> so it feels like a "compatibility" project for MacOS and Windows I get a similar feeling. This is more attractive than ports like cygwin as a solution becaus

> so it feels like a "compatibility" project for MacOS and Windows I get a similar feeling. This is more attractive than ports like cygwin as a solution because if you have this in every place you can be more sure your environments match. With ports there will be more delay getting changes/fixes in different environments, at least in theory, than with a solution that is cross-platform as a core goal. The other main options, running Linux in a VM (directly or via WSL2) adds an extra layer of friction. A cross-platform solution is more likely to match bug-for-bug in different environments, which can be as important as matching feature-for-feature: if something is going to fail out there it will fail the same way in your dev/test environments. Also some will want to use it from a licensing PoV. Many¹ find GPL related licences bothersome and use the GNU coreutils because there isn't (until this matches their requirements) an alternative. Similarly, the language might be an attraction to some, either ideologically or because they might want to dig into the source, though this is more of a factor for projects developing new features rather than trying to be drop-in replacements. I expect the attraction to be relatively niche though, people won't start using it as a drop-in for the GNU tools en-mass until, for instance, popular distributions use it (or a niche distribution using it becomes more popular for some other reason). ---- [1] I am not one of that many, but they are many so this is a notable consideration.