Roblox intentionally blocking Linux with Wine in their new update

Re:Roblox intentionally blocking Linux with Wine in their ne... by shadowgovt on Sunday April 23, 2023 @09:58PM (#35682866)

Apparently, this has been done because they're trying to collect telemetry on the use of the 64-bit client, and they want "pure" telemetry from the target OS, not the target OS and instances on other operating systems emulating the target OS (https://devforum.roblox.com/t/the-new-roblox-64-bit-byfron-c...).

I can see what they're trying to do here, but (a) I've never, personally, been of the opinion that this kind of shaping has the desired effect (if anything, I've seen users try harder to break the system when such an arbitrary block is put in place, which makes the resulting telemetry noisier) and (b) cutting your customer base to get "cleaner" numbers smells very shortsighted.

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Re:Roblox intentionally blocking Linux with Wine in their ne... by fshbbdssbbgdd on Sunday April 23, 2023 @10:01PM (#35682883)

If that’s the real reason, can they not hook up whatever method is being used to identify and block Wine as a signal in their telemetry system so they can filter that data in their query? This explanation sounds like either incompetence or an excuse.

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Re:Roblox intentionally blocking Linux with Wine in their ne... by CommitSyn on Sunday April 23, 2023 @10:09PM (#35682915)

They can. So yes, you're spot on.

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Re:Roblox intentionally blocking Linux with Wine in their ne... by Waterluvian on Sunday April 23, 2023 @11:02PM (#35683220)

Wine Roblox players may be such a microscopic piece of user base that they consciously don’t care.

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Re:Roblox intentionally blocking Linux with Wine in their ne... by syrrim on Sunday April 23, 2023 @11:05PM (#35683229)

They cared enough to implement detection and blocking.

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Re:Roblox intentionally blocking Linux with Wine in their ne... by Hydraulix989 on Monday April 24, 2023 @01:55AM (#35684127)

Which is the equivalent amount of engineering work to just bypassing sending telemetry on WINE if WINE is detected. Instead, they go out of their way to detect WINE, but then intentional block it, rather than just bypassing telemetry upon detection. Someone at Roblox has an axe to grind.

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Re:Roblox intentionally blocking Linux with Wine in their ne... by bravetraveler on Monday April 24, 2023 @12:48AM (#35683770)

I'm surprised they've done much of anything, given the likely relatively small overlap.

Since they have, where they essentially have sys.exit in Python terms, it could be updating a telemetry-controlling global instead

The 'protect our data' thing is suspicious in my mind

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Re:Roblox intentionally blocking Linux with Wine in their ne... by fortyseven on Monday April 24, 2023 @12:01AM (#35683522)

> they want "pure" telemetry from the target OS

If they can detect the usage of Wine, they can add that to the telemetry and filter on it.

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Re:Roblox intentionally blocking Linux with Wine in their ne... by Hydraulix989 on Monday April 24, 2023 @01:51AM (#35684108)

This is a really gross reason to just unilaterally cut off all of its Linux user customers. I'm sure WINE has bread crumbs of its own that they can check for when sending telemetry...

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Re:Roblox intentionally blocking Linux with Wine in their ne... by Hydraulix989 on Monday April 24, 2023 @01:53AM (#35684121)

Indeed, there's a wine_get_version proc in ntdll.dll they can check for.

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Re:Roblox intentionally blocking Linux with Wine in their ne... by meese712 on Monday April 24, 2023 @02:00AM (#35684150)

If they have the ability to detect wine usage wouldn't they have the ability to conditionally disable telemetry for wine though?

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