Ecosystem
Microsoft is proud to support amazing open source projects, initiatives, and foundations, to offer Azure credits to open source projects, and to make upstream contributions to thousands of open source projects on GitHub and beyond.
The examples on this page are just a few of the ways that we're working with the broader open source ecosystem to collectively empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.
FOSS Fund
The Free and Open Source Software Fund (FOSS Fund) is a way for our employees to collectively select open source projects to receive sponsorship awards throughout the year.
Microsoft's engineers select projects they are super passionate about. Only employees who contribute to open source projects can participate in the selection process.
The following projects are a subset of the many that have been sponsored.
Learn about the Microsoft FOSS Fund process and see the full list of sponsored projects
Chayn
Award-winning feminist tech project helping survivors of abuse get the information & support they need. Open-source. Volunteer-run. 'Design with, not for.
Chayn is a global nonprofit, run by survivors and allies from around the world, creating resources to inform and support the healing of survivors of gender-based violence. We create open source online resources and services for survivors of abuse that are trauma-informed, intersectional, multi-lingual and feminist.
chayn.co
hikaya
Hikaya, which means story in Arabic works with nonprofits to introduce a set of integrated tools that re-engineer how data are used within these organizations.
By building open source solutions on common data standards,hikaya will be able to help nonprofits worldwide improve their delivery of goods and services to those most in need while making reporting to funders more transparent.
https://github.com/hikaya-io
.NET Nano Framework
.NET nanoFramework goal is to be a platform that enables the writing of managed code applications for constrained embedded devices. Developers can harness the familiar IDE Visual Studio and their .NET (C#) knowledge to quickly write applications without having to worry about the low level hardware intricacies of a micro-controller.
Developers can harness the familiar IDE Visual Studio and their .NET (C#) knowledge to quickly write applications without having to worry about the low level hardware intricacies of a micro-controller.
https://github.com/nanoframework/home
Ngrx
Reactive Extensions for Angular. Used by many Microsoft projects.
Sponsorship towards core contributor Brandon Roberts.
https://github.com/ngrx/
Ooui
A small cross-platform UI library that brings the simplicity of native UI development to the web.
Ooui(pronounced weee!) is a small cross-platform UI library for .NET that uses web technologies.
github.com/praeclarum/Oouisyn
Syn is a parsing library for parsing a stream of Rust tokens into a syntax tree of Rust source code.
47% of all published Rust crates on crates.io depend transitively on syn. The Microsoft windows crate as well as the Azure SDK for Rust depend on syn for code generation. Sponsorship to maintainer David Tolnay.
github.com/dtolnay/syn
ESLint
Find and fix problems in your JavaScript code.
Engineers across Microsoft love ESLint and use it as an important part of their inner dev loop. ESLint makes the JavaScript and TypeScript world more consistent and helps everyone be more efficient in delivering value.
https://github.com/eslint/eslint
dbaTools
dbatools is PowerShell module that you may think of like a command-line SQL Server Management Studio.
dbatools saved me and many Microsoft DBAs a lot of time when it comes to managing SQL. It is always one of the first PowerShell modules I install on my notebook.
https://github.com/dataplat/dbatoolsColorama
A simple cross-platform colored terminal text in Python
This is a critical project in the Python ecosystem for enabling 'normal' color output to work on Windows. It is used by a wide variety of projects, including the Azure CLI and pip. Sponsorship to maintainer Jonathan Hartley.
github.com/tartley/colorama
Grain
The Grain compiler toolchain and CLI. Home of the modern web staple.
Grain is an exciting new language targeting the WebAssembly runtime. Grain aims to modernize innovative features from functional and academic programming languages and bring them to the masses. It is a flexible and easy-to-learn functional programming language. Because it compiles to Wasm, it runs across OSes and architectures, in browswer and out of browser..
github.com/grain-lang/grain
Hikaya
Hikaya, which means story in Arabic works with nonprofits to introduce a set of integrated tools that re-engineer how data are used within these organizations. By building open source solutions on common data standards, they help nonprofits worldwide improve their delivery of goods and services to those most in need while making reporting to funders more transparent.
