In this case it looks like Adobe was doing a bunch of stuff related to Internet explorer that was critical to even having the basic functionality of their installer or launchers working.
Oftentimes if you take a program that is not running correctly or at all you can look at the log output and see a large stream of unsupported or partially supported API calls.
Patches can be motivated by specific apps, of course, but generally the requirement is to complete the patch implementing/fixing some API in a generic way, proven by additions to the test suite showing the same behavior on Windows.
This question has been nagging at me for a while. Regardless of how much validity there is to the lawsuit, I imagine that going to trial would be supremely risky, because if you happen across anybody working on Wine that saw something they weren't supposed to, you could sink the whole project.
I cannot imagine Microsoft sitting by and quietly letting their Windows monopoly vanish between their fingers. Selling Windows may not be their primary focus these days, but why give up an advantage like that?
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...
If the alternative is losing the entire Xbox market? Money makes people and companies do funny things.
I don't think the performance of the Steam Deck is up to play all Xbox games at Series X quality, but that's a nitpick assuming future Steam Decks arrive.
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.)
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.
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?
But in general - as a developer you surely don't want to host your projects using someone who thinks APIs are copyrightable.
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.
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.
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.
It matters enough to launch WSL, WSL2, etc. which are the "embrace & extend" part of the strategy.
I'm always open to being wrong. At a minimum European governments should switch to a Linux distro based in Europe like Open Suse.
I don't believe this is going to be enough of a dramatic shift where Microsoft would see it worth while to try and shutdown WINE.
This is a good thing though, if Microsoft really wanted to they could sue WINE. Even if WINE isn't doing anything wrong, Microsoft could easily make things really difficult.
We saw this with Nintendo and the Switch emulators.
Maybe I came across as a bit harsh, I run multiple Linux computers, I just can't see this being a realistic concern for Microsoft
I think Microsoft strategy for Windows shifted a long time ago, from being their most precious engineering product, to a necessary component for their sales teams to bundle B2B services. The focus went from "pleasing users and enabling things" to "seeking rent in the gregarious corporate world by building a captive monopoly". I suppose that makes perfect shareholder-sense, but that leaves the door open to a competition that actually wants to make operating systems, in the traditional way.
Now that this model is being threatened, with a real geopolitical incentive to leave captivity and to reconsider past practices (like OEM installs), I think it'd be silly for Microsoft not to immediately course-correct. And that means doing something much more significant than suing Wine: without trade agreements, the US has no jurisdiction and no IP that's worth a dime outside of its borders. That means doing something that, for once, would put them so much ahead of the competition that choosing Microsoft would be a no-brainer. I don't believe Microsoft has it in itself to execute such a thing.
Plus it's not out of the question for them to personally sue WINE contributors. It's not about winning, a simple DMCA takedown notice to any entity hosting WINE code would probably be enough to stop the project.
I want a future of competition between different OSes. I use Linux everyday, but I don't think a market share of 3.86% is sweating anyone at Microsoft.
https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide
I could see Lenovo, which is ultimately a Chinese company, making more aggressive steps to offer Linux. But outside of certain ThinkPads you can't even buy a laptop with Linux pre installed.
In my dream world you'd have to buy Windows separately with any hardware. I guess Best Buy could still offer Windows installation as a service though.
DMCA takedown has no legal basis outside the US. And it's funny you bring that up: the only reason why this has any relevance at all is because of the established norm for countries to sacrifice some of their sovereignty in exchange for being allowed to trade with the US. Now, with the US breaking trade norms and agreements, those countries can (and eventually will) stop complying, because they have nothing to gain (and everything to lose) promoting hostile foreign competition.
Maybe in 20 years some EU court will declare US IP to be up for grabs, but that's not now. Microsoft is deeply embedded so many different businesses and government IT departments.
I wonder, what prevents better support for 'regular' apps? Are they using some windows API that is hard to implement in Linux?
I've tried Darktable and it's pretty impressive software and could probably handle most of my needs. But apparently I'm now that old guy who's been using software X for 20 years and refuses to change his ways because it's not worth it. At least when it comes to Lightroom.
How much of these sorts of patches are specifically checking if a certain application is running, and then changing behavior to match what that application expects? And how much of it is simply better emulating the Windows API in general?
I think there are benefits to both approaches, not criticizing either one. I'm just curious if the implementation of a patch like this is "We fixed an inconsistency between Wine and Windows" vs "We're checking if Photoshop is running and using a different locking primitive" or whatever.