OSNews

Provider: I have this great solution for the web with animations, efects and many colors.

Customer: Great, is it accessible? The Disability Discrimination Act here in the U.K. has a fine up to £20'000 if a commercial or governmental website is inaccessible.

Provider: Er. Maybe. No.

Tell me how I can access stuff like scanners and webcams from javascript? I get feeling that you have never worked in big enterprise that does business applications, otherwise you would understand complexity of those systems and how you making such with punny tools like javascript and HTML would be pure hell in both development methods and cost wise.

Device API is going through W3C atm. Google are looking to support APIs to talk to hardware through the web with Chrome OS.

Devices require drivers, and though Google might be looking into how to talk to hardware through the web it will be extremely limited for years given the amount of devices that exist.

But I think his overall point is that no one is going to try to build something like Autocad with current web development tools.

It's extremely naive to think that established businesses are going to port their 10 year old c++ codebases over to Ajax + a plugin + xyz because the tech press says cloud computing is cool.

People were saying the same crap in 2000. The future is in web apps, blah blah blah buzzword. Well it is almost 2010 and the only web app I use is email.

Devices require drivers, and though Google might be looking into how to talk to hardware through the web it will be extremely limited for years given the amount of devices that exist. "

The OS will provide the drivers.

The Browser will provide a JavaScript Engine that supports Device API on the front-end (where the webpages can use it) and interface it to the OS APIs on the back-end, thereby negating the need for webpages to know about driver level details.



While I agree it is naive to think people are just going to up and port those programs - this isn't so much about making people port programs, and allowing people to write new programs that take advantage of the APIs. No one is going to port AutoCAD to AJAX+plugin+xyz+DeviceAPI+etc; but someone else might write a similar style application for the web using just such technology instead of C/C++.



Uh..you're posting on OSNews using a JavaScript interface...I'd say that OSNews probably qualifies as a web-app of sorts. Not the kind of web-app predicted in 2000 during the hay-day of the DotCom Bubble, but a web-app nonetheless.

Just like you get to manipulate the DOM - by exposing native objects that provide such access. It's not rocket science, a browser plugin can do that.

For example:

http://library.forum.nokia.com/index.jsp?topic=/Web_Developers_Libr...

Just like you get to manipulate the DOM - by exposing native objects that provide such access. It's not rocket science, a browser plugin can do that. For example: http://library.forum.nokia.com/index.jsp?topic=/Web_Developers_Libr... "

IE doesn't support DOM (past level 1).

Oh, wait a minute ... that too is Microsoft's fault.

Happily, there is a work-around ... install Google Chrome Frame. This will give your IE browser full compliance with DOM level 2.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Chrome_Frame

There again one can see the REAL motivation behind Silverlight: Usurping Web Protocols.

With Silverlight, I guess you will have full DOM 2 access. So what do you do, when you want to get your IE to access other stuff via DOM 2? Yes- use Silverlight.

And Microsot says: Sold! Thank you, Sir.

Edited 2009-11-25 20:32 UTC

Google is working on that, or there is the browser plugin approach which can expose native objects, though how that approach would be standardized I don't know. In the mean time, however, instead of using Silverlight, use Java instead if you're going for more than Windows use in a business application that needs to also talk to the os or devices. I wouldn't exactly call it a web standard, but it's certainly more attractive than Silverlight unless you're tied to Microsoft or are just plain addicted to C#.

The fun thing is that in order to complete with Silverlight, no standardization needs to take place (because that's not done on Silverlight either). Just ship something that works with, say, Firefox and Chrome, and be done with it.

In case you are not aware of this, since XP most of the new Win32 API calls are all COM based.

efficiently. Nor do I remember Java applets having a rich api.

If FOSS advocates had come up with something even half as good as Silverlight 10 years ago flash would be a relic of the past.

But then complaining about standards is a lot easier than coding new ones.

No? What kind of API are you thinking of? Applets have the full capabilities of the Java runtime and of any 3rd-party libraries you care to use - what's missing?

How about streaming HD video?

How about streaming HD video? "

HTML 5.

http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/05/google-dailymotion-...



My bold.

Edited 2009-11-24 22:17 UTC

Why do you even bother responding to my thread when I was discussing Java and its limitations? You add ZERO value.

Why do you even bother responding to my thread when I was discussing Java and its limitations? You add ZERO value. "

This thread is about Silverlight, its non-compliance with standards and its limitations. I am therefore more on topic than you.

