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

On 2026-07-05, Robert Heller wrote:


> 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.

They may be trying to retain people who would otherwise turn down
Windows NT because it could not cater to their workflows.

This is hardly a new idea at Microsoft, and may actually be a not so bad
idea, it's usually the implementation that can be less than stellar.

... or, most notably, they can well buy or license the whole thing from
somebody else and get something decent enough without having to go
through the trouble of creating it... and then they send a *Microsoft*
sales rep, or, say, a *Microsoft* Product Manager to promote it and do
something stupid.

Remember when a Microsoft Product Manager insisted that "their" "Korn"
shell was "fully compatible", even doubling down, when a person in the
audience pointed out that it wasn't?

That person being David Korn.

It sometimes is truly amazing how well Microsoft can screw things up.

<gopher://gopher.quux.org/0/Humor%20and%20Fun/Microsoft_KSH.txt%7C/MBOX-MESSAGE/1>

-- 
Nuno Silva