Developers are open sourcing old Windows Phone apps

As we all know, Microsoft tried to conquer the smartphone market with its Windows Phone devices but failed miserably. As the final nail in the coffin, the tech giant announced earlier this year that it would stop all support and updates for the Windows 10 mobile platform starting December 10th . As that day approaches, developers who previously worked on Windows are starting to open source older phone apps.

The movement started when Windows Phone app developer Pedro Lamas shared the news on Twitter that he had open sourced all of his old Windows Phone apps . In a tweet, he called on the entire Windows Phone developer community to open source their contributions. See the tweet below.

I open sourced an “old” Windows Phone app. And now we’re calling on the entire #wpdev community to do the same. Some developers have already accepted and implemented it. I hope we can start a trend from here. Please RT! 🙂 https://t.co/fEJTmIvh5z

— Pedro Lamas (@pedrolamas) October 30, 2019

Shortly after this tweet, other Windows Phone developers joined the trend and open sourced their Windows Phone apps. It’s worth noting that some of the apps released now by these developers weren’t released back then.

Also, these are all deprecated projects, so users do not have to continue to expect all features of the app to be fully functional and behave as intended. In most cases, your app should work as expected.

My Windows Phone app #GameCardr is now open source on #GitHub https://t.co/GSfNxMi95M and allows you to view your Xbox LIVE gamer card on your Windows Phone and has been downloaded 4,258 times. #wpdev pic.twitter.com/FfR4A9o1WJ

— Peter Bull (@RoguePlanetoid) October 30, 2019

The small number of Windows Phone users who still love Windows Phone will be thrilled with this move. This came as a surprise because when Microsoft announced for existing Windows 8.1 users , all their hopes for the return of Windows Phone apps disappeared. You will no longer be able to access the Microsoft Store .

So, do any of our readers own a Windows Phone and still use it as their primary phone? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.