Neowin News Feed for: Open-source

LibreOffice bashes Microsoft for "absurd" OOXML format and Excel's handling of dates

Usama Jawad — Wed, 20 May 2026 19:42:01 +0000

LibreOffice just launched another brutal attack on Microsoft Office, accusing it of trapping users with broken and misleading file standards. Read more...

France ditches Windows in favor of Linux

Usama Jawad — Sat, 11 Apr 2026 22:12:02 +0000

France is preparing to replace Windows across its government, marking a major move toward EU- and Linux-based alternatives and greater control over its digital infrastructure. Read more...

You can totally install FreeBSD on these laptops without issues, claims OS maintainer

Usama Jawad — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 21:46:02 +0000

A new initiative highlights which laptops can run FreeBSD without issues, indicating broader hardware support than many might expect. Read more...

Someone finally made a modern Windows Task Scheduler with Fluent Design

Usama Jawad — Tue, 03 Mar 2026 15:34:01 +0000

Windows 11's forgotten Task Scheduler just got a sleek Fluent makeover from a fan, and it might make you ditch the classic app. Read more...

"Open source Windows" ReactOS is now 30 years old

Usama Jawad — Fri, 23 Jan 2026 06:44:01 +0000

ReactOS, which many refer to as the "open source version of Windows" has reached its 30th birthday. Development on the free project is still actively going on. Read more...

German state finally ditches Outlook, now dumping Office

Usama Jawad — Wed, 15 Oct 2025 12:08:01 +0000

A German state has successfully dropped Exchange Server and Outlook in favor of open-source alternatives like Mozilla Thunderbird. It plans to dump SharePoint and Microsoft Office next. Read more...

Intel exec not happy with nature of current open-source investments

Usama Jawad — Fri, 10 Oct 2025 22:14:02 +0000

It seems that Intel will be scaling back on its open-source initiatives after an executive expressed dissatisfaction at the current state of affairs. Read more...

LibreOffice improves interoperability with Microsoft Office files

Usama Jawad — Sat, 30 Aug 2025 10:40:01 +0000

LibreOffice's latest version has enhanced compatibility and interoperability with Microsoft Office files. Read more...

Llama Fund is a controversial platform to crowdfund AI models

Usama Jawad — Tue, 26 Aug 2025 13:16:01 +0000

Someone has started a crowdfunding platform to finance LLMs which will eventually be released as open-source models, and it sounds like a terrible idea on paper. Read more...

Everyone seems powerless against Oracle's ownership of the JavaScript trademark

Usama Jawad — Sun, 29 Jun 2025 15:32:01 +0000

The case against Oracle's ownership of the JavaScript trademark has been dealt a significant blow, but hope persists as the petition from Node.js' creator has not been dismissed completely. Read more...

City in France is latest to ditch Windows and Office in favor of Linux and FOSS alternatives

Usama Jawad — Fri, 27 Jun 2025 11:34:01 +0000

The third-largest city in France has decided to ditch Microsoft's software offerings in favor of open-source alternatives like Linux. Read more...

End of Firefox? Google joined by Linux, Microsoft and more to make Chrome, Edge better

Sayan Sen — Thu, 09 Jan 2025 20:48:01 +0000

Microsoft, Google, Linux, Meta, and more are coming together today to form a new "Supporters of Chromium-Based Browsers" group. Read more...

Generative AI labelled ‘quite stupid' by Meta's Nick Clegg

Paul Hill — Wed, 19 Jul 2023 12:28:01 +0000

Nick Clegg, the former UK deputy prime minister, has called generative AI 'quite stupid' in an interview with BBC. He said open-sourcing Llama 2 is a safe thing to do despite criticisms. Read more...

Class-action lawsuit filed against Microsoft's GitHub Copilot for software piracy

Usama Jawad — Fri, 04 Nov 2022 03:08:01 +0000

A programmer has filed a lawsuit against Microsoft, GitHub, and OpenAI for their GitHub Copilot tool, alleging that it basically allows Microsoft to profit off of the work of others, without consent. Read more...

