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Microsoft’s Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open-source (www.theverge.com)

submitted 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) by cm0002@lemmy.world to c/opensource@programming.dev

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Microsoft is making its Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) open-source today, opening up the code for community members to contribute to. After launching WSL for Windows 10 nearly nine years ago, it has been a multiyear effort at Microsoft to open-source the feature that enables a Linux environment within Windows.

“It has been a consistent request from the developer community for some time now,” says Windows chief Pavan Davuluri in an interview with The Verge. “It took us a little bit of time, because we needed to refactor the operating system to allow WSL to live in a standalone capacity that then allowed us to open-source the project and be able to have developers go and make contributions and for us to ingest those into the Windows pipeline and ship it at scale.”

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[–] Pirata@lemm.ee 18 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I smell desperation. The prospects of the EU 🇪🇺 abandoning Microsoft en masse must be scary.

[–] Damarus@feddit.org 11 points 3 days ago (1 children)

And how is this going to stop anyone from moving away from Microsoft?

[–] Pirata@lemm.ee 5 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Microsoft knows the allure of Open-Source projects. And the EU is investing in those also.

They are hoping people will dual boot into Linux using a VM instead of switching to Linux entirely.

[–] Damarus@feddit.org 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

That has been possible for a long time already, and I can't see what publishing the source code changes in that regard. Am I missing something? It still costs more money to use Windows over Linux, and I think that is the reason why governments are moving over.

[–] Colloidal@programming.dev 1 points 2 days ago

There are policies being erected to direct funds to open-source projects instead of closed source ones.

[–] Pirata@lemm.ee 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Nope, governments are moving over due to the one-sided trade war started by Trump.

The EU was more than happy to pay the price of Microsoft to maintain good relations. That's gone, now.

[–] ABetterTomorrow@lemm.ee 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Cool, so the main fork would be (LSW) Linux subsystem for Windows. No wants you anymore Windows.

[–] Laser@feddit.org 1 points 1 day ago

The equivalent to WSL is Wine, but it's not Linux-specific. However, it's architecturally much closer to WSL 1 than to the current WSL 2.

[–] dohpaz42@lemmy.world 16 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Microsoft’s… Linux… open source…

Alternate timeline confirmed. 😳

[–] CubitOom 1 points 3 days ago

Don't forget plan 9 too.

[–] grue@lemmy.world 7 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Wait, what? Didn't it have a pile of GPL code in it to begin with? Were they violating those licenses until now?

[–] nik9000@programming.dev 3 points 2 days ago

I imagine it emulates all the system calls. It sure would have been easier to copy bits from Linux for that. But you don't have to. Wine sure didn't.

I probably should go read the code and not guess.

[–] GolfNovemberUniform 13 points 3 days ago

Another thing goes open-source.

[–] renegadespork@lemmy.jelliefrontier.net 11 points 3 days ago

Kinda wild it was ever closed-source, but credit where it's due, I guess.