[netdoll]

If you're not able to do large projects easily due to licensing conflicts, I would focus on small, -mostly- self contained ones in the meantime. A couple of nice, high sentimental value suggestions here (IMO) would be MASM, the Windows XP version of Paint, MS Comic Chat (to the extent that it doesn't pull in IE stuff that MS would rather keep internal), and maybe some of the stuff off the first entertainment pack (not in licensing hell like Tetris) or builtin games for Windows? I could see Reversi being a big hit. Also freeing the subset of the Core Fonts for the Web you're able to, at least Comic Sans MS.

[netdoll]

Also relatedly to the idea of doing source releases, it may be worth looking into doing officially blessed public -binary- releases of old Microsoft software. I'd imagine it would be at least somewhat easier to get past legal and would enable the masses of unwashed zoomers to experience gems like QuickBasic, early Windows and DOS versions, everything released for CP/M, and some products that MS acquired and subsequently buried and took the hatchet to, like Altamira Composer. Actually, on that note, a source release for Altamira Composer or MS Image Composer would also be really nice if it was in fact practicable.

[hakfoo]

I was sort of frustrated that while the source exists for 2.11 now, it doesn't quite build right out of the box into a free-standing disc image-- I think it was missing some data needed to build either MSDOS.SYS or IO.SYS. Once you have all the files, you still need a chicken and egg process to get to a bootable disc, not just a 360k image you can write to a floppy.

[pjmlp]

MASM is still shipping and being used, so hardly a candidate.