A browser can utilise both Java and HTML 5. A web page can include both elements on the same page, and there is ZERO penalty in doing so. Using this approach brings the enormous advantage over Silverlight in that Java/HTML 5 is both cross-platform and standards-compliant, whereas Silverlight is neither.

Edited 2009-11-24 23:52 UTC

Question is, is it possible to do everything in HTML5 and Java that Silverlight does, and do it as efficiently? If so, then you probably have a point. If not, then it comes down to a question of whether you're an idealist or whether you're trying to actually get work done.

you are aware that Java... like Silverlight... needs to be downloaded seperatly right? So, why the hate on Silverlight and not Java? It is just as "non-standard" (as if that is even a criticism to give a product like silverlight).

When in comparison to Silverlight/Flash someone mentions HTML5, an unfinished "standard", which seems like will never ever provide a standard video spec then either that person doesn't really understand what they are talking about or is living in a parallel universe. You should just stop the discussion right there.

This is all disregarding the many nice features like dynamic bandwidth manipulation which Silverlight does and Flash is going to support. Or having to deal with the f--king mess that Javascript is to provide same interactivity that comes near ready with C#/SL.

Real world is much harsher place than imaginary open utopia.

Edited 2009-11-25 01:02 UTC

watch out.... speaking the truth to those peole will only result in insults.

and don't expect it to have smooth hd streaming when it is released

http://www.iis.net/media/experiencesmoothstreaming

"Smoothness" is not a function of the format.

Even your supplied link claims this feature as a feature of IIS. It is even called "IIS Smooth Streaming".

HTML5 can stream HD smoothly, without crippling the machine like Flash. You forget that HTML5 Video is a native implementation of a video player, there’s no man-in-the-middle, and most importantly it can be improved *constantly* by the community. HTML5 will improve in every way very quickly, rather than having to wait on a third party to improve things, which rarely happens—take Flash as an example.

Will it open cans and repair my car too?

HTML5 does nothing. It's just some markup. It's up to the browser vendor to actually implement the feature.

They are (in JavaFX incarnation): com.sun.javafx.mediabox

Not bad. Glitchy, though.

Edited 2009-11-25 05:47 UTC

A well designed API for multimedia-rich web apps.

Sun is getting there with JavaFX but they are still behind Silveright.

Web standards which beat Silverlight cold (including DOM2, compliant javascript, SVG, PNG, SMIL and CSS2) are all over five years old.

These standards are not new.

Amarok is the most overenginered music player and collection manager I've ever seen, the installation is huge and lets not talk about the memory footprint.

The irony is that Digikam uses the double of memory F-Spot needs.

Edited 2009-11-24 22:44 UTC

Amarok is not a music player, it is a music collection manager. It is the best desktop application for that purpose bar none.

If you want just a music player, run Juk or even qmmp.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JuK
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Linux_audio_software#Qmmp

Digikam is significantly more capable than FSpot.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digikam
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-Spot

Amarok and Digikam are only bulkier than Banshee and FSpot if you exclude the Mono bloatware requirement from the latter pair.

And a horrible one at that.

It is one of the worst music managers out there. Amarok2 received nearly universal hatred from 1.x users, and rightly so. By disregarding this fact you are clearly showing how biased your opinion is.

Old news.

Amarok 1.x is also Amarok.

Amarok 2.0 had some regressions, so people could (and did) still run Amarok 1.x if they so desired (even with KDE 4).

Meanwhile, Amarok 2.2.1 is out.

http://www.itrunsonlinux.com/news/126-amarok-221

This release adresses nearly all of the regressions, bringing Amarok 2.x almost to feature parity with Amarok 1.x, and also now new features are beininng to appear.

By disregarding these facts you are clearly showing how out of date your opinion is.

Edited 2009-11-25 02:09 UTC

I said collection manager for amarok, read my post again.

Mono is not a problem for many, maybe to some doom sayers, but not for me, is not bloated, is fast and lite.

If Mono is not a problem, then why is Miguel splitting Mono into the safe parts and the problem parts?

http://blog.christophersmart.com/2009/07/09/novell-to-split-mono/

Even if you use GNOME, if you drop Mono and use replacement GTK+ applications, you get a faster system and save a significant amount of disk space and memory.

http://www.theopensourcerer.com/2009/10/29/how-to-remove-mono-from-...

You won't miss out on much:


Edited 2009-11-25 02:50 UTC

I couldn't care less what Miguel has done about it, I have no problems with Mono and Im 100% sure MS won't sue anybody,if you like to live in fear is your problem not mine.

And quit spamming links I won't read them anyway because the source (you) is not trustworty.

