.png)
3 months ago
1
Hey everyone,
Thanks for all the feedback, questions, and ideas. We hear you loud and clear and are taking it seriously. We're entering a new phase of focused improvements over the next 6 months, including product work and foundational changes to support a more open and collaborative future.
Many of you have asked about truly open sourcing the repo. While we’re not ready to commit to a specific end date for completing all milestones, we are actively working toward it. This isn’t a flip-the-switch moment, it’s a deliberate process.
📆 Phased Rollout Plan
We are taking a phased approach to opening up the repo:
Phase 1: Increased Mirror Frequency
After the WASDK 1.8 release (end of August), we’ll begin more frequent mirroring of internal commits to GitHub to increase transparency and show progress.
Phase 2: 3rd Party Devs Build Locally
External developers will be able to clone and build the repo locally, with documentation to guide setup and dependencies.
Phase 3: 3rd Party Devs Contribute & Run Tests
Contributors will be able to submit PRs and run tests locally. We’re working to untangle private dependencies and make test infrastructure publicly accessible.
Phase 4: GitHub as Center of Gravity
GitHub becomes the primary place for development, issue tracking, and community engagement. Internal mirrors will be phased out.
🧱 Why It’s Complex
WinUI has deep roots in Windows. Parts of the codebase touch proprietary layers that can’t be published as-is. We’re working to separate what can be shared from what can’t. This work is in progress and takes time.
🎯 Alignment with Microsoft Goals
We are being thoughtful about resourcing. This effort is happening alongside other critical responsibilities like security, platform stability, and support for existing products. Our current focus is on foundational work that unlocks value for contributors and increase transparency. We are aligning this work with Microsoft’s broader business priorities to ensure long-term support and impact.
💡 How You Can Help
If you’re passionate about WinUI 3 and want to contribute:
- Keep sharing feedback, it helps us prioritize.
- File issues with clear repro steps and context.
- Upvote issues that matter most to you with 👍.
- Interested in contributing code? Let us know!
We are working on making incremental progress and will share more soon. We will start using this project board to work collaboratively with the community on product prioritization. We also commit to better wiki and transparency on monthly planning. We know this isn’t everything you want to hear, but we hope it shows we’re serious about doing this right. We’ll keep sharing updates as we go.
Thanks for sticking with us 💙
