When 'Windows Subsystem for Linux' (WSL) came out a few years back I loaded it onto the old desktop on which I still have an (unregistered) copy of Win10 to see what it was. The thing that puzzled me then is why it was called that. It's just a Linux system (command line only - no graphical interface) running within Win10. It should be called 'Linux Subsystem for Windows'. So if you have a program or suite of programs that runs on Linux you can run it there, in a command shell, and it can intercommunicate - I think - with Windows programs and files.

But why would anybody do that? I assumed this was Microsoft trying to slow migration of server systems to Linux. Businesses can stay on Windows and still use odd bits of Linux code intergrated with their existing systems.

And Windows still has its own kernel. It's just updating the one in 'WSL' - admittedly to a very recent one.

Microsoft is trying to adapt to a world of mobile devices and huge servers accessed over 'the cloud'. And it has nothing to offer in either. Maybe the name 'Windows Subsystem for Linux' indicates that eventually they'll turn Windows inside out and it'll become a Linux Operating System with an (optional?) built in Windows graphical interface.

WSL does have something to offer to a few of us here. You can run the Linux command line stuff such as bash and ffmpeg on it, so that's more portable.