I found there is "Software Masterpiece" from c2.com.
Reading and studying these kinds of software codes will be great step being better programmer. But I want to know more softwares not just listed ones - Qmail, Emacs, Python and etc.
Can you recommend "Software Masterpiece"?
Scott Hanselman has an ongoing series on his blog called The Weekly Source Code where he looks at other projects for lessons he can learn. Given that his blog and this series are live and therefore should pick up new developments (not just Microsoft ones), it's an interesting bookmark/subscription.
He describes the series as:
In my new ongoing quest to read source code to be a better developer, Dear Reader, I present to you xxxxx in a infinite number of posts of "The Weekly Source Code."
Recent posts have covered:
It's extremely subjective and argumentative questions. I probably should close it :)
There is no common definition of "beautiful software" or "Software Masterpiece"
Some people would appreciate robustness of code, others will be pleased with obscure tricky solutions.
For example, some of the code in the book mentioned by @Jason Baker is totally human hostile :) But someone decided that it is beautiful.
This discussion could be much more useful if you define what "Software Masterpiece" means to you.
Are you looking for extremely useful solution or obscure tricky code?
My current favorite is Launchy - nothing need to be added\removed, ideal! :)