Good luck running a >20 year old native Linux game on a modern Linux distro without recompiling.
A Proton like layer would also totally make sense on Windows, assuming that support for older Windows APIs is better in Proton than on Windows itself (which isn't a far fetched assumption).
All of this already exists on Windows. They're already drop in DLL replacements that smooth out compatibility with older versions of graphics APIs among other APIs. And old support for old games actually isn't that bad on Windows 11. No one has heard of this game, but I could just boot up the old Japanese PC game Abyss Boat and it kind of just works. If I use a DLL replacement or something like dxwnd or dgvoodoo2 it's even better.
With a Direct Draw replacement like the one from WineD3D your game/software is not better; the game literally stop beings a Power Point presentation and gets fully playable.
But, by default, you'll get a slideshow in a game that would run screamly fast under a Pentium 3 and a Windows release from its era.
A Proton like layer would also totally make sense on Windows, assuming that support for older Windows APIs is better in Proton than on Windows itself (which isn't a far fetched assumption).