Microsoft’s Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) has emerged as a vital resource for developers and power users since its debut in the Windows 10 Anniversary Update of 2016. This innovative feature allows users to access a built-in Linux command line and run Linux applications seamlessly within the Windows environment.
Open Source Evolution
Over the years, Microsoft has diligently enhanced WSL, focusing on performance improvements, user-friendly installation processes, and the addition of significant features such as GPU and audio support. At the recent Build developer conference, the company took a monumental step by announcing that nearly all of WSL will be transitioned to open source. This move also marks the resolution of the very first issue raised on GitHub when the WSL project was launched back in 2016.
In a blog post, Pierre Boulay, a Senior Software Engineer at Microsoft, emphasized the importance of community contributions to the evolution of WSL. “WSL could never have been what it is today without its community,” he stated. “We’ve seen how much the community has contributed to WSL without access to the source code, and we can’t wait to see how WSL will evolve now that the community can make direct code contributions to the project.”
While the majority of WSL is set to embrace open source, two components will remain closed-source for the time being. These include the lxcore.sys kernel driver, which supports WSL 1—the original version still in use, albeit with new installations defaulting to WSL 2 introduced in 2019—and the p9rdr.sys and p9np.dll files, which facilitate filesystem redirection between Windows and Linux. Although Microsoft has not committed to a timeline for open-sourcing these elements, the possibility remains open for future developments.
