That aside it’s terrific to see MS putting something good into Windows rather than just removing things and taking choice away from the end user.
That's the tip of the iceberg MS want everyone to see, and point the finger at.
MS want people to stop using Linux as an alternative since they lost the battle when they attempted to kill it during the Ballmer era. The plan now is more subtle: making sure everyone using Linux will want to do that from a Windows machine, with all the implications about security and privacy, which would be non existent since any malware (or Windows itself) that for example used Windows keyboard drivers to sniff passwords while one connects say to the bank under WSL "because it's more secure" would be 100% undetectable from that Linux.
The next step will be libraries to access Windows internals and GUI from WSL, so that one can build hybrids that run only on Windows+WSL; very convenient, but unfortunately now Linux is displaced and the only way to benefit from all that software will be to run it under Windows. In the end, MS will create their own Linux distro which runs on top of Windows and will essentially kill all other non-server oriented Linux distros.
Most see WSL as a good thing; I see an elaborate, and have to admit, very clever, way to take complete control of Linux in the next years.
Step 1: get lots of devs using WSL / WSL GUI.
Step 2: Get them comfortable with flexibly using WSL GUI on Linux and Windows interchangeably
Step 3: roll out your poison pill: new Version X, offering great compatibility on Windows but bad integration with Linux; maybe Linux support is buggy or nonexistent, maybe the API doesn't mesh with Linux systems at all, maybe it has license conflicts and Linux has to do a rewrite to be FOSS or write a hacky FOSS shim. Whatever creates the most pain for Linux / FOSS users.
Step 4: Stuck with being tied to WSLg, Developers go to the business and say "either we have to spend a lot of time fixing Linux issues or we buy Windows licenses" at which point the business happily buys Windows and Office 365 volume licenses and keeps going.
Step 5: Microsoft maintains its monopoly for another 10 years.
The "I want to stay independent" workaround is (I assume) writing API layers that can serve "thin GUI clients" on multiple platforms (I guess like Electron or a regular web application or something.)
Not necessarily to this level of malice.
Many (most?) Linux users, especially new ones, use also Windows, so all it needs for MS to convince them to use only Windows+WSL and not say a dual boot machine or two machines, is something that just integrates the two systems, so that most users will feel more comfortable running everything under Windows.
The killer product in my opinion would be something that allows accessing to Windows internals and GUI from a Linux program (imagine "/usr/bin/excel", a port of Excel that works only under Windows+WSL). Those functionalities would be offered by something that "pure" Linux distributions could not offer, including WINE, since we're talking about the full OS and not an API translation layer. Once users and developers are accustomed to it (many devs already develop under WSL) we'll reach the point in which the two worlds will fork in favor of Windows: what is developed under Linux will also work under Windows+WSL but not the other way around. That would probably be the moment MS will introduce their own Linux distribution (advertised as the only one that can take full advantage of "most recent Linux developments") that under the hood could either be normal Windows+WSL, or a different one containing a "hidden" Windows blob allowing developers to run native Linux, hybrid Linux+Windows, and possibly native Windows apps, either free or a lot cheaper than Windows+WSL.
If this happens, most Linux users, especially desktop ones, would rather go back to Windows rather than for example stay with Ubuntu+WINE. Server, embedded and other smaller niches users will make an exception, but Linux is in serious risk of losing all other users.
Btw the whole "Access Windows internals and GUI" from Linux already works. You can just run Windows commands from bash and of course make scripts using those commands so essentially all windows command prompt commands are available to you now.
But remember it's Windows. You can set all the registry settings you want but it will still sometimes ignore your settings and just do what it wants.
Linux desktops as they currently stand aren't even close to a threat to Windows, this is Microsoft using the Linux userspace to get developer mindshare back from OSX.
ii filenameDon't get me wrong, I agree we should be concerned about WSL. But I think it's also very possible Microsoft recognizes developers that aren't developing with MS tech (ie anything but .NET these days) pretty much never use Windows and they are trying to patch that gap.
I can use a single machine to do everything I need, without rebooting and without making sacrifices.
I can watch Netflix and play games, without needing to write a f'n shell script to fix the screen tearing present in the nvidia driver - or realizing a particular game has quirks or doesn't work in Proton, so I just have to throw up my arms and say "Well, I guess we just don't play that game".
I can pop open a terminal anytime and have access to a real Linux system, as opposed to the faux "uncanny valley linux" solutions like Cygwin and Git Bash that seem to work until they don't. And unlike a traditional VM there's no management involved; I open the terminal when I need it and close it when i'm done, just like a normal application.