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all: clarify WSL support policy #63503
Description
In triage we were discussing #63329 and we weren't actually sure what the support policy is for WSL1 vs. WSL2. Currently, our builders only build against WSL2, so it's not super surprising that WSL1 has some issues we haven't seen. Looking at https://github.com/golang/go/wiki/PortingPolicy, I don't see any concrete statement about this. It is a somewhat unique platform, so it would be good to identify what our support policy is and how we should handle such issues.
CC @golang/windows
Activity
bcmills commentedon Oct 11, 2023
It's not an explicit policy, but in general for configurations for which we don't have a builder (WSL1, unusual
gitversions, unusual container environments, QEMU, etc.) we have tended to accept patches for simple/straightforward fixes, but not actively fix them ourselves (since we don't have a way to test a potential fix) and not accept complicated workarounds (since we don't have a way to run regression tests to verify that the workaround continues to work).qmuntal commentedon Oct 18, 2023
I've discussed about this issue with my team at Microsoft, and we might be interested on keeping WSL1 supported a bit more. We will evaluate if there is a need for that to happen and also how can we help supporting it.
Attn: @gdams, @dagood
gdams commentedon Oct 19, 2023
Hi all 👋🏼 I'm the Go Group manager at Microsoft. We've been discussing this internally and checking usage with customers. One question we had was whether it would be possible to add a question to the next Go quarterly survey about WSL1 usage.
We know from the previous survey that ~15% of those who answered were developing on WSL but this didn't specifically ask the question as to which version of WSL they were using.
ianlancetaylor commentedon Oct 19, 2023
CC @alicemerrick @fflewddur see previous comment
alicemerrick commentedon Oct 19, 2023
That is something we could add as a follow up on the survey if there’s room. What’s your criteria for determining whether to support WSL1 ? For example, if more than x% of WSL users are using WSL1, we will support it a bit more.
gdams commentedon Oct 19, 2023
Yeah we'd like to better understand how many people in the community are still using WSL1. That number will help us determine a path forwards supporting it
[-]clarify WSL support policy[/-][+]all: clarify WSL support policy[/+]fflewddur commentedon Jan 26, 2024
Hi @gdams! I wanted to let you know this question was included in our latest survey. The survey is still in the field, but we have early results: currently we see 93% of respondents who use WSL saying they use WSL v2, 1% use WSL v1, 2% say they use both, and 4% aren't sure.
This is from 426 developers who work with WSL, but given the lopsided distribution and our randomized sampling, I don't expect these numbers to meaningfully shift over the next two weeks. We'll share the final numbers once the survey closes on Feb 11.
fflewddur commentedon Feb 26, 2024
Our survey has now closed. The final numbers didn't meaningfully change; the vast majority of respondents who use WSL at all report using WSL v2.
gdams commentedon Feb 29, 2024
Hi @fflewddur,
Thanks very much for sharing your findings here, based on our internal findings, as well as the ones from the community survey, we (the Go team at Microsoft) don't see any reason to provide additional support WSL1. We will be focussing on WSL2 going forwards.
gopherbot commentedon Oct 1, 2026
Change https://go.dev/cl/842765 mentions this issue:
MinimumRequirements: document that WSL 1 is unsupportedMinimumRequirements: document that WSL 1 is unsupported