Activity is a tool that makes it easier for nonprofits to manage their project activities and KPI results. Activity is based on an open source project started at Mercy Corps in 2014. Activity is hosted and maintained by Hikaya and can be used any nonprofit: https://activity.hikaya.app/
https://github.com/hikaya-io
QEMU
QEMU is a generic and open source machine emulator and virtualizer. Virtualization is a fundamental piece for effective OS development and beyond, be it emulating a bare-metal K8s environment or testing software on various OSes. QEMU also enables users to run an operating system other than there current one.
QEMU is the most universal virtualization software and I consider it a critical infrastructure. It also enables binary translation to execute foreign architecture binaries (e.g. container images).
qemu.orgOptiKey
OptiKey is an on-screen keyboard that is designed to help Motor Neuron Disease (MND) patients interact with Windows computers.
OptiKey is a free on-screen-keyboard for eye-tracking devices. It enables people with motor disabilities to use a computer, even if they cannot afford one of the expensive commercial alternatives.
https://github.com/OptiKey
Reproducible Builds
Reproducible builds are a set of software development practices that create an independently-verifiable path from source to binary code.
Reproducible Builds is important to secure supply chain efforts across the company as well as many of our security initiatives.
reproducible-builds
Babel
Babel is a toolchain that is mainly used to convert ECMAScript 2015+ code into a backwards compatible version of JavaScript in current and older browsers or environments.
Babel is a toolchain that is mainly used to convert ECMAScript 2015+ code into a backwards compatible version of JavaScript in current and older browsers or environments.
https://github.com/sponsors/babel
OpenStreetMap
OpenStreetMap is built by a community of mappers that contribute and maintain data about roads, trails, cafés, railway stations, and much more, all over the world.
OpenStreetMap is built by a community of mappers that contribute and maintain data about roads, trails, cafés, railway stations, and much more, all over the world.
https://www.openstreetmap.org/about
CURL
curl is used in command lines or scripts to transfer data. curl is used daily by virtually every Internet-using human on the globe.
Curl is a command-line tool for transferring data specified with URL syntax.ibcurl is the library curl is using to do its job.
https://github.com/curl/curl
MSYS2
MSYS2 is a collection of tools and libraries providing you with an easy-to-use environment for building, installing and running native Windows software.
MSYS2 is a collection of tools and libraries providing you with an easy-to-use environment for building, installing and running native Windows software.
https://github.com/msys2
Leaflet
Leaflet is the leading open-source JavaScript library for mobile-friendly interactive maps. Weighing just about 39 KB of gzipped JS plus 4 KB of gzipped CSS code, it has all the mapping features most developers ever need.
https://github.com/Leaflet/Leaflet
systemd
systemd is a suite of basic building blocks for a Linux system. It provides a system and service manager that runs as PID 1 and starts the rest of the system.
https://systemd.io/
rust-analyzer
rust-analyzer is an implementation of Language Server Protocol for the Rust programming language. It provides features like completion and goto definition for many code editors, including VS Code, Emacs and Vim.
There is a large Rust fanbase at Microsoft, and engineers using Rust find themselves using rust-analyzer every day. It's often paired with Visual Studio Code by productive Rust engineers.
rust-analyzer.github.io
GNOME
The GNOME community not only provides the tech stack and applications for a user-friendly Linux desktop, it is also pioneering in fostering inclusiveness and diversity through the community standards.
https://www.gnome.org/
Godot Engine
Game development is an exciting way to learn to program that reaches people who might have never started otherwise. Godot is a beginner-friendly game engine with a vibrant community supporting many people who are new to programming. The inclusion of C# support means that skills are immediately transferable to real-world programming, vs. other engines that only work with a game-development-specific language or visual scripting.
