Windows Forms is just a wrapper around the GUI parts of the Windows API. Even if they do open it it won't help anyone port Windows Forms to anything else, since

Windows Forms is just a wrapper around the GUI parts of the Windows API. Even if they do open it it won't help anyone port Windows Forms to anything else, since the real display logic is implemented in the huge legacy codebase that is user32.dll, gdi32.dll and so forth. Now, I would be glad if they open source WPF, which is very well designed GUI framework that could be great for cross platform apps, but it seems like they've kinda abandoned the XAML front. Even releasing existing code to open source takes resources, and Microsoft is not charity. I'd say the same thing about porting Microsoft Office to Linux. Microsoft has, in fact, released Office apps for Android, and they would definitely rush to release office for desktop Linux if it had a non-negligible number of users. Maybe next year - after all 2017 is poised to be the year of the Linux desktop! So Yeah, I think Microsoft has really changed. Of course it's all because they're not the market leader anymore and they need to survive! Yes, they can no longer succeed just by making a buggier version of tech X and pimping it on MSDN Magazine and have flocks of developers run to implement their latest version of COM++. So what? It doesn't make it any less real. You should be suspicious about Microsoft's motive as much as I'm suspicious about Google or Apple or any other large company. But bringing up Embrace, Extend and Extinguish every time Microsoft does something makes you sound only a little less anachronistic than writing their name with a dollar sign.