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?

  • AlternateRouteEnglish
    160·
    6 months ago

    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.

      • Thekingoflorda@lemmy.world
        45·
        6 months ago

        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.

          • Kushan@lemmy.worldEnglish
            24·
            6 months ago

            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.

          • FangedWyvern42@lemmy.world
            1·
            6 months ago

            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.

      • frazw@lemmy.worldEnglish
        24·
        6 months ago

        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.

      • bionicjoey
        19·
        6 months ago

        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.