right there should tell us all something about how much “Micro$oft Loves Linux”.
Additionally, if they “love” open source, then instead of MS-DOS 1.1 and 2.0, they should just do MS-DOS 6, excepting, of course, any 3rd-party bits like DoubleSpace (DoubleSpace isn’t needed anyway due to today’s comparatively huge storage devices). I know, we have FreeDOS, but this can only help compatibility. Also, since document interchangeability is always an issue, they should release–at a minimum–the file format converters in MS Office. Finally, the on-disk format for the NTFS is important; I see no *good* reason to keep the NTFS on-disk specs under lock and key.
–SYG
I agree wholeheartedly! They’re smiling and blowing kisses towards the Open Source “family”..(with their free calculator!?)….while soaking their frosted sponge cake in kerosene! (Patent lawsuits!!) The only way they will EVER convince the “real” community that they “love” open source?… Is when EVERY SINGLE patent lawsuit is RETRACTED. Until then?….we will always be “Little Red Riding Hood”….and they’ll ALWAYS be “the wolf” (who thought he could fool “Red” into believing he was her “grandmother”!….)
As far as I’m concerned? There really isn’t anything they offer that I haven’t already replaced….from their office suite (I LOVE LibreOffice!!) to video/audio players….to browsers….to apps that just work…(and work WELL!)
And lastly? I don’t care HOW many apps they “release” to open source. I don’t trust them. Period. Especially after their red-faced moment….(y’all remember….when they publicly swore they were NOT collecting data from their users. ..only to find out they LIED. And it wasn’t just “some” data….IT WAS ALL OF IT!!!) You think by flipping a toggle that says “Do not collect data on me”……that it means THEYLL STOP!?? LoL!….