So I’m talking about playing previously Windows-only games on Linux, e.g. via proton.
I don’t know about the libraries etc that are used - is it possible for Microsoft to use some legal voodoo, for example, to suddenly end it all, and make the use of their libraries illegal (if they belong to Microsoft in the first place)?
Or could there be other ways of interference?
Proton is built on top of wine for windows compatibility. The wine project has been very careful to independent build its compatible versions of libraries. There should be no Microsoft code in wine.
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Microsoft knows that if they start tampering with that they will get into all kind of shit antitrust wise. Proton is a pretty small project from their perspective, so it’s really not worth the risk and/or public backlash.
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Sure, but Microsoft has since contributed a lot to Linux and other open source projects. That’s not me saying “oh they’ve changed!”, that’s me saying they’ve made it significantly harder on themselves to bring legal action against because they’ve publicly endorsed and supported the project for so long.
Whatever legal arguments they tried in the past that failed are even weaker now.
Considering that Microsoft has been involved in Linux development for a while now (they added some Linux stuff into Windows via WSL, for example), it would be stupid of them to try and kill it.
Even then you can still have someone read the source and write a spec for a second programmer to write a library. The programmer never saw the source code but it was still useful. Still legal to do this. If someone dumped original source into the projector could be similarly checked for duplication without breaking the law.
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That’s what LLMs are for
There are techniques to insulate the codebase. For example, you can have one person read the actual leaked code, explain the data structures and algorithms at a high level to a developer, then have the developer implement that logic themselves based only on what they understood from the explanation. I believe this is known as clean-room reverse engineering.
Not really. It’s basically the same as Google vs SCO. There it was Java libraries instead of Win32, but the principle is the same.
What Microsoft is already doing that hurts Linux gaming is selling software exclusively over the Windows store. It has some awful DRM that nobody has bothered to take on yet. That’s why the Windows version of Minecraft Bedrock Edition or the Gamepass app don’t run on Linux.
Not really. It’s basically the same as Google vs SCO. There it was Java libraries instead of Win32, but the principle is the same.
To give a bit more context: The outcome of that lawsuit was that APIs are not copyrightable in the US.
That’s relevant here, because WINE does implement the Windows API. It would infringe Microsoft’s copyright, if the API itself was copyrightable.
The outcome of that lawsuit was that APIs are not copyrightable
Not quite. The ultimate decision was that APIs are copyrightable, but that Google’s use of the copyrighted material was Fair Use.
It would not be unreasonable to suppose that as a matter of precedent, any reimplantation of an API is likely to be Fair Use, but because Fair Use is such a case-by-case thing there may be wiggle room in that.
How much appetite does Microsoft have for litigation? The Linux community is nothing if not stubborn, and they won’t take this lying down. You’ll definitely have the Free Software Foundation and the Electronic Frontier Foundation involved and they’ll fight it all the way to the Supreme Court.
How much appetite does Microsoft have for litigation
I genuinely think that in this respect the answer is quite literally none. I think as bad as Microsoft was in the past—and still is in some respects (e.g. workers’ rights and the whole AoE Mobile debacle)—they seem genuinely committed to doing the right thing as far as open source is concerned. I was merely answering with what is possible, not what I think likely.
Hmm, you know, I even looked that up before posting, so I wouldn’t be writing nonsense: https://www.wired.com/insights/2014/05/non-apocalypse-apis-copyright-fair-use/
But yeah, it would be weird for a court to make such a wide-reaching decision, if it doesn’t have to. So, that source probably oversimplified that it’s ‘merely’ an important precedent case…
Yeah as far as I can tell SCOTUS didn’t even rule on the “can APIs be copyrighted” portion of the complaint. That was decided by the Federal Court of Appeals, with SCOTUS declining to weigh in, during the first phase of the case (after this ruling was decided, the case went back to the District Court to decide if the use of the copyrighted API was Fair Use). Then when the District Court decided it was Fair Use, the Court of Appeals overturned it, and then finally SCOTUS went back and declared the original decision correct.
