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Ask HN: I'd like to request Microsoft open source Windows XP
7 points by fosco •                         
Please
meltyness •                         
... this leaked 6 years ago?
rvz •                         
Lets say that I am Microsoft:

Why?

bruce511 •                         
I guess I have two thoughts that spring to mind regarding this;

A) why?

B) they can't. Because XP is not like some notepad app someone wrote. Rather it is a collection of software, a lot of it owned by not-microsoft and licensed to them. And that's before we talk about the security implications to existing systems still running XP.

Thirdly, what possible benefit could they get for doing this? I can see plenty of down-sides, including some very large potential economic and legal downsides. But I can't think of an upside.

giantg2 •                         
"And that's before we talk about the security implications to existing systems still running XP."

And subsequent systems still using some of that code

Kwpolska •                         
Windows is continuously developed, and many parts of it changed very little between XP and 11. Not going to happen.
efren6 •                         
Download any windows installtion on The internet
d3Xt3r •                         
ReactOS already exists and targets the API level as XP. You can even install the same Luna theme that XP used to make it look like XP.
Panzerschrek •                         
https://github.com/DeDf/winxp_source

Knowing that Github is owned by Microsoft, they probably are fine with it.

yonatan8070 •                         
And I'd like to request 5 billion dollars be transferred to my account