Microsoft open sources ChakraCore components of its Edge browser engine

By John Callaham
published

Microsoft has made ChakraCore, the key components of the Chakra JavaScript engine that are used in its Edge web browser, available for any developer to access as an open source project. The company previously announced its open source plans for ChakraCore in December.

The code is now available to download from the ChakraCore GitHub repository. Microsoft says:

"The ChakraCore repository provides a fully supported and open-source standalone JavaScript engine, with the same characteristics as the Microsoft Edge's Chakra engine, to embed in projects, innovate on top of and contribute back to. We will be accepting community contributions and input to ChakraCore. Once the changes from any pull request have been vetted, our goal is to ensure that all changes find their way to be shipped as a part of the JavaScript engine powering Microsoft Edge and the Universal Windows Platform on Windows 10."

Download the ChakraCore repository at GitHub

Source: Microsoft Edge

John Callaham
John Callaham
50 Comments
  • Stop working on **** like this and give us extensions!
  • You do know that there is no point in extensions if CORE functions of the browser do not work well. By getting a larger community involved, they can divert those resources to other things like extensions. So, you should be happy they are working on **** like this.
  • Completely different team buddy.
  • Lol!!
  • Calm down man!!
  • Actually, they need all the help they can get, you don't think the Open source community, which basically invented extensions, could make it happen that much quicker?! =\
  • Links don't work in the 'view links' section. Windows central fix this app
  • Not worked for ages and will be fixed in the W10 UApp, you self-entitled moaner.
  • Will that be available this centennial?
  • ? Please get your words straight
  • Probably sometime this millennium.
  • Android version is fully functiona. :'(
  • Hahahaha
  • If Microsoft released Extensions and they didn't work properly you would be complaining like an idiot no? so what are you complaining about?
    The only important extension people use is Adblock and that can be easily done by 3rd party apps or host file.
  • I disagree...I can't use Edge full time until I can use a password manager extenstion.
  • Isnt flash more important
  • flash is built in
  • Good start, but they should open-source the whole thing. For that matter, they should open source the whole of Windows, keeping only the bits that are in 'pro' and 'enterprise' versions proprietary.
  • That's just what I was about to say. They want a big user base? I'm sure if they open sourced it then someone would compile it for OS X and Linux, and people would download it, if they market it well. Also open source = more devs.
  • Linux is open source, how did all those devs work for them?
  • you can already run windows on everything that can run osx or linux...
  • No you can't. Not by a looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong mile. According to Wikipedia, which's list is actually quite abbreviated, Linux has been ported to Alpha, ARC, ARM, AVR32, Blackfin, C6x, ETRAX CRIS, FR-V, H8/300, Hexagon, Itanium, M32R, m68k, META, Microblaze, MIPS, MN103, Nios II, OpenRISC, PA-RISC, PowerPC, s390, S+core, SuperH, SPARC, TILE64, Unicore32, x86, and Xtensa architectures. Windows has been ported to run on ARM, IA-32, Itanium, x86-64, DEC Alpha, MIPS, and PowerPC, but is only currently supported on two of those platforms (ARM and x86-64).
  • I think you should leave your windows and doors open to your house/apartment/cardboard box so that anyone can enter said house/apartment/cardboard box and take whatever they want, use what they take however they want including giving it away to use in someone else's house/apartment/cardboard box.
  • Well, maybe if they came into my house and helped me clean it up and renovate it for free (i.e., what the open-source community does) I might be amendable to that. Also, if I had, maybe, some way to make money off them while they were there (i.e., sell them apps from my store and collect royalties) maybe I'd be even more amenable to that. And lastly, if I were already giving it away anyway... My point is not to stop making money on Windows.  It's to stop making money on consumer versions of Windows.  Let enterprises continue to pay for business-level features (e.g., anything tied to being on a domain).  And, in the meantime, earn piles of goodwill (including from suspicious but powerful people like the Chinese government) and developer support, and watch Windows start taking back territory ceded to other OSes like Linux.
  • If they were to open source Windows, nobody would work on it. Groups like Linux would take what they could, scrap that joke called WINE, and then try to push people to their new Frankenstein. Nobody works on OSS projects except for a core group of people. The OSS community likes to claim that any and all users are working on Linux, OpenLibre, and so on. But there are only a few people working on those projects, a few people here and there may fix a bug, but for the most part the vast majority of people contribute. The "open source Windows and it will be great" claim is a fallacy, look at how many OSS projects are out there, and how many of them are great? Linux is rarely used except for servers (odd how you want to give away the consumer version while charge for enterprise, which is the only competiton Windows has and that is against free Linux). OpenLibre is a joke and has a fraction of a fraction of the users of Office. The only OSS project that has any real marketshare and is decent is Apache the web server, and again that is in the Enterprise. "watch Windows start taking back territory ceded to other OSes like Linux." Yep, that 2% and falling marketshare needs to be taken back.
