[mrweasel]

For many people I think it's still the wrong way around. It's not the first solution to running Linux applications on Windows. The first I saw involved X-Win32 and a Linux server in the basement. It's just that most of these solutions get it wrong. It's not that people want Windows, and a little Unix. People want Unix/Linux, and a little Windows.

[microtonal]

I think there is a large group of people that needs or want to develop on Linux (POSIX API, open source tools). But have difficulty getting their hardware running on Linux, need applications that are not available on Linux (Microsoft Office, Adobe suite), or simply want to run games as well without dual booting.

I think this is a masterstroke by Microsoft, since it will give Windows the best of both worlds. Something that only OS X had so far.

Of course, it's not for everyone. People might be morally opposed to proprietary software or want UNIX all the way down.

[CJefferson]

I've been using this, and find it works well enough for me.

I like a Linux/GNU terminal, but I prefer windows GUI to X, I find all laptops I have owned work better under windows than linux, I prefer outlook to mutt/thunderbird, and many of my games only run on windows. (Obviously, other people's opinion can be different!)