At its Build 2025 conference, Microsoft open sourced a number of apps and tools, including a new command-line text editor for Windows called Edit.
Open source software may not earn the company direct revenue, but it can serve as a form of market research — and a funnel to paid applications and services. By contributing to the open source community, Microsoft gains valuable knowledge and product suggestions, as well as ideas for future directions.
Edit, which will be installed by default on Windows via the Windows Insider Program beginning this summer, will allow developers to edit files directly in the command line by running the command “edit.” The goal is to minimize unnecessary context switching and let developers stay in their current flows, says Microsoft.
Elsewhere, Microsoft is open sourcing GitHub Copilot in VS Code, its assistive coding extension for Visual Studio Code. Over the next few months, AI-powered capabilities from the GitHub Copilot extension will migrate to the VS Code open source repository, says Microsoft.
Lastly, Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), the feature in Windows that allows users to run a Linux environment directly on their Windows system, will be open sourced, says Microsoft. This will allow developers to access the source code and make any changes they may need for a particular use case.