I would prefer that we keep the ability to build on native Windows. That is still the most prolific OS and is used heavily in the embedded development world. Every microcontroller vendor I've worked with seems to support Windows based tools first and other platforms as an option. Sometimes other platforms are not supported at all. We already have the build system in place. If we could have a buildbot running nightly build tests then we'd be assured of its continued quality. Also we would keep in the spirit of the INVIOLABLES, which, as you've said before, we shouldn't violate for our own convenience or expediency.
Windows is supported in numerous ways. The Native build is only one of them. Cygwin or MSYS2 work well with, for example, Eclipse. But there are a minority of Windows SDK developers that require pure Native support, not via some intermediary framework. I don't know the full reasoning; I am not an SDK/IDE person. I always believe the reason involves Visual Studio-based SDKs? I only know that that minority the needed it, really needed it and contributed a lot of effort to get it working correctly.
