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by ryao 401 days ago
It was previously called the Windows Subsystem for Android before it pivoted. It had a spiritual predecessor called Windows Services for UNIX. I doubt the name had been chosen for the reasons you say, considering the history.

That said, to address the grandparent comment’s point, it probably should be read as “Windows Subsystem for Linux (Applications)”.
2 comments
avestura 401 days ago
>for the reasons you say

That's not what I say, that's what the former PM Lead of WSL said. To be fair, Windows Services for UNIX was just Unix services for Windows. Probably the same logic applied there back then: they couldn't name it with a leading trademark (Unix), so they went with what was available.

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naikrovek 401 days ago
WSA was a separate thing.

WSA and WSL both coexisted for a time.

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ryao 400 days ago
Wikipedia states that WSL was made based on WSA.
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naikrovek 400 days ago
Got a link? WSA didn’t come out until Windows 11 was released, and WSL predates Windows 11.
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ryao 399 days ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Subsystem_for_Linux#Hi...

It was called Project Astoria previously. Microsoft releasing the Windows Subsystem for Android for Windows 11 is news to me. I thought that they had killed that in 2016.

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naikrovek 399 days ago
Astoria and WSA are different things. Sort of. WSL and WSA both use the approach that was proven by Astoria. That approach was possible since the NT kernel was created, but no one within Microsoft had ever used that feature outside of tiny pieces of experimentation prior to Astoria. Dave Cutler built in subsystem support from the beginning, and the Windows NT kernel itself is a subsystem of the root kernel, if I am remembering a video from Dave Plummer correctly.

Anyway, Astoria was an internal product which management ultimately killed, and some of the technology behind it later became WSL and much later, WSA. WSA's inital supported OS was Windows 11.

Microsoft being Microsoft, they artificially handicapped WSA at the outset by limiting the Android apps it could run to the Amazon App Store, because that's obviously the most popular Android app store where most apps are published. [rolls eyes] I don't think sideloading was possible. [rolls eyes again]

I don't work for Microsoft and I never have; I learned all of this from watching Windows Weekly back when it was happening, and from a few videos by Dave Plummer on YouTube.

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ryao 393 days ago
I believe that both Windows Services for UNIX (Interix) and OS/2 application support were NT subsystems too. I am under the impression that Windows Services for UNIX was the foundation for Astoria.
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