https://github.com/godotengine
Webpack
Webpack is a module bundler. Its main purpose is to bundle JavaScript files for usage in a browser, yet it is also capable of transforming, bundling, or packaging just about any resource or asset.
https://github.com/webpack/webpack
mermaid-js
Mermaid is a JavaScript-based diagramming and charting tool that uses Markdown-inspired text definitions and a renderer to create and modify complex diagrams. The main purpose of Mermaid is to help documentation catch up with development.
https://github.com/mermaid-js/mermaid
OpenSSL
OpenSSL is one of the most important and critical software used in the IT - it provides a set of cryptographic algorithms used by many software and devices to ensure security in communications, e-commerce, remote work and more.
https://www.openssl.org/Erick Zimmerman's Forensic Tools
Eric Zimmerman teaches DFIR (digital forensics and incident response) and has become a leading expert in extracting forensic artifacts from systems.We are deeply appreciative of Zimmerman's open source software.
https://github.com/EricZimmerman?tab=repositories
LLVM
The LLVM Project is a collection of modular and reusable compiler and toolchain technologies.
https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project/
Mastodon
A self-hosted, globally interconnected microblogging community
https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon
MQTT.js
The LLVM Project is a collection of modular and reusable compiler and toolchain technologies.
https://github.com/mqttjs/MQTT.jsSQLitePCLRaw
SQLitePCLRaw is a Portable Class Library (PCL) for low-level (raw) access to SQLite.
https://github.com/ericsink/SQLitePCL.raw
ImageSharp
A modern, cross-platform, 2D Graphics library for .NET.
This sponsorship is currently being processed. The selection process completed in August 2020.
SixLabors/ImageSharp
Network Time Protocol
(NTP) is a networking protocol for clock synchronization between computer systems over packet-switched, variable-latency data networks.
https://www.ntp.org/
NVDA
NVDA (NonVisual Desktop Access) is a free, open source screen reader for Microsoft Windows.
NVDA is developed by NV Access in collaboration with a global community of contributors.
https://github.com/nvaccess/nvda
matplotlib
Matplotlib is a comprehensive library for creating static, animated, and interactive visualizations in Python.
Matplotlib produces publication-quality figures in a variety of hardcopy formats and interactive environments across platforms. Matplotlib can be used in Python scripts, the Python and IPython shell, web application servers, and various graphical user interface toolkits.
https://github.com/matplotlib/matplotlib
Home Assistant
Open source home automation that puts local control and privacy first.
Powered by a worldwide community of tinkerers and DIY enthusiasts.
home-assitant.io
ILSpy
ILSpy is the open-source .NET assembly browser and decompiler.
ILSpy ships in Visual Studio and is powering the important Decompilation feature, used by many VS users.
ilspy.netSharpLab
SharpLab is a .NET code playground that shows intermediate steps and results of code compilation.
Sharplab is an interactive, online C#, VB, and F# compiler that is heavily used by both the Roslyn team and the wider .NET community.
github.com/SharplabFoundations & Initiatives
Microsoft is proud to participate, partner, and sponsor many amazing initiatives to better the open source ecosystem.
Alliance for Open Media
Next Generation, Open-Source Digital Media Technology for Everyone
Alliance for Open Media
The mission of the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) is to provide software for the public good. They do this by providing services and support for many software project communities consisting of individuals who choose to participate in ASF activities.
Visit the Apache Software Foundation
The Confidential Computing Consortium (CCC) brings together hardware vendors, cloud providers, and software developers to accelerate the adoption of Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) technologies and standards.
About CCC
ClearlyDefined is on a mission to help FOSS projects thrive by being, well, clearly defined. Lack of clarity around licenses and security vulnerabilities reduces engagement — that means fewer users, fewer contributors and a smaller community.
About ClearlyDefined
The Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) hosts critical components of the global technology infrastructure. CNCF brings together the world’s top developers, end users, and vendors and runs the largest open source developer conferences.