Edited 2009-11-25 03:04 UTC

As my dear departed grandmother always said, "Stevie, if it don't support SMIL... what good is it?" In fact, after the Alzheimers ramped up, that was just about *all* she said. All day. Every day.

FOSS advocates would rather just have Flash specifications.

Well, Silverlight, Flash, and Java Applets are all basically the same thing - browser extensions allowing applications to be built in a style owing more to traditional desktop development than to the web.

Of those, Java has been an utter failure despite early promise, and Flash is by far the dominant option. Silverlight, granted it's a relative newcomer, but I've only ever seen it used on Microsoft-affiliated sites. Not convinced it has a serious future...

There are a non-Microsoft sites using Silverlight. For example, nearly all NCAA college teams' multimedia sites use silverlight now, because CBS bought the old cstv.com site and converting everything to silverlight, which is used to allow users to watch live and archived audio and video streams of games, press conferences, etc, dating back to the early 2000's (for a fee, of course, just like the old cstv site).

Silverlight was/is/will be also used for the Summer Olympics, 2009 Wimbledon (in the US), Final Four, NFL Sunday Night game, Winter Olympics, Democratic National Convention, Netflix, etc. (And there are many lower-profile sites using it as well.)

Clearly, Flash is the defacto standard, I'm just giving examples of non-Microsoft sites that use silverlight.

The only other place I've seen it used were with the SmarterStats and SmarterMail apps (stats & webmail) running on an IIS server - both offered the option to install/use Silverlight for animated charts. I've always declined the option, so I'm not sure what it does though.

<hat type="tinfoil">
Given that both applications run on Windows-based servers, I wouldn't be at all surprised if Microsoft gave them some prompting/incentive to add Silverlight support.
</hat>

Browser extensions? No, they are black-box binary applications that run themselves inside the browser (with Flash being 90% bloat).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Openjdk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IcedTea

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnash
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swfdec

None of these are black-box binary applications.

Java is fine. It sucks for most web browser uses (already been discussed), but it's fine. I should have mentioned that. It's just Silverlight and Flash.

Moonlight can work as well as it wants, but a single Windows-only line of code, and you're screwed. Good a for FOSS business that wants things java isn't good at, but for ends users...meh.

Swfdec: OK, but it seems, like Gnash, to be highly incomplete. I haven't tried using it, but its own Wiki does nothing but point out everything it is lacking.

Gnash simply does not replace Flash.
http://www.hulu.com/
If you're lucky, sometimes the videos work, but on those occasions, the UI doesn't (why even that isn't consistent, I'm not sure). Hopefully the HTML5 folks will agree that both sets of A/V codecs are good, and we can going with hat, instead, for this kind of use case.

Edited 2009-11-25 13:00 UTC

It's far more like Flash - which came around at around the same time as Java. Java was/is a large slow, bloated, crashy mess, compared with Flash, which starts and downloads fast (content issues not withstanding - any successful platform will have bloated inappropriate content on it).

Aside from that, Java always had a strange and scary security model, where most apps would try to access things they probably shouldn't have been accessing - compared with Flash, which still can't access anything outside of it's very web centric sandbox (bugs not withstanding).

Silverlight is much more like Flash, quick and easy to install, and starts quickly, with a sane security model.

BTW, JavaFX still has the same fracking problems. All these years later and they haven't cleaned it up yet.

Banshee and F-Spot don't feel bloated to me.

The Mono package is 91MB on Arch64, and while there are certainly bigger libraries, this seems a bit much to install to watch a few web videos. I've never tried any other Mono apps, though.

I'll probably break down and load it on my HTPC if Silverlight gets much more penetration (in every sense of the word).

Amarok is automatically disqualified because it has vertical tabs. Any application that has vertical tabs may never be used in any discussion to argue superiority. It is mathematically and cosmologically impossible.

not anymore...so his point IS valid. Must say though that vertical tabs are indeed puke worthy

Amarok is automatically disqualified because it has vertical tabs. Any application that has vertical tabs may never be used in any discussion to argue superiority. It is mathematically and cosmologically impossible. "

Amarok no longer has vertical tabs.

http://amarok.kde.org/en/releases/2.2.1

http://amarok.kde.org/files/amarok_221.png



Amarok is better than Banshee in that Amarok has no dependency on Mono.

That is not opinion, that is fact.

PS: Amarok 2.2.1 is perfectly reliable on Kubuntu 9.10 on both my netbook and my x86_64 desktop machine. This happens to be fact too, but it is a non-verifiable (by you) personal experience of mine and you are perfectly entitled to disbelieve it if you choose.

