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.
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.
I don't think it matters very much. It's not a matter of "if" but of "when": one is consistently getting worse, and the other is measurably getting better and more compatible with the former. Unless of a drastic paradigm change, Linux will see more and more users. Trump dismantling of the global system of trade might also add another nail to this coffin (the recent talk by Cory Doctorow at CCC gives a good picture of how and why).
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 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.
Microsoft has subsidiaries all over the world. They'd still have standing to sue, even if say Germany and France ignored American IP laws( which they definitely won't).
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.
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.
I agree the DMCA has too much power, but I think your getting ahead of what's realistic.
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.
With Wine, the main problem is that you may easily encounter some programs that do not work under it, as they rely on unimplemented Windows features.
However the programs that do work, usually work very well, sometimes even more reliably and faster than under Windows itself.
Many older MS Office versions work very well under Wine.
In general many older Windows programs work very well, because the older they are the more chances are that someone else already tried to use them under Wine and eventually any quirks have been fixed.
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.