Visit CNCF
DIF is an engineering-driven organization focused on developing the foundational elements necessary to establish an open ecosystem for decentralized identity and ensure interop between all participants.
About DIF
The .NET Foundation is an independent, non-profit organization established to support an innovative, commercially friendly, open-source ecosystem around the .NET platform.
Visit the .NET Foundation
The Eclipse Foundation provides our global community of individuals and organizations with a mature, scalable, and business-friendly environment for open source software collaboration and innovation.
Visit the Eclipse Foundation
LF Networking supports the largest set of networking projects with the broadest community in the industry that collaborate on this opportunity.
About LF Networking
The Linux Foundation supports the creation of sustainable open source ecosystems by providing financial and intellectual resources, infrastructure, services, events, and training.
Visit The Linux Foundation
The Open Container Initiative is an open governance structure for the express purpose of creating open industry standards around container formats and runtimes.
Visit the Open Container Initiative
The Open Compute Project (OCP) is reimagining hardware, making it more efficient, flexible, and scalable. Join our global community of technology leaders working together to break open the black box of proprietary IT infrastructure to achieve greater choice, customization, and cost savings.
The OpenInfra Foundation supports the development and adoption of open infrastructure globally.
Visit the Open Infrastructure Foundation
The OpenAPI Specification: a broadly adopted industry standard for describing modern APIs.
OpenAPI Site
The OpenChain Project defines the key requirements of a quality open source compliance program.
Learn about OpenChain Certification...
The OpenJS Foundation is made up of 32 open source JavaScript projects including Appium, Dojo, Electron, jQuery, Node.js, and webpack. Our mission is to support the healthy growth of JavaScript and web technologies by providing a neutral organization to host and sustain projects, as well as collaboratively fund activities that benefit the ecosystem as a whole.
OpenJS
The OpenSSF brings together work from the Linux Foundation-initiated Core Infrastructure Initiative (CII), the GitHub-initiated Open Source Security Coalition (OSSC), and other open-source security efforts to improve the security of open-source software by building a broader community, targeted initiatives, and best practices.
Visit OpenSSF
For over 20 years the Open Source Initiative (OSI) has worked to raise awareness and adoption of open source software, and build bridges between open source communities of practice. As a global non-profit, the OSI champions software freedom in society through education, collaboration, and infrastructure, stewarding the Open Source Definition (OSD), and preventing abuse of the ideals and ethos inherent to the open source movement.
Visit the OSI
Outreachy provides remote internships. Outreachy supports diversity in open source and free software!
Visit Outreachy
The central mission of the R Consortium is to work with and provide support to the R Foundation and to the key organizations developing, maintaining, distributing and using R software through the identification, development and implementation of infrastructure projects.
About the R Consortium
The Rust Foundation is an independent non-profit organization to steward the Rust programming language and ecosystem, with a unique focus on supporting the set of maintainers that govern and develop the project.
Visit the Rust Foundation
Does your company release open source projects? Would you like to improve how you interact with the open source community to better manage and run your projects? TODO is an open group of companies who want to collaborate on practices, tools, and other ways to run successful and effective open source projects and programs.
TODO: Talk openly. Develop openly.Azure Credits
We are offering Azure credits to open source projects for their use for testing, builds, and other infrustructure support needs. Projects must apply for credits. Applications are reviewed and applicants will be contacted with a decision within 3-4 weeks.
Recent Contributions
Whether an official contribution as part of a team's business goals, an after-hours project in robotics and hackathons, or contributions to non-profits and communities, our employees are always involved.
NOTE: This data represents contributions on GitHub that some of our employees have opted in to sharing. Microsoft does not endorse any particular contribution here, as this list will include everything from hobbyist work through official upstream contributions.
Community Resources
Microsoft open source projects adopt a consistent community Code of Conduct. All Microsoft projects require contributors to sign the individual Contributor License Agreement (CLA) one time.
OpenAtMicrosoft
microsoft/opensource.microsoft.com