Google announces new Vulnerability Reward Program specifically for open source software

Usama Jawad — Tue, 30 Aug 2022 11:00:02 +0000

Google has revealed an expansion to its Vulnerability Reward Program (VRP). It is designed to encourage privately reporting security flaws in open source software in exchange for monetary rewards. Read more...

Microsoft won't ban open-source apps from its app store, for now

Alap Naik Desai — Fri, 08 Jul 2022 21:48:01 +0000

Microsoft has postponed its decision to ban the sale of open-source apps on the Microsoft Store. The company has clarified it is not against FOSS, and will delay implementation to clarify its intent. Read more...

No Language Left Behind: Meta's new AI model can translate 200 languages

Usama Jawad — Thu, 07 Jul 2022 07:44:01 +0000

Meta has built an language model that translates across 200 languages better than the competition at an average of 44%. It has up to 54.5 billion parameters and has been open-sourced on GitHub. Read more...

Microsoft opens-sources GODEL language model for realistic conversations

Usama Jawad — Fri, 24 Jun 2022 05:50:01 +0000

Microsoft has announced that it is open-sourcing its latest GODEL conversational AI, which enables goal-oriented interactions while still providing external information, just like a real conversation. Read more...

Open-Source code is unsafe and risky because of its rampant use, claims report

Alap Naik Desai — Tue, 21 Jun 2022 18:16:02 +0000

Open-Source code is quite popular as it reduces the software development cycle. However, rampant use of the same is increasing security concerns. Companies must have some policy to deal with risks. Read more...

New Microsoft Store policies make it harder to scam users with paid versions of free apps

Taras Buria — Fri, 17 Jun 2022 15:30:01 +0000

Microsoft has updated the policies each app should follow to be listed in the Microsoft Store on Windows 11 and 10. New rules should make it harder for bad developers to scam users with paid apps. Read more...

Microsoft brings Linux XDP project to Windows

Usama Jawad — Wed, 25 May 2022 06:40:01 +0000

Microsoft has started work on XDP for Windows, which is based on a popular Linux project that enables low latency and high throughput for apps. The firm's implementation is open-source on GitHub. Read more...

Microsoft Weekly: Windows 3D Movie Maker, leaked Outlook, and Defender troubles

Usama Jawad — Sat, 07 May 2022 17:16:02 +0000

In this week's recap of everything that happened in the Microsoft-verse, we have some juicy news items related to Windows 3D Movie Maker from 1995, a leaked Outlook client, and some Defender woes. Read more...

These are Microsoft's top 10 most popular open-source GitHub repositories

Usama Jawad — Fri, 06 May 2022 17:16:01 +0000

How much do you know about the top open-source GitHub repositories developed and maintained by Microsoft? If you don't know a lot but would like to start with some basics, check out our new listicle! Read more...

Package Analysis Project: Google will help detect malicious open source packages

Usama Jawad — Fri, 29 Apr 2022 07:58:01 +0000

Google has pledged support for OpenSSF's Package Analysis Project for open source packages uploaded to popular repositories. It has also published the results which paint a rather interesting picture. Read more...

Android devices with Security Patch older than Dec 2021 remain vulnerable to security risk

Alap Naik Desai — Thu, 21 Apr 2022 20:40:01 +0000

Nearly all Android smartphones and devices packing MediaTek or Qualcomm with a Security Patch dated prior to December 2021 remain vulnerable to an RCE security bug that can allow eavesdropping. Read more...

Google: Here are all the things we learned while building 100 major versions of Chrome

Usama Jawad — Thu, 07 Apr 2022 11:48:01 +0000

Following the release of 100 major versions of Chrome, Google executives have penned their thoughts on their key learnings regarding performance, security, privacy, and more since 2008. Read more...

Microsoft announces tools to measure browser performance on Android and Linux

Usama Jawad — Wed, 08 Dec 2021 08:12:02 +0000

Microsoft has introduced a new set of tools that can be used to measure system performance. The company has emphasized its utility as a way to measure browser performance on Android and Linux. Read more...

