https://github.com/GloriousEggroll/ULWGL

From the github:

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR OTHER LAUNCHERS (lutris/bottles/heroic/legendary,etc):

  • everyone can use + contribute to the same protonfixes, no more managing individual install scripts per launcher
  • everyone can run their games through proton just like a native steam game
  • no steam or steam binaries required
  • a unified online database of game fixes (protonfixes)
    • ShaunaTheDead
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      6010 months ago

      It really depends whether he got the devs of “Lutris, Heroic, Legendary, Bottles, etc.” to agree to use the unified runtime before starting this project. As long as he gets most of the big players to join then it will actually become the only standard worth using.

    • kbal
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      2510 months ago

      I’m not sure how it’s relevant. Was anyone else even trying to make a standard? They were mostly just all doing their own thing.

    • @patatahooligan
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      1610 months ago

      From the naming it’s clear that GE wants this to be the new standard, but it’s not really a new standard. This is porting Steam’s launcher, which already exists, to non-Steam clients.

    • Th4tGuyII
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      1510 months ago

      Yeah - that was my worry.

      Unification of standards only works if everyone agrees to use it and only it (i.e. mobile phones and USB C), otherwise you’re just adding another one to the pile.

      • @[email protected]
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        910 months ago

        This is a bigger issue for hardware than software. This is why we can use heroic, proton, lutris, or whatever. And most programmers who can offload a part of their code onto another project that is doing the job well will. That’s exactly how Linux started.

        • @bouh
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          110 months ago

          It is a big issue for software. But usually companies are happy to try to trap users into their own thing, or developers are too arrogant to work with thee work on another developer.

          • @[email protected]
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            10 months ago

            You realize we’re talking about multiple projects based on WINE, which has had updates supplied by Valve, who has made a Linux distribution, which is based on multiple different projects all packaged together in one big install file, right?

            Yes, you will get ego and “not invented here” syndrome in software, even in open software. But these groups are literally based on building off another person or group’s idea to make something better or easier.

            • @bouh
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              210 months ago

              Haven’t you heard of the stories ego or hubris that make projects split and die? Maybe you’re one of those people who think Linux was already fine 10 years ago and users should try a little bit to use it instead of setting for Windows without thinking?

              Diversity is a strength. But hubris is a weakness. Inventing a new standard every 6 months is stupid.

              C is 50 years old. Http is 30 years old, as is python. We forgot about fortrans, and it is a good thing. But you don’t build lasting things on technologies that are revolutionised every 6 months.

      • firecat
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        -6010 months ago

        My worry is Valve will look at the project and shut it down. Remember, Valve doesn’t care about your Linux, it only cares about money. Not having users on their Client side platform means less revenue and less ads to show.

        • conciselyverbose
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          5410 months ago

          Do you know what open source means?

          They’re not relying on Valve’s goodwill. The license explicitly permits this.

          • firecat
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            -3810 months ago

            “Third party software included and respected byproducts of Valve’s proprietary”

            Legit doesn’t mean you own all the code.

              • firecat
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                -2710 months ago

                You’re the troll if you can’t explain why no one owns all the code. You can’t even accept the lawsuits that the people of America brought against to Valve Corporation.

                Dont talk like you have anything worthwhile going when you refuse to acknowledge their crimes.

                • conciselyverbose
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                  1410 months ago

                  When you just make up imaginary phantom shit, no one is going to bother refuting it.

                • prole
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                  410 months ago

                  if you can’t explain why no one owns all the code.

                  Is this the first time you’re hearing about open source software?

            • @[email protected]
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              10 months ago

              Afaik proton is BSD-3, and everything else important is part of wine which is LGPL. Sure, valve can be hostile if they choose, but they haven’t given themselves the legal tools to do much.

              Edit: DXVK is apparently under the zlib license.

              • firecat
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                -910 months ago

                That’s Wine/Proton not the other thing that connects to Valves severs and other components.

        • @five82
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          2510 months ago

          Proton is open source. Valve has also been incredibly supportive of and is actively contributing to an open ecosystem for Linux and SteamOS. Desktop mode in SteamOS exists so end users can install whatever tools they want on it.

        • @[email protected]
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          1410 months ago

          Valve also worries about relying on Microsoft. They want people to transition to Linux since it’s open and no corporation can go “all games have to go through my store for 30% commission!” The proton fixes that these clients make Valve can also probably utilize to also make and I’m sure the devs for these also contribute to proton so it’s a win for everyone.

        • @[email protected]
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          1210 months ago

          This doesn’t affect valve at all though. It’s borrowing their tech that they’ve made open source, and figuring out how to use it elsewhere outside of steam.

          Actually, it’ll benefit them. More eyes are on proton and any fix will benefit everyone, including games played via steam.

          • @[email protected]
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            410 months ago

            It’s really up to the corporation whether they think it will benefit them. I agree that Valve has so far not been hostile toward GE, and it looks like proton has a very permissive license, but if it were any other digital storefront, doing anything to allow users to consume your content without using your storefront would be seen as at attack on their bottom line.

