Comment by jccx70

"Yes. I can't tell you how many times the ability to just download a goddamn .exe file and run it in WINE has saved my ass. Seemingly every creative project I undertake eventually requires downloading some piece of software which is either impossible or impractical to rebuild myself, and whose Linux and macOS ports no longer work or never existed. There's more than three decades of Win32 software — .exe files! — that can run in WINE or (of course) on Windows. No other ABI has that kind of compatibility record. WINE can even run Win16 stuff too.

The really cool thing about Win32 is it's also the world's stable ABI. There's lots of fields of software where the GNU/Linux and POSIX-y offerings available are quite limited and generally poor in quality, e.g. creative software and games. Win32 gives you access to a much larger slice of humanity's cultural inheritance. "

What a pile of bullshitting.