Microsoft's low-code programming language Power Fx is now open-source

Usama Jawad — Tue, 02 Nov 2021 06:04:01 +0000

Microsoft has now open-sourced the source code of its low-code programming language for the Power Platform, Power Fx. Previously, only the documentation of the language was open-source. Read more...

The Linux Foundation raises $10 million to expand and support the OpenSSF

Fiza Ali — Wed, 13 Oct 2021 16:00:01 +0000

Cybersecurity, financial, and tech firms are responding to President Biden's Cybersecurity Executive Order. For this, the Linux Foundation is providing the collective, and neutral forum, OpenSSF. Read more...

IBM's ModelMesh goes open-source, enabling developers to deploy AI models at scale

Usama Jawad — Wed, 13 Oct 2021 13:00:01 +0000

IBM has announced that it is open-sourcing ModelMesh, its model-serving management layer powering Watson products. ModelMesh will enable the deployment of AI models at "extreme scale" on Kubernetes. Read more...

TriggerMesh launches Integration Platform for Kubernetes

Fiza Ali — Tue, 12 Oct 2021 13:00:02 +0000

With the launch of TriggerMesh's open-source cloud-native Integration Platform, Kubernetes users can now effortlessly connect data and applications across multiple on-premises and clouds data centers. Read more...

Google commits to solving security problems in open-source projects like Git and Laravel

Usama Jawad — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 05:24:01 +0000

As a part of its commitment to U.S. President Joe Biden, Google has joined hands with the Open Source Technology Improvement Fund (OSTIF) to manage security priorities and fix flaws in eight projects. Read more...

Microsoft offers GPU-accelerated ML training on Windows 10 and WSL via TensorFlow-DirectML

Usama Jawad — Fri, 10 Sep 2021 07:08:01 +0000

Microsoft has worked with the open-source community, Intel, AMD, and Nvidia to offer TensorFlow-DirectML, a project that allows accelerated training of machine learning models on DirectX 12 GPUs. Read more...

Google announces Private Compute Core Services for deeper network and ML model isolation

Usama Jawad — Fri, 10 Sep 2021 06:38:01 +0000

Google has unveiled Private Compute Core Services that utilize a set of open-source APIs to ensure that machine learning models for Private Compute Core features update over a private path. Read more...

Microsoft is now a Strategic Member of the Eclipse Foundation

Usama Jawad — Tue, 03 Aug 2021 16:16:01 +0000

Microsoft has upgraded its position at the Eclipse Foundation to become a Strategic Member as of today. It will be contributing dedicated resources to work on the development of Eclipse technology. Read more...

AWS announces two substantial updates to Amazon Braket

Ather Fawaz — Wed, 09 Dec 2020 05:50:01 +0000

Amazon's quantum computing service has been integrated with PennyLane to speed up the development of quantum-hybrid algorithms. It also has a new tensor network simulator that supports 50 qubits. Read more...

Google brings Flutter to Windows in Alpha form, aims to add UWP support soon

Abhay V — Wed, 23 Sep 2020 19:18:01 +0000

After a few months in technical preview, Google is bringing its open-source, cross-platform framework, Flutter, to Windows in Alpha, with the company working to add UWP support soon. Read more...

Microsoft's GitHub buys Pull Panda to improve workflows

João Carrasqueira — Mon, 17 Jun 2019 20:02:01 +0000

GitHub, the open-source development platform Microsoft acquired last year, has made a new purchase of its own, absorbing Pull Panda and making all of its features available for free. Read more...

Former Vuze developers launch new open-source torrent client without any ads or bloat

Stergios Georgopoulos — Fri, 04 Aug 2017 11:44:01 +0000

Two of Vuze's core developers who recently left the company have created BiglyBT, a new multi-platform open source torrent client that is completely ad-free and is licensed under the GPL. Read more...

Microsoft open-sources Visual Studio Code extension for Arduino

Usama Jawad — Thu, 06 Jul 2017 18:50:01 +0000

Microsoft has announced that the Visual Studio Code extension for Arduino is now open-source and that those interested can help improve it for the entire community of Arduino developers. Read more...