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?
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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.
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.
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.
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.
Power? No idea. Desire? Surely.
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.
