Microsoft Open Sources and Forks Windows Live Writer Into Open Live Writer

SmartAboutThings writes: Windows Live Writer is a blogging tool that Microsoft originally released back in 2006, and it still remains popular today, which has prompted Microsoft to promise that it will make it open source earlier this year. Now the company has officially open-sourced and forked Windows Live Writer into Open Live Writer, having put its repositories on GitHub already.

Comments

Comic Chat

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm waiting for them to open source Comic Chat.

as usual, a day late and a dollar short.

[nimbius]

Open Live Writer is an open source application enabling users to author, edit, and publish blog posts.

which would mean something if the world hadn't been using wordpress for 12 years. Microsoft had the opportunity to open source things like IIS, frontpage, and a wealth of other web-centric tools and technologies to compete with Apache and Nginx. But instead they paid off hosting providers to put parked websites on IIS to goose their numbers in Netcraft. open-sourcing an editor is boggling, unless for some reason that editor happened to use already open-source code.

Re:as usual, a day late and a dollar short.

[Jason Levine]

I actually use Windows Live Writer. It's a nice interface to write in, attach photos to a blog post, set categories, and upload the whole thing while scheduling when it will go live. I began using it years ago when WordPress' built-in editor was horrible. WordPress has improved since then, but I still like WLW. Recently, I had begun to worry that WLW was going to be tossed aside and not developed anymore. Open sourcing it gives me hope that people can continue to improve the product and keep it as a viable, locally installed alternative editor to WordPress' built-in editor.

Re:as usual, a day late and a dollar short.

[malditaenvidia]

I think what's interesting about this note is that Microsoft has been open sourcing software lately for some reason, even if it's innocuous stuff like visual studio code. It makes you wonder what they're up to.

Re:as usual, a day late and a dollar short.

[dam9779]

I too use it to post across various WP sites and it's great. Not sure what new features could be brought in, but it's good to see it being released into the OS ecosystem. I hope a few dedicated developers improve it, maybe connect it to cloud storage or allow some cool integration with social media.

Re:as usual, a day late and a dollar short.

[DrStrangluv]

If you work with multiple blogs on several servers, WLW allowed you to do all your writing/editing from one place.

Re:as usual, a day late and a dollar short.

[ripvlan]

Yeah - as several other folks have posted - WLW was pretty good. It was simple and had only the necessary bells-whistles. Followed the KISS principle - I couldn't believe MS created it. The only thing to come out of the "Windows Live" era that was any good.

I liked it because I did most of my writing offline (disconnected) - plus it produced "real" HTML without lots of frames-in-frames.

As for MS open sourcing it - why not? The new sheriff has committed MS to Open Source - so rather than kill off something that many liked - just upload it on SourceFor^H^H^H^H....github and enjoy the independent life.

Re:as usual, a day late and a dollar short.

[Archangel Michael]

They are releasing this stuff OpenSource, because the ecosystem is filled with similar tools that work just as well, and Microsoft needs to be relevant. Would you use these tools if they weren't free or open source? Of course not. It is out of necessity.

Microsoft is becoming less relevant each passing day. With Chromebooks, iPads, Android, iOS and whatever else is "next", there are more viable choices now than ever before.

Re:as usual, a day late and a dollar short.

[SQLGuru]

Actually, VS Code is a nice editor.....I've opted to install it instead of several others on my new work PC. I still think that Microsoft's tools are some of the most developer friendly and Visual Studio is the best IDE. But for projects that aren't based on that tech, VS Code is pretty good.

Re:Moderators are a fucking joke

[SQLGuru]

I actually mod AC posts appropriately (up or down) at times. I even skipped modding on this article just to respond. I know there are many who won't bother with AC posts, but I'm saying that *I* will mod them. And FYI, were I to have modded your post, I would have modded it as Off-topic because this article is related to Live Writer and your comment wasn't related and wasn't in response to a discussion thread.