Edited 2009-11-25 22:22 UTC

All I have heard from my (multiple) LINUX using friends recently (and they use a wide range of distros and are also a range of skillsets, including some sysadmins) is hat, pure hate, for Amarok 2. Even after any recent revisions.

Amarok 1.x - hmmm.. I was never convinced by it.



Well, does that mean we can invent facts now? I think you need to discover the difference between "opinion" and "fact". You are putting forward your (or maybe, your social groupings) opinions as facts, when they are actually as flawed as if I stated that Amarok was a bad application because it *doesn't* use Mono. Circular arguments are not helpful and ranting against a subject because you are a pedant is even less helpful. Blinkers off, take a deep breath and realise that you are not convincing anyone that you are putting forward much over pure FUD.

Well, does that mean we can invent facts now? I think you need to discover the difference between "opinion" and "fact". You are putting forward your (or maybe, your social groupings) opinions as facts, when they are actually as flawed as if I stated that Amarok was a bad application because it *doesn't* use Mono. Circular arguments are not helpful and ranting against a subject because you are a pedant is even less helpful. Blinkers off, take a deep breath and realise that you are not convincing anyone that you are putting forward much over pure FUD. "

Sigh! I think you really need to learn how to read.

It is a fact, not an opinion, that Amarok has no dependency on Mono.

BTW, it is also a fact that Amarok no longer has vertical tabs.

Blinkers off, take a deep breath and realise that you are not convincing anyone that there is anything wrong with any of my statemets on this topic.

Nor is there anything actually wrong with Amarok that you have yet identified, come to mention it.

Edited 2009-11-27 01:13 UTC

Nor are you convincing anyone with your constant proselytizing for FOSS.

You can tell from the other posts in response to yours that the statement "Amarok is better than Banshee" can't be quantified quite so easily - I find it truly puke worthy (and less reliable too in my testings) compared with Banshee.

Of course that's opinion, not to be confused with "truth" or any kind of faith based belief in the goodness or evilness of one kind of technology over another.

I frankly think that if applications can leverage tech A better than tech B - that means tech A is better, even if it's proprietary.

I tend to be a patriot more than a nationalist - I want my faith in my country and my social choices (open source in this case) to be validated by proof - dogma be damned. If we truly believe open source can do something better then we demand they do it better. We don't pretend then do - people can see through that.

The above is opinion, not to be confused with fact.

The only problem with that is that MS will just bundle it with Windows (if they haven't already)

Edited 2009-11-24 22:57 UTC

It comes with Windows update and honestly that makes my job easier.

They've already started doing that by bundling it with windows updates, and somehow half the time it seems to ignore the fact that I unchecked it and installs it anyway. Convenient for ms, eh? Is that an intentional bug, or just a feature (TM)?

You think silverlight will not have similar ubiquity if given the same amount of time that Flash had?

and your crap about what HTML 5 offers is garbage wrt silverlight. Silverlight is not meant for the HTML 5 problem space.

What reason is there to think that will? Between Flash and HTML5, there's not a whole lot of empty ground for Silverlight to occupy.



Whoa, who pissed in your cornflakes this morning?



Ahem... and I quote (with emphasis) from the post that you're replying to:



Edited 2009-11-25 01:46 UTC

Uhh... you cite your comments as support for your comment?

Eh? No... I cited my previous comment to illustrate that your "rebuttal" was really just a restatement of a point that I had acknowledged earlier. AKA, it was a slightly more polite way of saying "thank you, Captain Obvious."

Hmmm...except that your point was not relevant to what I said.

So, getting back to the thread topic at hand, what "problem" space IS Silverlight meant for?

I mean to say, where is the actual "problem" that Silverlight solves which is not already addressed by cross-platform and standards-compliant solutions?

Edited 2009-11-25 02:07 UTC

1) Silverlight is cross platform

2)the problem space is streaming media (especialy video at which is is exceptionaly goo), allowing .net developers and now COM developers to easily deploy their applications onto the web and finaly, proving a usable programming model for the real world to create web based services leveraging the microsoft tool chain.

No, it is not. "Windows and partially Mac on x86" is not cross-platform.



There you go ... as you just said, not cross-platform. COM is most decidedly not cross-platform. Microsoft themselves say that only parts of .NET functionality are "allowed" on platforms other than Windows/x86.

Also requires an expensive Microsoft tool chain.

Streaming media is not a problem, as HTML 5 does that.

