[pjmlp]

Actually it depends on what one understands by managed.

Strong typed languages with automatic memory management, having native compilers and used for writing OS, exist since Mesa/Cedar (70's at Xerox PARC)

Back when C was UNIX only, no one talked about C ABI. The only ABI that mattered was the OS ABI.

Amoeba, OS/400, Lisp Machines, Oberon are a few examples of having multiple languages interoperate via the OS ABI..

[ludamad]

I was just alluding to the fact that garbage collection runtimes are quite less than ideal if another system calls into them sporadically. It just doesn't fit well for software libraries intended to be language-agnostic.

[pjmlp]

I just jumped the gun, because many tend to think stronger typing that what C offers is a synonym for managed.

Regarding the interoperability, it really depends at what level OS, GC or RC services are available.

If just on the language runtime, yes it complicates the distribution of libraries. As it raises the issues how many copies of the runtime one gets and version compatibility issues.

If the OS offers the services, then any language on that specific OS, can enjoy exposing libraries that interoperate with GC or RC.

COM (now WinRT) is a possible example of such OS services.