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Microsoft is killing WordPad in Windows after 28 years
(www.bleepingcomputer.com)
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Not trying to defend Microsoft, but making it available to the fraction of a fraction that would actually download it is probably not worth it because you still would have to maintain it, making sure it's compatible with new windows versions and providing security updates.
It's a lot easier to just kill it outright, and those that do actually really really want it can find some third party who has uploaded a version of the exe file somewhere.
I agree with the first half of your statement completely, but as for killing it outright I would think turning it over to FOSS developers would be a less incendiary solution. As many people are saying, it hardly competes with other software that is already available.
Isn't backwards-compatibility Microsoft's thing? You can still run an app in XP mode if my memory serves.