            I’m actually curious how this new standard would potentially benefit other storefronts who haven’t natively supported Linux yet. If it’s going to make things easier for existing open source launchers, then it would also make things easier for competing launchers. I know as a consumer, I want GOG, Epic, EA, etc. supporting Linux, but does valve? I don’t know, maybe, maybe not. On the one hand, maybe they don’t want competition in their niche space, on the other hand, maybe they’ll do anything to take marketshare from msft.

            • Kaldo
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              110 months ago

              Valve’s Proton is open source but is it also free to use and distribute in commercial software? Cuz if so, there’d be nothing stopping GOG or Epic from implementing it already, they don’t need this project at all

              • @[email protected]
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                10 months ago

                Valve’s Proton is open source but is it also free to use and distribute in commercial software?

                Yes.

                Valve’s Proton code is licensed under the BSD licence, which is a “do anything you like with this code” licence.

                Wine code is under the LGPL. You can ship this in commercial software as long as you “make the source code available” (which, assuming the distributor isn’t modifying the Wine code further, can be achieved by just linking people back to the main Wine project code repository).

                DXVK is licensed under zlib, which is functionally the same as the BSD licence.

              • @[email protected]
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                210 months ago

                Someone else already explained the licenses, but to your second point, yes, nothing stops any other launcher from using proton, which is what all the other open source launchers do. And yes, no one “needs” this project, just like we don’t “need” any standards for anything, but it could make things a lot cleaner and easier to support.

    • @[email protected]
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      1410 months ago

      Hopefully will not be the case. Depends on whether buy-in from Heroic, Bottles, and Lutris maintainers have been secured

      • @[email protected]OP
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        1810 months ago

        Considering the fact that they’re already relying on GE’s version of wine, I don’t see why they wouldn’t move on to this when it’s stable.

        • @kautau
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          610 months ago

          Isn’t one of the features of bottles etc that you can select different versions of wine on the fly per-app? This sounds like it’s meant to supersede that

          • @[email protected]
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            210 months ago

            It sounds like it’ll replace that functionality, but not eliminate the ability to select different versions. So instead of using whatever Bottles is doing, Bottles would use this mechanism to select WINE versions.

            • @frost19B
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              310 months ago

              I think people are getting the wrong impression because it said “unify” in the title. This is mostly GE want to obsolete wine-ge/winetricks and focus on proton-ge and protontricks/fixes. Nothing out of his works, at least for now. Everything else should work the same.

    • Instantnudeln
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      -210 months ago

      Exakt denselben witz habe ich auf dem Zwietracht von Proton-GE auch gemacht haha

      Lass uns schütteln die Hände

        • Atemu
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          610 months ago

          Öhm, warum reden wir hier eigentlich Deutsch?

          • Instantnudeln
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            210 months ago

            Ups ich habe nur Reznik gesehen und wusste dass er Deutscher ist. Habe voll übersehen wo wir hier eigentlich sind. War ausversehn.

            • Nobsi
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              210 months ago

              Diese Kommentarspalte gehoert jetzt der BRD GmbH!!! 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️WAS ZUM FICK IST EINE MEILE🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️DEIN “PAKET” “KAM” IN DER “MALE” 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️

  • @patatahooligan
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    3610 months ago

    This is great. Proton is getting a lot of testing just based on Steam’s userbase and it is backed by Valve. We also have a lot of data on proton’s performance and potential game-specific fixes in the form of protondb. Making sure that non-Steam launchers can use all that work and information is crucial to guaranteeing the long-term health of linux gaming. Otherwise it is easy to imagine a future where proton is doing great but the other launchers are keep running into problems and are eventually abandoned.

    One thing that I am curious is how this handles the AppId. If this AppId is used to figure out which game-specific fixes are needed, then it will have to be known. Do we have a tool/database that figures out the AppId from the game you are launching outside of Steam?

    • CashewNut 🏴󠁢󠁥󠁧󠁿
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      110 months ago

      I hope it makes pirated games easier to launch on Linux. 👍 I’ve got about 5 different games I’ve yet to play cos I can’t be arsed looking into Proton command line flags.

  • macniel
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    2510 months ago

    That’s great news. Praise be the glorious Eggroll!

  • @Nonononoki
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    1210 months ago

    Needs a better name tho. How about Unilaunch?

    • @cynar
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      410 months ago

      Given Proton can actually be faster on some windows games, there might be a legitimate use case for this.

      It would also be useful for developers to use for testing. Low friction access to a Linux runtime environment would make it a lot more reasonable for Devs to support Linux as well.

      • @[email protected]
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        310 months ago

        That’s mostly down to DXVK, not Proton in general. You can’t really translate Windows API calls from Windows to … Windows. It wouldn’t change anything. Running games with Vulkan might though, especially with Intel Arc for example.

    • @[email protected]
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      10 months ago

      …so did Lutris, Bottles, ZentryWine and like 8 others. That’s why we created yet a new program to unify them all!

      (To be fair, I like the fact we have choices, and hope this project takes off, but yea…)

      • Kaldo
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        110 months ago

        Sounds like this would be easier to setup and use than Lutris though - dunno about everyone else but I’m always so very confused trying to get non-steam games running on linux, with all the custom paths, simulated folder structures and prefixes while steam apparently does it on its own out of the box.