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Microsoft Open-Sources Windows Calculator (betanews.com)

Posted by msmash on from the marching-forward dept.

Microsoft said today it has made the source code for its Windows calculator available on GitHub. The company said it hopes to work with contributors to improve the user experience of Windows calculator. In a statement, Dave Grochocki and Howard Wolosky of Microsoft said: Today, we're excited to announce that we are open sourcing Windows Calculator on GitHub under the MIT License. This includes the source code, build system, unit tests, and product roadmap. Our goal is to build an even better user experience in partnership with the community. We are encouraging your fresh perspectives and increased participation to help define the future of Calculator. 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. Calculator will continue to go through all usual testing, compliance, security, quality processes, and Insider flighting, just as we do for our other applications.

6 of 292 comments (clear)

  1. Because they want it to be better! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Sure. This isn't 100% PR.

    If there was ever any piece of software that is done and needs no more work, it was this one.

    1. Re:Because they want it to be better! by MBGMorden · · Score: 4, Insightful

      What baffles me is why they don't fix Notepad. I mean there are a TON of good other really basic text editors out there (Win32pad is my favorite for a direct replacement), but really all they'd need to do to make that program significantly more useful would be to make it handle Unix line-breaks correctly, and have some indicator (eg, a status bar) of cursor position within the file.

      There are other things that would be nice, but those fixes would literally take any decent programmer less than an hour to implement. I'm half convinced they lost the source code to the Notepad back in the Win95 days . . .

      --
      "People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
    2. Re:Because they want it to be better! by PrimaryConsult · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Oh man, status bar *and* word wrap at the same time?!? Not even sarcasm here, I never thought they would ever have bothered with it, yet the either-or choice annoyed me to no end (quick notes i wanted word wrapped, but config files I wanted line numbers). What next, having cake and eating it too?

  2. Windows 95 calculator??? by gavron · · Score: 4, Insightful

    There are plenty of open-source calculators from HP-11C style RPN
    apps for Android and IOS, to a variety of callable interface ones on
    Linux, MacOS, and whatever.

    Microsoft's 24 year old calculator isn't worth the code it was stolen on.

    E

  3. im sure it was a warm reception by nimbius · · Score: 5, Insightful

    microsoft: we are committed to open source, here is some software we released as "opened source"
    internet: yeah this license isnt really open source
    microsoft: We have heard the feedback and are continuing our awesome open source initiative.
    internet: its cool. since you spent 40 years trying to force people to use your crappy software, we came up with other open source tools that all either do the same thing, or do it much better than yours.
    microsoft: Here is calculator. It is a small but advanced tool you can use
    internet: Linux has about 34 different calculators already. and they run in windows too.
    microsoft: Yes yes, you are welcome. finally, A calculator that is open source. now if youll excuse me, ive only got 2 plays left on my zune copy of mmm-bop and id like to enjoy them.

    --
    Good people go to bed earlier.
  4. Re: Port to Linux by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    >_ Why did you pay $5 for a calculator on your phone?

    Good thing you ask. Not the OP but let me take this very easy answer.

    A long time ago there was an excellent distro called Mandriva. The people there they were so good they were not only the best distribution, compatible with everything, but they provided the best infrastructure to allow many explorations for the various needs of a lot of use cases. Well, without further digression, let's say they weren't able to make money.

    I now happen to use an excellent Android calculator. It's so good it just made me forget or even think about purchasing a real device. I should pay the guy -- the product is so well done it makes me feel guilty for not paying and fear that the coder might go broke -- just like Mandriva.

    Sometimes not paying just because you can is not the most rational decision. Welcome to the sharing economy.