This isn't justification for an app being bad. A company shouldn't release a broken and slow app on an OS I pay for and you can't make it seem like that's okay simply because Microsoft took ten minutes to put the code on Github. At that rate, why put effort into improving apps at all if users will do free work for you?

so make it less bad, or stop complaining.

if you're complaining without a plan of action to address the complaint, you are speaking for attention alone.

fork it and fix it, then use that version. open your fork so you can help others.

you other commenters can continue to complain and whine endlessly or you can put your money where your mouth is and actually do something.

what's it gonna be?

Why would anyone want to do free work for Microsoft?

Because it makes the things they use better mostly, they are => https://github.com/microsoft/calculator/graphs/contributors

This is the correct response. Telling community members that they can fix bugs in libre, community-supported software is one thing.

Telling /users/ who are NOT community members to make changes to some corporation's application that happens to have source available, in their free time, and then donate that labor to some billion dollar corporation? fuck THAT.

Fix it your own damn self, Microsoft. I have better shit to do.

open source software should not be contributed to? I can not understand open source people, man.

it only counts if it has "libre" in the name? MIT-licensed isn't good enough? WTF

Calculator is MIT Licensed. Is that not libre enough?

They shouldn't, other than provides a good entry on the CV, that is all.

Microsoft requires contributors to sign a CLA giving Microsoft effective ownership over your contributions.

You should never be working for a for-profit organization without compensation.

Not arguing for contributing to Microsoft’s repos, but most open source projects under most well respected foundations do the same. There is a big argument for or against CLAs but it’s not like it’s just them.

Yes, lots of organizations want free labor. That has no bearing on whether its ethical.

There's a somewhat decent argument to be made for non-profit organizations, but there's none for for-profit orgs like Microsoft.

successfully reach out to all contributors to the Linux kernel and then tell me CLAs are bad for a corporation.

you open source people, man. you give all developers a horrible reputation. put up or shut up, lol

That copyright of the Linux kernel is being shared by all is contributors is essential in making it an actual public good.

I have no idea what you want to express with your second paragraph, though.

There is a Linux BDFL that everyone refers to for any disputes. He can't be there forever unfortunately. Who knows how Linux will be 10 or 20 years without him.

I've always thought CLAs were a strong indicator that an organization doesn't actually want one's free labor.

I am being compensated by the things I use getting better.

That is by definition not compensation.

I have to say I'm disappointed seeing you defend exploitative labor practices.

There is nothing exploitative when evaluating these two options:

* Patching the binary locally without its source code to do what I want it to do

* Submitting a patch upstream to an open source project

and arriving at the conclusion that the latter is preferable.

Yes there is, because the for-profit organisation making you sign a CLA for your contributions is effectively using your free labor to suppress wages of its employees.

Doing free work for an employer is always parasitic with regards to its employees.

You have a third option here which you didn't list, which is forking the project into one which is working in favor of the public; removing the CLA and giving each contributor shared ownership of the project. Your contribution should then be made to that project.

I can't fork the project into something that ships with the OS.

That's fine, people can still load your program onto it themselves.

so fork it and work on it yourself.

do I have to tell everyone what the MIT license allows?

Unfortunately some issues have been declared as "by design". E.g. due to a rigid interpretation of some accessibility guideline, the fact that clicking on the history or trigonometry menus moves the input focus there, so Numpad Enter suddenly starts re-opening that menu instead of pressing '=' is apparently perfectly intended and definitively not a bug.

then work on a copy. it's MIT-licensed so you don't have to give your work to Microsoft.