  • > 2% and falling marketshare needs to be taken back You are confusing desktop Linux with Linux.  Linux is everywhere.  Every Android phone.  Every Chrome device.  Every Apache Web server.  Every supercomputer.  Every smart TV.  Every router.  Every home security system.  Every smart rifle. Pretty much every everything that needs an OS that isn't a PC or an iOS device.
  • They use the Linux kernel, not full Linux. You really think that if Windows were open sourced Google would switch Android/Chrome to the Windows kernel? Do you really think that Google would have bought Android (yes, they bought it) if the original developers had used the Windows kernel instead of the Linux one? Apache Web server is not Linux, it is an application that runs on Linux. Oh, and it runs on Windows. Oh, and it runs on Mac. Every supercomputer - because there are billions of those in use? But wrong again, IBM's CNK which is a modified Linux kernel, not the Linux OS. Every smart TV - nope, Samsung now uses Tizen which is based on the Linux kernel, not the OS. Every router - nope, you can install the Linux kernel on some of them, but they don't run Linux. Home security system - really, ADT runs Linux? My grandparents store, which has an ADT alarm system from the 60s (yes, the 1960s) runs Linux? Wow. Smart rifle - you are just making shi* up now and grasping at straws. Please stop.   Do you think that the average person knows or cares about what kernel their phone is running? I met up with a friend who is a waitress last night and she uses an Adroid phone. Do you think if I were to tell her it runs the Linux kernel it would mean anything to her? Do you think if I were to say that their TV runs a Windows kernel vs. a Linux kernel they would care at all? Open sourcing Windows would do nothing at all. A few developers would be happy - developers that already develop on Windows and would be able to debug through APIs. Bugs are rarely in APIs, but usually in the code calling those APIs and having the source would help some in finding where you are calling that API wrong. For the Linux people - all 18 of them - they would just find a new way to criticize Microsoft, claim that they are not releasing everything (Microsoft licenses some code so they cannot open source everything) or that they are restricting some groups from using the code as they see fit, and so on. There is no need to open source Windows, and calls for them to do so is not thinking the whole thing through.
  • I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you’re referring to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX.
    Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GNU which is widely used today is often called “Linux”, and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the GNU system, developed by the GNU Project. There really is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use.
    Linux is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine’s resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is normally used in combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system is basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux. All the so-called “Linux” distributions are really distributions of GNU/Linux.
  • More open source bullshit!
  • Looking forward to open source Windows to see you guys do a full 180 to justify it.
  • Someone who thinks that we just go along with the official Microsoft line because they told us we should. I think you have us confused with Apple fans.
  • Right, because we don't need JavaScript in a browser, extensions are the only thing that is important. We don't need a UI, we don't need touch/mouse/keyboard support, we don't even need HTML support in our browser. Just give us extensions and it will be the best browser ever.
  • Not sure they are actually *working* on this, they've just put it in GitHub.
  • Sure. It's not like those Javascript-based extensions won't work without Chakra, Edge's Javascript engine...
  • Oooh.... Okay. Now I want to fork and create a version of Firefox with this engine. Because I can.
  • I'd be keen to see your results, let me know if you get around to it ☺
  • So ... the Firefox UI with the Edge engine ? Why ?
  • This is the JavaScript engine from Edge, not the core of the browser (EdgeHTML.)
  • Along with this release is a version of NodeJS using ChakraCore instead of V8 (released 20 minutes ago). Looking forward to some much faster local development performance.
  • Google will be happy with this
  • Why
  • Seriously, it looks like these guys are desperately trying to get some help in making this browser much better and believe me it could use the work! =p
  • Seriously?
  • They better open source frikin Windows media center instead if this useless crap. Que mejor liberen el código de Windows media center en lugar de esta mierd*
  • Just because you think its "crap" does not mean everyone else thinks the same. You are not the only Windows user in the world you know :)
  • Just because you think its not "crap" does not mean everyone else thinks the same. You are not the only Windows user in the world you know :) Just ignore the "crap" part of my previous comment, and focus on the Windows Media Center Part.
  • Yea except he never claimed it as an absolute truth, like you did. No points
  • Problem is the codec licensing
  • great news!
  • why?