They couldn't have kept it private easily, since Wine is licensed LGPL.
Re:How Wine Works 101
by nescioquid on Tuesday October 11, 2022 @11:16AM
(#33164356)
All the more reason for praise; usually that license is understood by corporations to mean "don't even think about it". Not only did Valve get what they needed out of it, the community benefited as well. Seems commendable to me.
They had no choice, building your own Wine takes years to decades, even for well funded companies.
The outcome is still good for the community, but it doesn't mean Valve did it out of the kindness of their hearts.
Re:How Wine Works 101
by mgarstecki on Wednesday October 12, 2022 @05:34AM
(#33174692)
They still went all in, built a nice community around Proton itself, documented it and supported forks, etc.
Yes, because their business profited from that. It's an example in favour of GPL licenses: the interests of the public and of a for-profit venture aligned to produce value for both.
So capitalism functioned how it should, and a company wasn't a greedy douchebag. Still seems commendable to me. They had a choice. Their choice was to do what most companies do, and ignore barely-enforceable licensing; or to give back. They chose the better route.
Is Valve still just a company with profit as its main motive? Yeah, that's the point. But it can do helpful things as a side-effect.
> And let's not forget to be grateful towards for-profit companies that contribute to open source.
The main sponsor of WINE is CodeWeavers, who have been paying folks that work on WINE for a very long time, and are involved in Proton development:
They sell a supported version of WINE for Linux, macOS and ChromeOS, as well as providing engineering services to clients like Valve.
A lot of the work required to get games working transparently on Wine was thanks to Valve, who released Proton as open source, along with heavy work on DXVK to simulate DirectX, etc.
Of course they did it because it benefits them, but still they could have kept it private and it would have boosted only Steam sales. Instead it's a win for them AND for the community, an example that should be followed by other companies.
What a time to be alive indeed!