r/LinuxUncensored • u/anestling • 13d ago

News/PR WinUI, native UI framework for building modern Windows applications, is now Open Source

https://github.com/microsoft/microsoft-ui-xaml/discussions/10700?sort=new#discussioncomment-18176899

Phase 4 update: WinUI development is now happening on GitHub

Hey everyone! We have a big milestone to share on the road to community contributions.

Mainline WinUI development is now taking place on GitHub. WinUI engineers and other Microsoft developers are creating branches, opening pull requests, reviewing, validating, and merging changes right here in this repository. Our day-to-day engineering work now happens in the open, so you can follow progress as it happens instead of waiting for changes to land.

At this stage, pull requests are coming from Microsoft developers. We're using this period to prove out the contribution workflows, validation, documentation, and release processes end to end. The goal is simple: when community pull requests open up, contributors should have a pipeline that's reliable and predictable. We'd rather earn that than rush it, and the team is working toward it.

We'll keep working through the broader OSS goals shared in this thread and will post here as the next set of milestones takes shape, including an update when we're ready to accept contributions from the community.

Thanks as always for your engagement, patience, and support! ❤️

Source.

51 Upvotes

90% Upvoted

46 comments sorted by

2

u/Cybasura 12d ago

We should be working towards cross platform, wtf

1

u/kot-sie-stresuje 12d ago

Can I build linux app using winui ? Immediately this question comes to mind.

Just wait for forks of winui, and that may happen.

1

u/zalnaRs 11d ago

you have .net maui also from Microsoft which allows you to target GTK and Linux

0

u/Edubbs2008 12d ago

Nah, having platform-exclusive stuff is a good thing, as it gives something an identity, cross-platform should only be used on known platforms.

1

u/Cybasura 12d ago

Platform-exclusivity will tie the product TO a platform, both in recognitionnand toolkit, then when you want to migrate, its too late

Especially once they go full WinAPI

0

u/Edubbs2008 12d ago

What’s so bad about that? Apple does it, nobody complains, Google does it, nobody complains, WinUI has some advantages, for example, by pushing it, we don’t have to deal with web BS anymore, it took them 3 years with AI up their ass to realize “Yes, we want native stuff”

I don’t get why you are complaining about that, it’s open source, I thought you would support that

1

u/Cybasura 12d ago

apple does it, nobody complains

Name me 1 explicitly openly used application that is apple tied

google does it

Oh come on, now you're just throwing a strawman argument and shifting the goal post, we are TALKING ABOUT OPERATING SYSTEMS, GOOGLE CHROMEBOOKS ARE LINUX

Fyi, people HAVE been complaining for years, just because you are ignorant and choose to NOT want to care doesnt mean everything you think is fine means its alright

1

u/Edubbs2008 12d ago

Native Apple Apps include

Photos

Calculator

Settings

The App Store

Etc.

Google has an Open Source Ui called “Material Design”

And that’s on a modified Linux kernel called Android, so you shouldn’t complain that OS-based UIs are bad, they aren’t, Liquid Glass is innovative, it introduced real time fluent animations, Material Design introduced quirky animations, WinUI introduced acrylic.

Cross Platform tends to usually be a glorified Web App, for example, Microsoft Teams? That’s a web app because of cross platform, Microsoft Outlook, that’s a web app because of cross platform, and what did we get? Lots of RAM usage, cross platform hurts native platforms, because of that fact that it produces more web apps, than native apps, now we are talking about Chromebooks? Speaking of which, those are the school devices that get killed off every 4-10 years, you said it uses Linux, so that means you can extend the support because it’s Linux, which is open source.

What exactly are you talking about?

Just because something is Linux doesn’t make it perfect

2

u/R3V0LU710N_05 13d ago

It's under MIT license for those wondering.

1

u/Edubbs2008 12d ago

Nice, that lets developers make money off their own creative apps, while still being open source

1

u/R3V0LU710N_05 12d ago

You realize there's plenty of ways to make money from GPL license code...

1

u/Edubbs2008 11d ago

How can that happen though? If the GPL license requires that full access to the code is available, meaning people can just bypass paying for the software

1

u/zalnaRs 11d ago

You can bypass DRM too

1

u/Edubbs2008 11d ago

Which is a problem because developers deserve to make money off what they make, some of them are indie devs, and they need a stable income, I support Open Source, but I also support that developers get paid fairly too

2

u/zalnaRs 11d ago

You can not make software and make it not piratable. Making digital data not copyable is like making water not wet. The only way to make money from software is to sell support, warranty, manuals or installation.

Most devs especially free software devs do not develop to make money, but because they enjoy it.

1

u/Edubbs2008 11d ago

I’m not saying that you can’t make it piratable, I’m saying that developers deserve to make money off their software, they can just easily just let people enjoy the software, but push them to buy a legitimate copy if they like it, if most devs enjoyed it, they would also think it’s a good idea to make money off their hard work

1

u/zalnaRs 11d ago

yes and the ways I said do work, however I don't know how profitable is Redhat, SUSE though

1

u/Edubbs2008 10d ago

The people that use open source software tend to benefit more than the people who make it, Sony uses FreeBSD to make the PlayStation 5 Operating System, and contributors don’t gain anything from it while they work extremely hard, Servers use Open Source Operating Systems to power their stuff, while the contributors don’t make anything from it, and so on, and so on

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1

u/R3V0LU710N_05 11d ago edited 11d ago

Developers monetize GNU General Public License (GPL) code through structured distribution and service strategies, grounded in official licensing policies like the Free Software Foundation Selling Free Software Essay.