Microsoft was among a number of companies that filed amicus briefs in support of Google’s stance (this may interest you, @[email protected]).
Tangent: when reading up more on this, I discovered that America’s 7th amendment hardcodes $20 as the minimum amount to be guaranteed the right to trial by jury in lawsuits. The idea of hardcoding a specific dollar value in your constitution is just hilarious to me. According to this calculator that’s equivalent to over $700 today; at the time, it meant “moderate-sized lawsuits can be guaranteed a jury, but not very small ones”, but today every single lawsuit is likely to meet that requirement, no matter how small.
That Windows store never worked for me. I tried to buy something out of perceived convenience once, and tried to install some freeware once or twice (7zip and something else), and it never worked. On a genuine, activated Windows, that is. Never bothered to try again.
The Wine and Proton devs claim that all of the code has been reverse engineered and written from scratch to simply be compatible with the Windows APIs. Unless that claim is false, or Microsoft has a patent over any systems they are recreating (which is unlikely), there’s nothing Microsoft can do legally. If they did have a patent, getting around it probably wouldn’t be too hard.
A similar case was google reimplementing Sun/Oracle Java APIs. Which has been deemed legal after all.
And even if they did, it could only really stop Steam from officially distributing it. There are already people like GloriousEggroll making their own versions of Proton, so realistically it’d probably just become some sort of unofficial underground thing that you can still get from anywhere I’d assume.
Eh, that would kill the steam deck though and then developers wouldn’t be testing their games out with it nearly as much. Sure proton would still exist in some capacity but it would be way shittier.
Wine is legal. Emulation is legal. (Yes I know WINE is not an emulator you can shut up now)
WINE is WINE Is Not Emulation. It’s right there in the name in the name.
Took me a second to realise you wrote that as an acronym lol
If MS could take down WINE, they’d have done it long ago. But that doesn’t mean they don’t want to and won’t constantly look for ways to do it.
Nice try, Microsoft employee
Not really. While Microsoft can (and does) develop newer frameworks and features integrated into the OS that can break compatibility with existing versions of proton and wine, these changes wouldn’t affect existing games or games developed with the older frameworks.
And even if a new game is developed for these new incompatible frameworks, they will only remain incompatible until proton is patched to support them.
Maybe Gamepass if it got big enough?
I think Gamepass installs games to an encrypted location so you can’t go in and access them for mods etc. (someone will correct me if I’m wrong I’m sure, I don’t have Gamepass but I think I read that somewhere), and Microsoft owns a lot of big titles now (everything from Activision, Blizzard, Bethesda etc.) so presumably going forward they could make those incompatible with Proton.
That’s a lot of ifs though, and they presumably wouldn’t be able to do anything about older games that are already out there, and that’s assuming that pirates don’t just figure out how to crack them, they are a clever bunch.
When I was using windows, I couldn’t even delete the folder the games were in. Even after I changed permissions with all of my power…
omg! I had this same exact shit happen when I tried to delete the game folder for a game pass game. I spent literal hours escalating permissions, shifting ownership around and banging my head against the desk. Nothing from within Windows allowed me to gain sufficient power to delete that folder. That made me realize I didn’t own the computer I was using, Microsoft did. Live-cd booting into Ubuntu made for a quick resolution, though.
Yep that’s was my solution too. Same conclusion. And then while I was on that same live CD session, I said “meh, why not just switch if I’m using Linux to do my computing anyways…” Now if only I could do the same with my cellphone…
I really doubt they could pull that off, even with the US court system, but even if they did, the backlash would be fucking spectacular and would probably ultimately result in speeding up the trend of Linux friendly gaming.
Power? No idea. Desire? Surely.
Universal Windows Platform (UWP)
These apps are from their AppStore will not run with proton. If Microsoft decided to Xbox’ PC gaming, I think that would warrant concern.
Tbh I don’t think they care, I mean the government is pretty much reliant on Microsoft products like Outlook and Excel. So yeah they could if it became a enemy, but sense they can like cuckold the government to do things, it don’t really matter much.
