|
| ▲ | oxguy3 7 minutes ago | parent | next [-] |
| First, they probably wouldn't win. Oracle lost Google v Oracle. Wine is pretty serious about clean-room principles -- they won't accept a patch from anyone who's ever so much as looked at Microsoft-owned source code.[1] Valve has the means and motive to fight a lawsuit to the bitter end. Second, it would be a PR disaster. "Microsoft sues to kill the Steam Deck" is an awful look for the company. Their strategy in recent years has been to say "actually we like Linux now" and play friendly to try to win developers; this would run completely counter to that. There may not be much of an immediate consequence to this, but in the long run I think we'd see developers try to reduce their reliance on Microsoft/Windows. Third, I don't think it would actually stop the tide. Wine and Proton are a big piece of the movement away from Windows, but they're not the only piece. The legal process would take many years to play out; during that time, we'd likely see tons of movement on making it easier for developers to create native Linux builds, and perhaps even new projects that try to find other ways to do Wine-like things without actually reimplementing Win32. Losing Wine would be a huge blow, but I don't think it'd be the end of the story. [1]: https://gitlab.winehq.org/wine/wine/-/wikis/Submitting-Patch... |
|
| ▲ | tumult an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Oracle lost Google v. Oracle. |
|
| ▲ | foresto 36 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| The main issues I'm aware of are whether APIs are copyrightable, and if so, whether implementing them qualifies as fair use. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_LLC_v._Oracle_America,_.... (And, of course, Microsoft would also have to consider whether such a lawsuit would have greater benefits than costs. I would like to think that customer goodwill has more than zero value, for example.) |
| |
| ▲ | tadfisher 3 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Going back a bit further: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Computer_Entertainment%2C... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_v._Accolade This fact pattern (reimplementing API functions for emulation or interoperability) tracks even more closely with the Connectix case than Oracle. Google reimplemented a huge swath of the Java API surface so developers could reuse libraries, but actual applications still needed porting, so there's less protection from a fair use perspective; and even then copying APIs was still ruled to be fair use. I just don't see how Microsoft could contort the facts to achieve a meaningfully different outcome. It doesn't matter if APIs are copyrightable if copying them is fair use for just about any purpose. |
|
|
| ▲ | olivierestsage an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I think there are two reasons this hasn't happened: (1) Wine might be useful to Microsoft at some point for providing backward compatibility in Windows itself; (2) it would be an extremely bad look/PR disaster to go after this project after spending so much time and money positioning yourself as an open source supporter |
| |
| ▲ | sirjaz an hour ago | parent [-] | | Also, to add the current CEO doesn't care about the OS. All he cares about is the stock price, and his AI mistake. |
|
|
| ▲ | some-guy an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| If anything Microsoft will give up their advantage by making Windows 11 a UX dumpster fire. If Windows 11 had an official way to turn off all of the garbage and opt out of their monopolistic PM-brained “features” a lot of us who switched to Linux probably wouldn’t have happened. |
| |
| ▲ | dlahoda an hour ago | parent [-] | | i was using wsl2. and got weird slowness and high cpu. appeared it was their built in antivirus(av). i disabled av, but it autoenabled later and did same.
it is possible to secure windows other way without active protection btw. i used git on wsl2. it got weird issues with git connectivity over wifi.
github ticket not solved. one of most popular and essential dev tools is not stably working in wsl2. many rust crates supported only mac, bsd and linux. nobody cared windows. so even without ux of recent version, i had to leave. for my wife is still run windows. but. she had fully official surface laptop with official office. not 3rd party or pirated things. and... office became very very slow just typing... it was 3 years ago. i have run script disabling all things. it good for 3rd year now. but how they managed to make their laptop new one, with all their things so bad? |
|
|
| ▲ | shmerl an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| It will kill GitHub I suspect. Who will trust them if they can pull the plug on open source projects using the dumb "API is copyrightable" claim? I'd say last time they tried to pull that by backing Oracle in that legal case, they already damaged their reputation enough. |
| |
| ▲ | direwolf20 an hour ago | parent [-] | | There's no way. GitHub is already pretty hostile, but the only people who care — like in most hostile platform cases — are the ones who are directly affected. | | |
| ▲ | shmerl an hour ago | parent [-] | | It's a reputational thing. There is already a trend of exodus from GitHub. This Oracle style garbage will just exacerbate it. Whether they care - who knows, but it can be a reason. But in general - as a developer you surely don't want to host your projects using someone who thinks APIs are copyrightable. |
|
|
|
| ▲ | 999900000999 an hour ago | parent | prev [-] |
| This stuff will never ever ever work real and reliably enough for Microsoft to care. Normal people don't want to use Linux. Normal people can't even install an OS. None the less fight kernel regressions for days. I can even imagine Microsoft coming out with MS Linux one day and contributing to Wine. That's far more likely at this point. |
| |
| ▲ | snailmailman an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | It does work reliably enough though. A huge portion of games on Linux do so via pretending to be windows via wine/proton. It’s what allows the Steam deck to exist as a product at all. And Linux on those handheld devices out-performs windows to such a degree that Microsoft has noticed and is trying to make windows perform better on those devices, basically making a gaming mode / handheld mode for their Xbox Ally. | | |
| ▲ | 999900000999 27 minutes ago | parent [-] | | It's not nearly enough to matter to Microsoft. An absolute tiny percentage of desktop computers/laptops run Linux. This is actually a good thing if you're hoping WINE avoids a legal fight with Microsoft. It doesn't matter who's right, Microsoft has deep enough pockets to drag anyone through expensive litigation. I'm an active Linux user and I play tons of games via Proton. But this isn't something I'd suggest to normal people. I've spent more time than I'd like to admit keeping Linux working. They also served as a foundation for much of my career growth. But I understand it's not for everyone. |
| |
| ▲ | shmerl 41 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | It already works for gaming reliably enough. |
|