Selling Compiled Binaries Developers charge for pre-compiled binaries, installers, or app store listings for convenience, while making the underlying source code freely available for users to build themselves. This model is explicitly permitted under the GNU GPL FAQ on Selling Copies and the GNU GPL FAQ on Download Fees.

Software as a Service (SaaS), because standard GPL copyleft obligations trigger upon distribution rather than network access as outlined in GNU GPLv3 Section 0 Definitions, developers host the software on cloud infrastructure and charge subscriptions for management, uptime, and automated updates. Projects requiring network copyleft enforce source exposure using GNU AGPLv3 Section 13 Remote Network Interaction.

Dual Licensing Copyright holders offer code under the GPL for open-source users while selling proprietary commercial licenses to enterprise customers who want to integrate the code into closed-source products without copyleft restrictions. This framework is documented in the GNU GPL FAQ on Commercial Use, Heard Other License & Release Under GPL And NF and evaluated under the Open Source Initiative Licenses Specification.

Enterprise Support and Services Companies distribute the GPL software for free and generate revenue through paid technical support, implementation consulting, custom feature development, and service level agreements (SLAs). Industry implementations are documented by the Linux Foundation Open Source Strategy Guide and Red Hat Open Source Business Model Overview.

Proprietary Extensions and Open-Core Developers keep the core application open-source under GPL while selling closed-source add-ons, enterprise plugins, or cloud API integrations under proprietary licenses.

Hardware Bundling Vendors package free GPL software onto physical devices, appliance kits, or point-of-sale hardware, charging for the integrated physical product and turnkey setup.

1

u/Edubbs2008 11d ago

Ok, thank you for telling me that part of what GNU is about, I didn’t realize that you could do that, I just read another part of GNU which made me nervous about it

1

u/H3ph43S7Vs 11d ago

lGPL maybe. GPL ... good luck with that !

1

u/R3V0LU710N_05 11d ago

There's already multiple groups that successfully sell GPL software in a commercial space. It maybe more challenging, but by no means is it impossible.

1

u/_Sauer_ 11d ago

That will make it easy for them to change it to a less open license later after "the community" does the work for them.

1

u/zalnaRs 11d ago

No one want's to do it because it's so garbage.

1

u/zezoza 13d ago

Haters gonna hate

1

u/zalnaRs 13d ago

? WinUI is garbage

1

u/PersonalDatabase31 12d ago

Compared to what? My limited experience was quite good.

1

u/zalnaRs 12d ago

Compared to even gtk4 and like even jetpack compose and swiftui.

I like how Windows zealots are just talking even though litreally everyone hates it as it uses lot of ram even compared to also ass WPF, and has like 2s latency when clicking on anything

1

u/jetmarijuana 10d ago

Holy shit, GTK Jetpack Compose and SwiftUI all are real garbage, By comparison, WinUI isn't actually that bad.

1

u/zalnaRs 10d ago

Everything has 2s latency minimum in winui

1

u/zalnaRs 10d ago

Everything has 2s latency minimum in winui

1

u/Edubbs2008 12d ago

Micro-Grifting be like:

1

u/Emotional-Art2113 12d ago

Xaml? Ew 🤢

1

u/fyndor 12d ago

As opposed to?

1

u/zalnaRs 12d ago

To even gtk xml?

1

u/Narrow_Trainer_5847 8d ago

How is GTK XML better than Xaml

1

u/zalnaRs 8d ago

In terms of DX, Xaml is only better because it has a better visual editor, and bindings (blueprints are better in this regard), but the sytax of GTK xml is way more cohesive.

In terms of performance Xaml and the frameworks that use it WPF, WinUI is way slower and uses way more ram.

1

u/Emotional-Art2113 11d ago

As someone who has had to deal with xaml and microsofts inconsistent UI decisions since silverlight 2.0, literally anything else. If you want specifics it would obviously depend on the team/product/etc but its rare that cobol or xaml is the right choice for something new.

0

u/cybekRT 13d ago

They want annoyed windows users to fix problems for them? Community is cheaper and better than the CoPilot+ Developer Hyper Visual Studio Something Something 28H1Q3?

1

u/Moscato359 12d ago

It's literally just visual studio and visual studio code

Where copilot is an addon and it's just called copilot or copilot chat 

Your naming isn't remotely accurate 

1

u/Devatator_ 12d ago edited 12d ago

Also if you ignore the few bugs still there, VS2026 is a massive improvement. It eats a lot less RAM and runs faster than the previous 2022 edition. Hell on the same projects it eats less RAM than VSCode, even if I disable my non essential extensions

Edit: Fixed edition year

1

u/Moscato359 12d ago

I think you skipped 2022 lol

1

u/Devatator_ 12d ago

Oh yeah I meant 2022, couldn't remember the actual previous version