No. It may be Ubuntu, but it's not Linux. It isn't Linux, anymore than running a Linux userland on NetBSD's Linux "kernel personality" is Linux.
However, "Linux" is almost always a reference to GNU tools and the Linux Kernel. It may not be semantically accurate, but take that up with the same people that made literally mean both itself and its opposite.
Let's try the opposite. Say someone got Wine working to the point where it was very nearly, perfectly indistiguishable from Windows and they put up a blog post saying "Everything works just as it should under Windows, because it is Windows." Microsoft's lawyers would come around with a C&D, and calling them pedants wouldn't invalidate their case.
He could have said "it's just like Linux, right down to the kernel interface" or "Everything works just like Ubuntu, because the userland is Ubuntu". Succinct and correct. Precision matters.
Knowing this, what should we call it?
Windows Subsystem for Running POSIX + Linux Syscall API Compatible Userland Tools? WSRPLSACUMT? :)
I'm genuinely interested on what you all feel would be a good way to think about naming moving forward.
But there's a difference between "This is Ubuntu running on WSL" or "This is Ubuntu running on our Linux compatibility layer", and "This is Linux".
I did actually give this some thought, for what it's worth. There are problems with "GNU" in the name and problems with "Ubuntu" in the name.
But it seems to me that Microsoft has a naming scheme that it is perhaps unaware of. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11417059 . (-:
Except that isn't the opposite, it's an entirely different situation.
1) It isn't Windows. It's a complete rewrite of the Windows API's. That is not the same thing that's happening here.
2) A C&D isn't a case, it's a piece of paper (politely) asking you to do something. Calling something Windows and it actually being an infringement on Windows patents are entirely different issues.
> Precision matters.
In carefully crafted theoretical situations feigning as analogies to this situation? Sure. In the real world? Hardly.
Debian GNU/kFreeBSD is Debian, but it isn't Linux.
Mac OS X with GNU tools via MacPorts/Fink/Homebrew is OS X with a GNU userland, but it isn't Linux.
Windows 10 with an Ubuntu userland is Ubuntu, but it isn't Linux.
Linux is a kernel.
> A team of sharp developers at Microsoft has been hard at work adapting some Microsoft research technology to basically perform real time translation of Linux syscalls into Windows OS syscalls. Linux geeks can think of it sort of the inverse of "wine" -- Ubuntu binaries running natively in Windows.
http://blog.dustinkirkland.com/2016/03/ubuntu-on-windows.htm...