Microsoft and open source: Difference between revisions

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=== Initial stance on open source ===

{{See also|Open Letter to Hobbyists}}

[[File:Altair BASIC Paper Tape.jpg|thumb|e[[Altair 8K BASIC]] on paper tape. In 1976, Microsoft co-founder [[Bill Gates]] expressed frustration with most computer hobbyists who were using his company's software without having paid for it.]]

The paradigm of freely sharing computer [[source code]]—a practice known as [[open source|open so]]—traces back to the earliest commercial computers, whose user groups shared code to reduce duplicate work and costs.{{sfn|Radits|2019|pp=13–14}} Following an antitrust suit that forced the unbundling of IBM's hardware and software, a proprietary software industry grew throughout the 1970s, in which companies sought to protect their software products. The technology company [[Microsoft|Microsof]]<nowiki/> was founded in this period and has long been an embodiment of the proprietary paradigm and its tension with open source practices, well before the terms "free software" or "open source" were coined.<!-- also "seen by many as the archfoe of the free and open source movement" p. 32 --> Within a year of founding Microsoft, [[Bill Gates]] wrote an [[Open Letter to Hobbyists|open letter]] that positioned the hobbyist act of copying software as a form of theft.{{sfn|Radits|2019|pp=17–18}}<!-- also see Weber 2004 here -->

Microsoft successfully expanded in personal computer and enterprise server markets through the 1990s, partially on the strength of the company's marketing strategies.{{sfn|Radits|2019|pp=27–28}} By the late 1990s, Microsoft came to view the growing open source movement as a threat to their revenue and platform. Internal strategy memos from this period, known as the [[Halloween documents]], describe the company's potential approaches to stopping open source momentum. One strategy was "[[embrace-extend-extinguish]]", in which Microsoft would adopt standard technology, add proprietary extensions, and upon establishing a customer base, would lock consumers into the proprietary extension to assert a monopoly of the space. The memos also acknowledged open source as a methodology capable of meeting or exceeding proprietary development methodology. Microsoft downplayed these memos as the opinions of an individual employee and not Microsoft's official position.{{sfn|Radits|2019|p=27}}

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{{blockquote|Microsoft's approach to open today is: Enable, integrate, release, and contribute.|[[Mark Russinovich]], CTO of [[Microsoft Azure]]<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.zdnet.com/article/mark-russinovich-the-microsoft-azure-cloud-and-open-source/|title=Microsoft's Mark Russinovich to Linux faithful: Send us your resumes|first=Steven J.|last=Vaughan-Nichols|website=ZDNet}}</ref>}}

In August 2015, Microsoft released [[WinObjC]], also known as Windows Bridge for iOS, an open-source [[middleware]] toolkit that allows [[iOS]] apps developed in [[Objective-C]] to be ported to Windows 10.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.pcworld.com/article/2960526/software-development/microsoft-releases-ios-to-windows-app-maker-windows-bridge-to-open-source.html|title=Microsoft releases iOS-to-Windows app maker Windows Bridge to open source|last=Hachman|first=Mark|website=[[PC World]]|publisher=IDG|date=August 6, 2015|access-date=October 9, 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.anandtech.com/show/9205/microsoft-demonstrates-android-and-ios-applications-running-on-windows-10|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150501095343/http://www.anandtech.com/show/9205/microsoft-demonstrates-android-and-ios-applications-running-on-windows-10|url-status=dead|archive-date=May 1, 2015|title=Microsoft Demonstrates Android and iOS Applications Running On Windows 10|last=Chester|first=Brandon|website=[[Anandtech]]|publisher=Purch Inc.|date=April 29, 2015|access-date=October 9, 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://venturebeat.com/2015/05/01/everything-you-need-to-know-about-porting-android-and-ios-apps-to-windows-10/|title=Everything you need to know about porting Android and iOS apps to Windows 10|last=Protalinski|first=Emil|website=[[VentureBeat]]|date=May 1, 2015|access-date=October 9, 2015}}</ref> On November 18, 2015, [[Visual Studio Code]] was released under the proprietary Microsoft License and a subset of its source code was posted to [[GitHub]] under the [[Expat License|MIT License]].<ref>{{cite news|title=Visual Studio now supports debugging Linux apps; Code editor now open source|url=https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/11/visual-studio-now-supports-debugging-linux-apps-code-editor-now-open-source/|access-date=18 November 2015|work=Ars Technica}}</ref>

[[File:Number of open source contributors by company.png|thumb|The ten organizations with the most open-source contributors on GitHub in 2016<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://octoverse.github.com/|title=The state of the Octoverse 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170405182156/https://octoverse.github.com/|archive-date=April 5, 2017}}</ref>]]

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In August 2022, Microsoft open sourced more than 1,500 of its 3D [[emoji]] to let creators remix and customize them. The library is available on [[Figma (software)|Figma]] and GitHub.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.theverge.com/2022/8/10/23299527/microsoft-emoji-open-source-creators|title=Microsoft open sources its 3D emoji to let creators remix and customize them|last=Warren|first=Tom|date=10 August 2022|website=[[The Verge]]|access-date=14 August 2022}}</ref>

On May 18, 2025, Microsoft released [[Microsoft Edit]], an open-source recreation of the [[MS-DOS Editor]] written in the [[Rust (programming language)|Rust programming language]] for modern versions of Windows.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.theverge.com/news/669318/microsoft-edit-on-windows-command-line-text-editor|title=Microsoft’s Edit on Windows is a new command-line text editor|work=[[The Verge]]|date=19 May 2025|access-date=21 May 2025|author-last=Warren|author-first=Tom}}</ref>

== Support of open source organizations ==

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* [[GW-BASIC]] – Dialect of the [[BASIC]] [[programming language]]

* [[Microsoft C++ Standard Library]] – Implementation of the [[C++ Standard Library]] (also known as the STL)<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://devblogs.microsoft.com/cppblog/open-sourcing-msvcs-stl/|title=Open Sourcing MSVC's STL|date=September 16, 2019|website=C++ Team Blog}}</ref>

* [[Microsoft Edit]] – [[Text-based user interface|TUI]] [[text editor]]

[[File:Monodevelop5.4.png|thumb|[[MonoDevelop]] [[integrated development environment|IDE]] for [[Linux]], [[macOS]], and [[Windows]]]]

* [[Mixed Reality Toolkit]] – Software development kit (SDK) for the development of [[mixed reality]] (MR) and [[augmented reality]] (AR) software applications

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* [[Windows Package Manager]] – [[Package manager]] for Windows 10

* [[Windows Presentation Foundation]] – Graphical subsystem (similar to [[WinForms]]) for rendering [[user interface]]s in Windows-based applications

* [[Windows Subsystem for Linux]] – Windows component that allows a GNU/Linux environment to be used from within Windows.

* [[Windows Template Library]] – [[Object-oriented programming|Object-oriented]] [[C++]] template [[Library (computing)|library]] for [[Win32]] development

* [[Windows UI Library]] – Set of [[UI control]]s and features for the [[Universal Windows Platform]] (UWP)