
Microsoft is quietly merging Office code into their react-native-macos repo - sahin-boydas
https://github.com/Microsoft/react-native-macos/commit/4332d900c0f597e2da2962334c9094726172d9dc?ref
======
samschooler
I think you can remove "quietly" as is implies something sinister. This is a
good thing. They are just reusing code they had internally to better an open
source product. Am I wrong?

~~~
kevindqc
But it's Microsoft! They must be up to something! /s

~~~
jdietrich
Historically, Microsoft had an explicit strategy of infiltrating and
subverting open standards in order to bring them under their control. I
believe that Microsoft are now deeply committed to being a reliable and
trustworthy open source contributor, but I understand why other people might
be more sceptical.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish)

------
LinguaBrowse
Did you really just repost my thread, with exactly the same title, only two
hours after I posted it?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17728515](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17728515)

Pretty shameless.

------
ly
I don't get what the big deal is about this, am I missing something here? To
me it looks like it's just a repo Microsoft forked from react-native.

The repo has only 9 stars and they haven't even changed the README yet. It's
not like it's a big open source Microsoft project they're now sinisterly
adding Office code to. And even then, the commit title directly mentions
Office.

~~~
LinguaBrowse
I gave some narrative regarding the 'big deal' in the original thread, and OP
shamelessly reposted it just two hours after, so you're missing that
¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17728515](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17728515)

Check the 0.51-macos branch if you missed it; it's got ~350 changed files
specifically to support macOS.

HN title lengths are very restrictive, so perhaps it was unclear, but what I
was trying to say was that this repo is likely receiving merges of the very
same codebase that Microsoft is using to build their RN Mac apps. This is the
first indication of which fork they're using for it (and it's surprisingly not
derived from the fork that has 14k+ stars!).

------
romdev
Slightly off-topic: I wish they'd started the merge from Office 2010 instead
of current versions where they've removed essential features like a real dark
mode and slimmer to-do bar. Every Outlook release since 2010 has been worse
than the last for power users and those with low-res screens or light
sensitivity. Outlook 2010 was as good as it needed to be.

------
Waterluvian
I think people are reaching to form a narrative behind the possibility that
Office is gonna become an awful unusuable Electron app.

~~~
samschooler
Actually it looks like what may have happened is Microsoft is using React
Native in their Office apps (to some extent) and with this project are trying
to open source it.

~~~
LinguaBrowse
See my full narrative in the original thread (this one is just a shameless
repost):
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17728515](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17728515)

They've revealed that they're using RN for all their main products now, but
never explained how they were targeting macOS. _This_ is the repo they must
have been using; and surprisingly, it's unrelated to the repo of the same name
that has 14k+ GitHub stars.

What's brilliant too is that they are indeed open-sourcing it.

------
hahawhat222
How is this "quietly"? It's Microsoft's fork, also the code is not Office
specific.

