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5 years later Valve finally gives Windows compatibility tool Proton a logo

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Can you believe it? Proton, the compatibility layer that allows Windows games to run on Steam Deck / Linux PCs didn't actually have a proper logo for over 5 years.

Not everything actually needs a logo of course, but it did feel somewhat odd for a piece of software so essential to Valve's plans to just be completely blank on that. With all the entries of Proton in Steam just showing up blank with their name and version, it was about time Valve made it at least a tiny bit prettier don't you think?


Pictured - Proton logo - Valve

Proton has been around since August 2018! 5 and a half years! Hard to imagine trying to game on Linux without it now, it's so incredibly useful and just amazing tech. The Steam Deck obviously wouldn't have been such a success without it, and it's crazy to think the original Steam Machines launched as they did with so few popular games. Proton is a true blessing, enabling tens of thousands of games to work on Linux systems like the Steam Deck.

I guess I can finally retire the silly little placeholder logo I threw out a long time ago when I needed something for it. Rest easy my child, your time is over.

Also, in case you missed it, Valve also recently launched the first Beta of Proton 9.0 and a new Proton Experimental version. Be sure to also read the overview I did back when Proton turned 5 which nicely sums things up.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
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elmapul Feb 29
Quoting: Liam Dawe
Quoting: elmapulso... the logo on protonDB was not the logo for proton? lol
No, it seems like ProtonDB just recoloured the React logo. And I just realised, they're not even within the license since they don't give attribution oopsies.
well i hope react dont react to then, lol.
but if they do we already have some logo to replace then.
melkemind Feb 29
Quoting: ElectricPrismThe saying comes to mind

"When people show you who they really are, believe them the first time."


I mean, I'm with you 100% on that. The thing is, no matter how much the US government wants to say otherwise, corporations aren't people. Microsoft is not a person. It's a public corporation that functions with one motive: profit. Now you can argue against the very concept of capitalism. I myself am very much opposed to it, as was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and pretty much anyone else who cared about human rights. But at the end of the day, you can't look at corporations as people with good or evil motives because they have neither. The only motive is profit.

Sometimes that works in our favor. Sometimes it doesn't. Right now, Microsoft's profit motive is not antagonistic to free and open source software. That could certain change in the future. I was just speaking of the present situation.
tuubi Feb 29
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Quoting: melkemindBut at the end of the day, you can't look at corporations as people with good or evil motives because they have neither. The only motive is profit.
For the purpose of judging motivations, you should look at corporations as the people who own and lead them. They're the ones with agency. A corporation is just an abstract concept.

The fact that these people are more or less expected to seek profit without concern for ethics (at least as far as they can get away with) is irrelevant. If an action would be unethical for a person, it's unethical for a corporation.
melkemind Mar 1
Quoting: tuubi
Quoting: melkemindBut at the end of the day, you can't look at corporations as people with good or evil motives because they have neither. The only motive is profit.
For the purpose of judging motivations, you should look at corporations as the people who own and lead them. They're the ones with agency. A corporation is just an abstract concept.

The fact that these people are more or less expected to seek profit without concern for ethics (at least as far as they can get away with) is irrelevant. If an action would be unethical for a person, it's unethical for a corporation.

True, but my conversation wasn't about current actions, it was about motivations for possible future actions. It was speculation about what Microsoft will do. You could argue that you can predict future actions based on past actions, but the people running the company aren't the same people who ran it back when they were clearly attacking Linux. My argument isn't that they're good now. It's just that we don't know what they're going to do. Microsoft did a fine job of spreading FUD back in the day. I don't see any reason why we need to do the same now. They are not our teachers.
Quoting: Purple Library Guy
Quoting: Liam Dawe
Quoting: elmapulso... the logo on protonDB was not the logo for proton? lol
No, it seems like ProtonDB just recoloured the React logo. And I just realised, they're not even within the license since they don't give attribution oopsies.
Although the license situation there is weird. It says it's Creative Commons, but above that there's also a note saying it "does not meet the threshold of originality needed for copyright protection, and is therefore in the public domain." In which case you can't really license it, Creative Commons or otherwise, although I suppose you could claim it was.
And that's not really surprising--that basic image has been getting used for atom-type-stuff for decades and decades, by everyone from governments to comic books. IIRC, that was the image Doctor Manhattan refused to use in Watchmen.
Wikipedia's licenses for images and other assets are occasionally way wrong. I won't give the exact example here, but they distribute a PDF for a book they claim is in the public domain because it did not come with a copyright notice (many years before the 1989 amendment). In actuality, the person who scanned it missed the copyright page or removed it themselves. I contacted them personally; they told me their hardcover copy did have the copyright notice.

In the case of the React logo, it's not the copyright you need to watch out for. It's the trademark. I seriously doubt ProtonDB is not infringing on Facebook's trademark over the React logo. But regardless, it seems to be licensed under CC-BY SA 4.0, not a generic CC 1.0 license. Facebook certainly doesn't believe they have no rights to the logo: https://github.com/facebook/react/issues/12570#issuecomment-411130246

I would be careful about trusting Wikipedia as the ultimate authority on what the copyright for an asset is...how can the logo be both a CC license and public domain? The only CC license that's true for is CC-0, but the React logo was never licensed under that.
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