Re: WSL keeps getting better, and it's because Microsoft is finally?? admitting where developers want to be

At Sun, 5 Jul 2026 15:12:44 +0200 "Carlos E. R." <[email protected]> wrote:

> 
> On 2026-07-05 14:41, Robert Heller wrote:
> > At Sun, 5 Jul 2026 13:35:57 +0200 "Carlos E. R." <[email protected]> wrote:
> > 
> >>
> >> On 2026-07-05 02:02, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
> >>> On Sat, 4 Jul 2026 18:41:39 -0000 (UTC), Robert Heller wrote:
> >>>
> >>>>> <https://www.xda-developers.com/wsl-keeps-getting-better-and-its-because-microsoft-is-finally-admitting-where-developers-want-to-be/>
> >>>>>
> >>>> It is also *probably* too little too late.
> >>>
> >>> Quote:
> >>>
> >>>       ... Microsoft really does need to make its OS comfortable for
> >>>       Linux developers to work in, because the alternative involves
> >>>       people ditching Windows entirely. For Microsoft to maintain its
> >>>       user base, it has to ensure that its operating system can do
> >>>       everything better than its competitors, and if that includes
> >>>       allowing people to code Linux apps instead of using its own tools,
> >>>       then that's what it needs to do.
> >>>
> >>> But if what its operating system is supposedly "doing better than
> >>> competitors" is "running a Linux stack", then pretty much by
> >>> definition, native Linux itself will always do that better than any
> >>> Windows-with-Linux-bag-hanging-off-the-side two-headed FrankenOS can
> >>> manage.
> >>
> >> Unless the user needs one of those applications that only exist for
> >> Windows. For instance, some tax software for the USA.
> > 
> > Wondering if Microsoft is looking to do what Apple did with MacOSX -- move
> > from their own propriatory kernel to an open source kernel (and base O/S
> > infrastructure) with a propriatory GUI layer on top...
> > 
> > The only "weirdness" (to me) about the WSL is why? Is microsoft trying to
> > entice Linux user (partitularly developers) away from Linux? The WSL is not
> > going to appeal to the "typical" MS-Windows user (or if the "typical"
> > MS-Windows user starts using the WSL, they might decide to just install Linux
> > and move on. Developers already on Linux are not going to install MS-Windows
> > just to use WSL. And no, doing that just to build MS-Windows versions of Linux
> > programs is not really a reason -- there exist tools to cross-build on Linux
> > targeting MS-Windows.
> 
> Can they build applications that run on the WSL transparently? Just 
> click an icon on the desktop or a menu entry, and it fires away? Those 
> same applications could also run on Linux proper.

It depends on the program load infrastructure.  Eg is WSL on MS-Windows like 
WINE on Linux?  (Does WSL provide a system call wrapper library?)  Does the 
build tools under WSL produce Linux ELF binaries or native MS-Windows binaries 
(which is what the mingwin toolchain running under linux produces).  It would 
of course be true that the WSL application *source code* would also build on a 
Linux machine and then run under Linux,

Note: almost any non-GUI Linux utility will compile and run under MacOS,
depending on the level of its dependency on specific O/S features and
libraries. Actually any classic C program that just uses the base STDIO
library will compile on Linux, MacOSX, and even MS-Windows (without any need
for WSL). The produced *binaries* are of cource not "portable".



> 

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