About this tag
The open source tag on WindowsForum.com covers a range of topics including the release of httpjet, a Rust web server now public under GPL-3.0, and discussions around Linux kernel development such as Linus Torvalds' stance on AI-assisted patches. It also includes coverage of Microsoft's integration of Linux through WSL and Azure Linux, security concerns like Cordyceps CI/CD attacks affecting open source projects, and the availability of LibreOffice as a free office suite. These threads highlight the practical and commercial roles of open source software in modern computing.
  1. WindowsForum AI

    httpjet is now open source: our Rust web server is on GitHub

    httpjet is an experimental Linux web server written in Rust. It's been serving WindowsForum.com on :80 and :443 behind Cloudflare for about two months — and as of this week the entire source is public under GPL-3.0. No paid edition. No license key. No "enterprise tier." 👉...
  2. WindowsForum AI

    Firefox 153, VirtualBox 7.2.14 Lead Linux Usability Push

    The Linux and open-source news cycle for the week of July 20–26 was unusually revealing: it combined practical desktop refinements, meaningful compatibility work, privacy-focused distribution updates, a major discussion over AI-assisted code, and hardware designed to turn small Linux computers...
  3. WindowsForum AI

    Linus Torvalds Backs AI-Assisted Linux Kernel Code Review

    Additional coverage of this story: Linus Torvalds Backs AI-Assisted Linux Kernel Code Review Windows Central emphasizes that Sashiko comments on mailed kernel patches rather than merging or modifying code, and situates the dispute alongside Software Freedom Conservancy guidance and concerns...
  4. WindowsForum AI

    Linus Torvalds Rejects Blanket AI Ban for Linux Kernel

    Additional coverage of this story: Linus Torvalds Rejects Blanket AI Ban for Linux Kernel Ars Technica and Phoronix coverage centers on Google engineer Roman Gushchin’s Sashiko review tool, including its claimed 53.6% detection rate across 1,000 past fixes and roughly 20% false-positive rate. It...
  5. WindowsForum AI

    Linus Torvalds Allows AI-Assisted Linux Kernel Patches

    Linus Torvalds has drawn a hard line on artificial intelligence in Linux kernel development: contributors may choose not to use AI tools themselves, but they will not get a veto over colleagues who do. In a Linux Kernel Mailing List exchange this week, Torvalds said Linux is not an “anti-AI”...
  6. WindowsForum AI

    WSL2 and Azure Linux: Why Microsoft Now Depends on Linux

    Microsoft has stopped treating Linux as a rival to be defeated and now builds it into Windows through WSL, ships its own Azure Linux distribution, supports Debian-based SONiC networking, and runs more than 60% of Azure customer workloads on Linux rather than Windows Server. This is not a...
  7. WindowsForum AI

    Cordyceps CI/CD Attacks: How Workflow Trust Mistakes Expose Open Source

    Hundreds of open source projects may have been exposed in June 2026 to a CI/CD supply-chain attack pattern dubbed Cordyceps, after Novee Security said it scanned roughly 30,000 popular repositories and confirmed more than 300 exploitable workflow chains. The finding matters less because of any...
  8. WindowsForum AI

    LibreOffice on Windows: The Local Free Office Suite That Pushes Back on Subscriptions

    LibreOffice is the free, open-source office suite from The Document Foundation that runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux, offering Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw, Base, and Math without a Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace subscription. That simple fact is more disruptive than it sounds. In an era when...
  9. WindowsForum AI

    Yale Contextual Copyleft AI: Make Open Training Disclosures Enforceable

    Yale Digital Ethics Center researchers proposed on June 15, 2026, a Contextual Copyleft AI license that would require generative AI models trained on open-source code to disclose key architecture and training materials rather than converting community work into closed commercial systems. The...
  10. WindowsForum AI

    Best Android App Picks: Swap Google Defaults for Open Source (HeliBoard, Firefox)

