I am Hayden Barnes. I am a technical product director, partnership creator, community builder, developer relations person, and bad engineering manager. I am currently at HeroDevs, where I lead Never-Ending Support (NES) for all things .NET, Kubernetes, databases, Linux, and UNIX.

I am a seven-time Microsoft MVP (2020–2027) with a focus on Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) and cross-platform/cross-architecture development, and an Arm Ambassador.

Previously:

• Accidentally founded Whitewater Foundry, created Pengwin, the first bespoke Linux distro optimized for WSL, featured in the Windows Terminal demo at Microsoft Build 2019 and covered by ZDNet and The Register
• Developer Advocate and Engineering Manager for Ubuntu on WSL at Canonical, where I helped grow Ubuntu on WSL from 40k to 100k weekly installs
• Senior Engineering Manager at Rancher Labs (now part of SUSE) - Windows containers on RKE2, documentation, DevOps, IBM Z coordination
• Community Lead for open source AI/ML at HPE - organized ML-at-Scale community conferences, hackathons, and led devrel for Determined AI and Pachyderm
• A lawyer...yes, really, I've got a JD from the University of Baltimore and I'm admitted to practice. I am a lawyer, not your lawyer, but if your open source project needs some legal advice, I can point you in the right direction

I am passionate about:

• Sustainable open source
• Cross-platform/cross-architecture development
• Windows Subsystem for Linux
• Old UNIX

I also:

• Blog about WSL, .NET, Linux, and cross-platform development
• Write about .NET security, CVE research, and open source sustainability at HeroDevs
• Wrote a now very outdated book, Pro Windows Subsystem for Linux (Apress)
• Speak at conferences sometimes when I am not having a panic attack
• Founded and organized WSLConf, the first community conference dedicated to WSL
• Previously co-hosted the Linux Downtime podcast
• Appear on podcasts and streams about Linux, open source, and .NET
• Lead the WSL Community Telegram
• Contribute to open source projects across the ecosystem

At HeroDevs, I lead product and technical direction for a large part of the Never-Ending Support (NES) portfolio, providing long-term security patches for post-end-of-life .NET, databases, Kubernetes and cloud native components, databases, Linux, and Unix.

Repository	Description	Stars
awesome-wsl	Awesome list dedicated to Windows Subsystem for Linux
awesome-unix	All the UNIX and UNIX-Like: Linux, BSD, macOS, Illumos, 9front, and more

Repository	Description	Stars
ghcopilot-taskbar-gui	WinUI 3 system tray app for GitHub Copilot with automatic context awareness
CVE-2025-55315-repro	Tool that reproduces CVE-2025-55315 in ASP.NET Core (Kestrel)
secure-case-notes	HIPAA-compliant mental health case notes with local AI (Sherpa-ONNX + Phi-3)
bulkhead	Enterprise policy-aware container execution for .NET
cleanup-mastodon	.NET terminal app to bulk-delete Mastodon posts before a date
gnomeazureopenaichat	Azure OpenAI chat application with GTK/.NET

I founded Whitewater Foundry and created Pengwin, the first custom Linux distribution built for WSL. Pengwin was featured in the Windows Terminal demo at Microsoft Build 2019. I later organized WSLConf, the first community conference dedicated to WSL. I also maintain the WSL Community Telegram.

I am a Contributor to microsoft/WSL, with the first community pull request merged into the project and engaged on 245+ issues.

Repository	Description	Stars
Pengwin	The first bespoke Linux distribution optimized for WSL (founder)
Fedora Remix for WSL	Fedora-based distribution for WSL (founder)
Pengwin Enterprise	Enterprise WSL distribution with RHEL/CentOS/Scientific Linux (founder)
wslinternals	A collection of nifty WSL-related utilities

As an Arm Ambassador, I contribute to the Windows on Arm ecosystem with 15+ Arm-related PRs across projects including:

• Maintaining a fork of the GitHub Actions Runner with Windows Container support on both x64 and Arm
• Helping port Scoop, the Windows package manager, to Arm
• Arm build support for Pengwin and wslu RPM packages
• Docs and build clarifications for microsoft/onnxruntime-genai on Windows Arm
• Tracking Arm app readiness via is-windows-on-arm-ready

• Automating submission of GPTScript to WinGet and Scoop
• Contributing to CVE research and remediation for end-of-life .NET at HeroDevs — including reporting on CVE-2025-55315 (CVSS 9.9)
• Writing about .NET security, the .NET Foundation, and open source sustainability at HeroDevs
• Blogging about WSL internals, cross-platform .NET, and open source sustainability at boxofcables.dev
• Curating microsoft-opensource — a collection of Microsoft's open source project landscape

• Pro Windows Subsystem for Linux (Apress) - Author
• HeroDevs Joins the .NET Foundation to Secure and Grow the Open Source Ecosystem
• HeroDevs Joins .NET Security Group: Securing the Future of the .NET Ecosystem
• Critical ASP.NET Vulnerability CVE-2025-55315 Reported: Upgrade Now
• A Practical Decision-Maker's Guide to Responding to CVE-2025-55315
• FAQ About CVE-2025-55315: The 9.9 Rated CVE in ASP.NET Core

• Microsoft Build (2019, 2021–2026)
• WSLConf (Founder & Organizer)
• Microsoft Ignite
• KubeCon NA
• Supercomputing
• MLSys
• ICML
• NeurIPS