Edited 2009-11-25 08:38 UTC

Hello Mr blinkers, first class citizen of Blinkerton on Blindside. *sigh*. Pedant.

Yes, cross platform. Microsoft supports 2 platforms. PowerPC Mac is not supported because there isn't a PowerPC based Mac that has been produced in the last 4 years and Apple are EOL support for all but the newest G5's pretty much. There is no forward path for the PowerPC platform - the Mac OS X 10.6 onwards leave them cold.

So, what else? Mono, bless their little hearts, have a stack that runs Silverlight - yes it does before I hear you shout me down. Okay, you really need to be running the bleeding edge version, but it does work.

Now - I have fed the biggest anti-MS/Mono/Silverlight/Flash troll, I await the endless pointless links that he/she/it will produce to defend their blinkered and extremely single focused vision of opensource utopia.

Kroc... I see you too. HTML5.. Hahahahahahaha! That'll be the day ;-)

Note to self : less coffee..

Edited 2009-11-25 10:53 UTC

Hello Mr blinkers, first class citizen of Blinkerton on Blindside. *sigh*. Pedant. "

My the shills are out in force over this one.

They have come out of the woodwork.

Sigh!

Cross-platform is across all platforms, or at the very least, multiple platforms.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-platform


One-and-a-half platforms (Windows and partly on Mac except for COM bits) doesn't cut it bud.

FTA -

Edited 2009-11-25 11:12 UTC

I guess Java isn't cross platform then either since it supports platform spesific features as well.

Shill? Do you even know what that word actually means? Look at my account history - yeah sure, this account was created only to offend you. Oh.. but I had the foresight to join a year before you did.. right.. and I've been here longer than that as that was only the point when anonymous comments were removed as an option.

So... I read a rather over excited blog post from Miguel the other day.. you know, Mr de Icaza (the man you either love or hate - never both..) gushing about Mono supporting all this Silverlight 4 business Microsoft just announced - including out of browser execution. So, well, as Mono supports the *other* platforms that Silverlight supports, via their Moonlight stack, I'm guessing you might be ever so slightly wrong on your assertions? Maybe slightly, maybe more.. time will tell :-)

http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2009/Nov-23.html

No, HTML5 does not do that. That, however, is a strength of HTML.

It can just say, "here's a video."

Everything else is up to the user agent (usually a web browser). Flash and Silverlight, OTOH, are actually doing the streaming, and controlling the decoding, display of it, UI, etc..

That makes the former worse, and the latter better ... how exactly?

It looks like Flash and Silverlight, in actually doing the streaming, and controlling the decoding, display of it, UI, etc, were merely attempts to keep these functions as proprietary binary blobs inside the browser.

That yields control of web content delivery to the providers of the binary blobs.

Unacceptable.

Only recently with only Flash has that control been surrendered.

Tolerable.

At all times with open standards has anyone and everyone been able to write both provider-side and client-side software for the delivery of web content.

Preferred solution.

"That makes the former worse, and the latter better ... how exactly?"
That the browser, and thus user, for good browsers, gains control over what happens to content coming to them. If I just want to get the content, and use it some other way, it becomes easier to do. If I'm on a lower-end machine (or mobile device), I can defer use of the content, but still know what the content actually is.

If open implementations fall a little bit behind, that's not a big deal, IMO (if Gnash reaches current version parity, FI, they could probably implement a new Flash version in some matter of weeks).

Not being entirely beholden to MS, Adobe, etc., for implementation, is important, because those companies end up, with a fully closed system, able to push crap a lot easier (I keep multiple Flash installers on my old Notebook, FI, because sometimes I need Flash 10, but for content that doesn't need it, it loads and runs far slower than Flash 9), and also limit what can be done with the system.

Closed development of the format and what it can do can be quite good, as the perpetual bugginess, and design-by-committee issues are easier to avoid. But, we then need a balance, so that those of us without support from closed vendor X, can still use things made with closed vendor X's tools. Given that said vendors make sure even the good open standards don't succeed, I'll take open me-too implementations as an option.

Edited 2009-11-25 14:57 UTC

*smacks you in head*

COM is not a required component for the use of Silverlight. It is there for those developers who have a COM object they wish to use. I think you are confusing the ability to connect silverlight to a COM object with the ability to serve material cross platform. Java has Libraries that are OS dependant and if you create a java application with one of them, the app can't run anywhere but the OS you targeted... similarly, if the developers decided to use a COM object in their application it would not be targeting other platforms.... that is a developer decision. Giving them the ability to choose that is not a failure of MS to be cross platform.