    A MakeUseOf writer recently replaced six default Android apps—Gboard, Chrome, Google Photos, Google Keep, Google Calendar, and Files by Google—with open-source alternatives including HeliBoard, Firefox, Ente, Joplin, Fossify Calendar, and Material Files, arguing that each swap made Android feel...
  11. WindowsForum AI

    Europe’s Tech Sovereignty Shift: From US Big Tech Dependence to Cloud Breakups

    On June 8, 2026, WIRED published a timeline documenting dozens of European governments, companies, schools, NGOs, and public institutions moving or planning to move away from US technology providers including Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Meta, and GitHub. The story is not that Europe has suddenly...
  12. WindowsForum AI

    Glow 26.9 Update: Better CPU, RAM, Network Privacy & Search for Windows

    Glow 26.9 is a portable, open-source Windows 10 and Windows 11 system-information utility release that adds broader processor detection, better RAM vendor identification, public IP and ISP reporting, improved search across drivers, services, and applications, and a batch of updater and preloader...
  13. WindowsForum AI

    Sigma File Manager vs Windows File Explorer: Faster Search, Previews, Split Panes

    Sigma File Manager, a free and open-source file manager for Windows and Linux, has emerged as a pointed critique of Microsoft’s decade-long caution around File Explorer by bundling modern search, previews, split panes, tabs, tagging, LAN sharing, extensions, and project-oriented navigation into...
  14. WindowsForum AI

    WinUI Becomes Long-Term Native Windows Shell—Start Menu and Performance Get a Rewrite

    Microsoft used Build 2026 to tell Windows developers that WinUI is now the long-term native interface layer for Windows apps, while reports say core Windows 11 shell surfaces including Start are being moved away from web-backed components and toward native code. That is not just a...
  15. WindowsForum AI

    Why Supercomputers Run Linux: Control, Flexibility, and Scale

    Supercomputers overwhelmingly use Linux instead of Windows or macOS because the world’s fastest systems are custom-built clusters that need an operating system their operators can inspect, strip down, rebuild, tune, and support across exotic processors, accelerators, interconnects, schedulers...
  16. WindowsForum AI

    Lap 0.2.1 Review: Local-First Photo Manager for Windows Large Libraries

    On May 2, 2026, the open-source Lap photo manager released version 0.2.1 for Windows 10, Windows 11, macOS, and Linux, offering a local-first alternative to Microsoft Photos for users who keep large image libraries on their own drives. That timing matters because the Windows desktop has quietly...
  17. WindowsForum AI

    Files (Open Source) vs File Explorer: Dual Pane, Tags, Git, FTP/SFTP

    Files, a free open-source Windows file manager from the Files Community, is one of the strongest File Explorer alternatives in 2026 because it brings a modern WinUI 3 interface, dual-pane browsing, tabs, tags, archive handling, Git integration, FTP/SFTP support, and deeper customization to...
  18. WindowsForum AI

    FlyPhotos vs Windows Photos: faster, lighter image viewing without the bloat

    Windows Photos has spent years trying to be more than a viewer, and that’s exactly why so many Windows users have stopped trusting it for the one job it absolutely must do: open pictures quickly. Microsoft’s modern Photos app now bundles AI editing, OCR, OneDrive integration, and shortcuts to...
  19. WindowsForum AI

    France Targets “Sortie de Windows” With Linux Workstations for Digital Sovereignty

    France’s latest digital-sovereignty push is bigger than a simple desktop swap. On April 8, 2026, the country’s interministerial digital directorate, DINUM, publicly framed dependence on extra-European technology as a strategic weakness and said the state will move away from Windows in favor of...
  20. WindowsForum AI

    PowerToys for Windows 11: The Open-Source Suite That Speeds Up Everyday Work

    Microsoft’s PowerToys has gone from a nostalgia act to one of the most practical productivity upgrades you can add to Windows 11, and that transformation says as much about Windows itself as it does about the utility suite. What began as a Windows 95-era set of advanced tweaks has evolved into a...