But if there is relevant content in an AC post, I have no problem boosting it's score --- sometimes even moreso because it's AC. If there is good stuff there, I know that AC posts will automatically be dinged at least one point just for being AC.

Re:Moderators are a fucking joke

[jimtheowl]

Perhaps you care too much for something that doesn't really matter.

I got a Troll +1 once (vs Troll -1) and don't even know if that's good or bad.

Troll +5 would be funnier though.

To answer your question...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Today: Most Anyone Today any regular Slashdot reader is probably eligible to become a moderator. A variety of factors weigh into it, but if you are logged in when you browse Slashdot comments, you might occasionally be granted moderator access. Don't worry about it- Just keep reading this document and learn what to do about it! Who It's probably the most difficult part of the process: Who is allowed to moderate. On one hand, many people say "Everyone", but I've chosen to avoid that path because the potential for abuse is so great. Instead, I've set up a few simple rules for determining who is eligible to moderate. Logged In User If the system can't keep track, it won't work, so you gotta log in. Sorry if you're paranoid, but this system demands a certain level of accountability. Regular Slashdot Readers The scripts track average accesses from each logged in user. It then selects eligible users who read an average number of times. The homepage doesn't count either. It then picks users from the middle of the pack- no obsessive compulsive reloaders, and nobody who just happened to read an article this week. Long Time Readers The system throws out the newest few thousand accounts. This prevents people from creating new accounts to simply get moderator access, but more importantly, means that newbies will have to be part of the community for a few weeks before they gain access to the controls to a system they don't understand. Willing to Serve If you don't want to moderate, just visit your user preferences, and set yourself as 'Unwilling' Positive Contributors Slashdot tracks your "Karma" (see the FAQ). If you have non negative Karma, this means you have posted more good comments than bad, and are eligible to moderate. This weeds out spam accounts. So the end result is a pool of eligible users that represent (hopefully) average, positive slashdot contributors. Occasionally (well, every 30 minutes actually) the system checks the number of comments that have been posted, and gives a proportionate amount of eligible users "Tokens". When any user acquires a certain number of tokens, they become a moderator. This means that you'll need to be eligible for many of these slices in order to actually gain access. It all works to make sure that everyone takes turns, and nobody can abuse the system, and that only "regular" readers become moderators (as opposed to some random newbie ;)"

Re:Can we expect

[DrStrangluv]

There's some Win32/Cpp, but it's mainly .Net, so I'd expect any eventual "port" to come via MS's efforts to bring .Net to linux.

Re:"it will make it open source earlier this year"

[Billly Gates]

I give MS kudos. IBM was the jerk before they lost their monopoly.

Now MS is being all nice. VS code is open sourced. .NET is open sourced. I believe they opened up another project recently too a week or two ago.

Re:Moderators are a fucking joke

[Archangel Michael]

I have excellent Karma. I once did an experiment on Karma by deliberately being aggressive / asshole / crabby posts. I didn't change what I said, I just changed how I said it. I drove my Karma all the way down to Bad. Took me a couple days to do it. However repairing my Karma took months of hard and steady work. And as you can see, it is still pretty decent.

You can post controversial views on Slashdot, but you have to use lots of sugar to make the medicine go down.

Re:Moderators are a fucking joke

[Zero__Kelvin]

"I make a point of modding up AC posts if they are good to compensate for their one point handicap."

I used to view modding ACs as a waste of Karma since they can't collect on it or take the hit, but I have since come to leave the absurd AC posts alone and mod up the good ones, since I know others will handle the down mods and it actually says to concentrate on promotion rather than demotion in the guideline IIRC. I think the AC system should require a logged in user who checks "Post Anonymously" and the system should penalize those who post as an AC excessively as most people don't use it for what it is intended. They could have another user, guest, but each user who has a login should have a "Don't show me Guests Posts" option. The number of people who use AC to troll is far, far disproportionate to those who are posting something that could get them in trouble if it was traced back to them.