Your Zealotry is causing you to fail in the logic department.

Would you please point me where I can download the Silverlight plugin for Firefox on Linux on an ARM-processor powered Computer!

No?

Bad Luck - cross platform is not available with Microsoft.

Moonlight sources are available, there is an ARM port for Mono so here you are:
http://mono-project.com/Main_Page

I second this! I've had a Mono GTKsharp app* (Twitter client, but that isn't important), running on Windows, X86 Linux (Ubuntu IIRC), Mac OS X *and* a Nokia N800. The N800 being ARM based, obviously. Moonlight is based on the same stack, so it will support ARM in the near future if not already.

* App I coded to be clear.

Edited 2009-11-26 11:05 UTC

Moonlight sources are available, there is an ARM port for Mono so here you are: http://mono-project.com/Main_Page "

There is no ARM port of the x86 binary blob codecs from Microsoft that Moonlight needs to download in order to be able to view video content.

Edited 2009-11-27 01:16 UTC

COM interop is only for out-of-browser, full-trust apps. It's not really "deploying to the web".

COM interop is only for out-of-browser, full-trust apps, by the way.

Why? I saw Microsoft and I know lemur2 would come with his flood of open source advocacies. I saw Silverlight, so I knew Kroc would come with his HTML5 apologies.

Nothing "bizarre" for me

I don't apologise for HTML5. I write HTML5.

Standards and competition are not incompatible. In fact, standards promote competition.

With a standard in place, all software vendors can compete to produce the best implementation of it.

However, no party is disallowed from proposing better ways to do things. Standards do not mean "thou shalt always do it this way". If there is a better way, then by all means let it be proposed as a new standard ... as long as all parties are allowed to produce an implementation of it. Otherwise, it is not a standard, period. Having some parties barred from competing is, by definition, anti-competitive and antitrust.

Think of the television broadcast standards. No company is barred from making TV transmitter or television receivers. Any company that wants to compete is allowed to make and sell a product as long as it meets the standard. This is a fundamental attribute of the whole market that makes competition possible in the first place. There is competition in television sets, not in television broadcast standards.

There would be absolutely nothing wrong with Silverlight if all software suppliers were allowed to produce their own implementation of it, without having to pay or otherwise be beholden to Microsoft. Given that there are restrictions on producing an implementation of Silverlight, then by definition it is not a standard, and it is not cross-platform, and that in turn means that anything else is by definition infinitely better. Better for competition, too.

Edited 2009-11-25 10:11 UTC

It actually isn't hard to understand at all. An acceptable standard is one where all comers can implement it without hinderance. It has nothing much at all to do with how widely it is already used, and everything to do with the ability of all possible parties to implement it.

Standards are competition-enablers. Think of broadcast TV. There is competition in making television sets, but not in setting television broadcast standards. In point of fact, the only reason there is healthy competition in providing television set to the market is because there is no competition in the broadcast standard. There is only one broadcast standard, and all manufacturers are allowed to make fully compliant products without royalties or other impediments to competition.



Au contraire, Silverlight is one of the primary things Microsoft rightly deserve to be utterly bashed for.

It actually isn't hard to understand at all. An acceptable standard is one where all comers can implement it without hinderance. It has nothing much at all to do with how widely it is already used, and everything to do with the ability of all possible parties to implement it. "

So to return to my statement, how exactly does Adobe Flash fit into this (or any other) definition of standards, while Microsoft Silverlight does not?



I don't think that is a fair comparison. What about terrestrial vs. cable or satellite TV? Here in the UK, you can only watch Sky if you have a Sky dish and box. If I want to watch a sports game which is only on Sky, I have to install their dish and their box and pay their subscription, and no-one else can show what they are showing. So the enabling technology is standard, but Sky has built something non-interoperable on top of it to create a commerical venture for themselves. And it is my choice as a consumer whether I want to use their service or not. Exactly like on the web.

Au contraire, Silverlight is one of the primary things Microsoft rightly deserve to be utterly bashed for. "

What, because they are, at least to some agree, innovating and developing new solutions for the web which the current standards doesn't allow? Preventing that would be anti-competitive, not better for competion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Screen_Project#Open_Screen_Projec...

Anyone may implement. Fully available, royalty-free specs. Allowed to be implemented on "devices such as personal computers, mobile devices and consumer electronics" and not just Windows desktops.



Nevertheless, the web is a marketplace like broadcast TV, and not like cable TV.

Deal with it.



You have not shown that current standards do not allow something that Silverlight does allow.

