It seems like Microsoft realized the importance of being an Open Source environment. During their Build 2014 conference, Microsoft announced the newborn .NET Foundation, that will allow independent developers to work with the WinJS library to create their own apps.
You are not dreaming, and 1st April is long gone: Microsoft is not going crazy, the .NET Foundation is real, and will help developers all over the world, allowing them to work in an Open Source environment.
There are 24 active projects right now. Microsoft created 16 of them, while the other 8 belongs to a partner, Xamarin, a company that develops for mobile OS. All the projects are covered by the Apache 2.0 license.
It looks like Microsoft realized that being a closed environment has been a mistake, and we are sure that this decision will help the Windows Store to become an important market place, such as Play Store o App Store, with a growing number of interesting apps. We just have to wait and see the results of this important decision.
Source:
.NET Foundation via
Le Comptoir du Hardware.