And, as I said, even if Silverlight does allow for something obscure to be done that current standards do not allow for, Silverlight is a better proposition ONLY when all parties are able to implement it fully (like as in the broadcast TV standards. Play no favourites, then and only then do you have competition).

Edited 2009-11-25 11:40 UTC

Oh, that's convenient, so the web should be like "TV, but just broadcast TV".

Sounds to me like you're just trying to impose your own idealistic views of how the marketplace on the web should work.

Well, neither real life, nor capitalism works like that. Deal with it.



Shows how much you know about Silverlight. How about reading up about something before bashing it. I'm not going to list it's features here when a simple Google search will suffice.

I'm not trying to defend Silverlight or sell it. All I'm saying is that just because someone offers an additional way to do something doesn't mean it's inherently bad.



Really, is that how the real world works then? So Adobe is shining beacon of light now, after they already entrenched themselves in the marketplace with a closed, proprietary technology, only to open it up after the fact?

Not at all. Microsoft have already once before been tried and found guilty of this exact same wrongdoing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_tying




Shows how much you know about Silverlight. How about reading up about something before bashing it. I'm not going to list it's features here when a simple Google search will suffice. "

You have STILL not shown that current standards do not allow something that Silverlight does allow.



Better late than never. Even so, your point here has some validity:

Open standards, free to implement from the outset by any and all comers, such as W3C standards >>> Adobe Flash, which started as proprietary and only later became open and cross-platform >>>> Silverlight.

I agree with that.

Edited 2009-11-25 12:20 UTC

The product tying of IE8 with Windows 98 was a bad idea and it was correct prosecuting Microsoft for that.

Still, how is Silverlight (which isn't tied to anything, it's a free download) similar?

And don't say that using a Silverlight-enabled website ties you to the Windows platform, because it doesn't.

Using a Silverlight-enabled website ties you to the Windows platform.

Yes it does.

Just try and use a Silverlight-enabled website from your mobile phone or your Qualcomm Smartbook (ARM), and see how far you get.

Yeah Lemur,
Cut Microsoft some slack. Their "new" solutions are platform portable. They work perfectly on Windows XP Home, Windows XP Pro, Windows Vista Family Edition, Windows Vista Home, Windows Vista Expensive, Windows 7 Starter-one-process-only-Kit, Windows 7 Home edition, Windows 7 So-Expensive-It-Must-Be-Good Edition.

Yes, I agree Microsoft does excellent innovation of patent-encumbered standards that work only on Microsoft platforms. We should continue to encourage this wasteful and inefficient means of competition that only huge monolithic institutions can afford to enter, but of which only Microsoft has enough money and head start to beat every other "huge" monolitihic institution.

In the same spirit and logic, I think we should dispense with not only British banana units (inches, feet, ounces, pounds, etc.) but also the metric system (meters, kilograms, liters, etc.). I believe that the metric system is stifling competition and innovation in the physical measurement standards ecosphere.

Any overbloated company should have the right to come up with its own patent-encumbered physical units of measurement that only its products can legally adhere to. Moreover, those companies should have the right to prevent other companies from reading the documentation on their new, innovative, units of measurement.

Yes. I think this proposal is the best, most efficient, use of our natural resources which will insure a never ending supply of profit^H^H^H^H^Hconsumer satisfaction in purchasing our one-of-a-kind physical unit of measurement which works only with our products.

There are many things one can bash Microsoft about, but Silverlight is not one of them.

Only if your universe is a Microsoft only universe.

Technologically, C#/.NET/SilverLight are fine, but... MS has the utterly annoying tendency to tie everything they do back to Windows. Understandable from MS point of view, but a huge thorn in the side of people who don't buy into the use-Microsoft-from-the-cradle-to-the-grave phenomenon.

Silverlight is an MS control affair. Why? Because the only way to (try and) get Silverlight stuff running on Linux, I need to install Novell's outdated, third party, knock-off, hackware called Moonlight. MS graciously provides a plug-in for Apple though.

If MS makes it possible to tie Windows specific functionality into Silverlight, it will be only a sigh and a blink until we see windows/IE only developers make the mistake of pulling in a Windows dependency in a Silverlight app intended for public web use.

If Silverlight really was meant as a pure competitor to Flash and W3C standards, MS would offer an up to date MS written plug-in for all desktop OSes. As it stands now, it looks like Silverlight is just another attempt to widen the moat around Windows.

outdated? Moonlight is under active development and is silverlight 2.0 complaint.

GNASH doesn't even provide for Flash 7 compliance.

Souns like FUD to me. Microsoft definitely used to try to be non-interoperable, but I don't think that's any longer the case. Certainly, they focus on pushing their own technology over being interoperable. But they are not against being inter-operable, and they even take strides to accomplish that nowadays (mostly because they've been burnt by the DOJ and/or EU for not doing that, which is a good thing).

So Micorsoft are more concerned over their bottom line than over web standards and interoperability - so what? So are Google, Adobe, Sun/Oracle and above all, Apple.

Souns like FUD to me. Microsoft definitely used to try to be non-interoperable, but I don't think that's any longer the case. Certainly, they focus on pushing their own technology over being interoperable. But they are not against being inter-operable, and they even take strides to accomplish that nowadays (mostly because they've been burnt by the DOJ and/or EU for not doing that, which is a good thing). "

FTA -



Can you say anti-trust?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antitrust



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refusal_to_deal
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-competitive_practices
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barriers_to_entry
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coercive_monopoly
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tying_%28commerce%29


Edited 2009-11-25 11:24 UTC

Silverlight 4.0 has platform specific features - so what?

As explained in my post above, these features aren't intended for the wider web, they are additional features requested by users to enable richer solutions built with Silverlight outside of the web.

You will likely find that there are security restrictions on these features which mean that they are not available from a normal WWW Silverlight plugin, but only in an out-of-browser or intranet environment where developers are designing specifically for Silverlight running on a Windows platform.

I don't see anything wrong with that.

To claim that just because there are Windows-specific features in Silverlight Microsoft is guilty of anti-trust or refusal to deal is, once again, FUD.

Microsoft has never sold Silverlight as being an interoperable, open web standard. It is their own prioprietary technology for rich user experiences on the web, just like Flash is Adobe's. They aren't forcing it down anyone's throat, in fact, FTA:

"

Silverlight content is being pushed over the web.

http://www.osnews.com/permalink?396256

From the horses very own mouth.

NCAA college teams' multimedia sites, Summer Olympics, 2009 Wimbledon (in the US), Final Four, NFL Sunday Night game, Winter Olympics, Democratic National Convention, Netflix, etc.

To view these public broadcasts over the web, one would need Silverlight. To get full Silverlight, one needs a Windows platform.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_tying

This is a case of product tying.

Edited 2009-11-25 11:39 UTC

Will you stop with the FUD already?!

This is simply not true. If you want to view a Silverlight-enabled website, you can do so on most Windows, Mac or Linux machines (via Moonlight, regardless of what you're opinion on that is).

I can promise you, no one will use COM-specific features for a Silverlight-enabled website. It wouldn't make sense. Silverlight 4.0 enables multiple scenarios, only one of which is interacting with legacy technologies like COM, and like I pointed out above, that scenario is not intended for the general web.

To imply just because some features does not apply to your platform you are not getting the "full" Silverlight experience is ill-informed.

Anyway, I can see when I'm not welcome. I'm not a Mircosoft-lover or hater. I'm just trying to bring some balance and point out that Silverlight is no less evil than Flash and Adobe AIR. But when people are purposefully blind just so they can stay on their own high horse, it's a lost cause.

This is not correct.

In order to view such content on other platforms, firstly it must be an x86 desktop platform. All other devices and architectures are not supported.

Secondly, Mono and Moonlight does not come with the required software to view such sites. One needs to download proprietary blobs from Microsoft, and even then Moonlight is so far behind that most of these sites would not work.

Ergo, one is still beholden to Microsoft to be allowed to view such content. Microsoft could cut such support at any time, at their whim.

Ergo, Silverlight is not acceptable. Utterly unacceptable, in fact. It is not NEARLY cross-platform enough. Not by a long shot. Not by light years.

What was the platform support of Adobe Flash like at this stage in its life cycle? I'm not saying, I'm asking, because I don't know.

But my suspicion is, or this was my impression when Flash first started gaining traction, that it started out with limited support as well.

And Adobe AIR, which is more comparable to Silverlight than Flash in terms of functionality, is limited to x86, Windows, Mac OS and Linux as well, as far as I can tell.

That said, I agree that Microsoft probably has less interest in expanding inter-operability than Adobe, because they are more than happy for people to just use it on Windows. So if they do ever tie people into Windows through Silverlight, that would be illegal and wrong. But I don't see that they're doing that at the moment. They are just expanding Silverlight's functionality.

So could Adobe. I'm not comparing Silverlight to open web standards. It isn't one. It doesn't claim to be. I'm comparing it to Flash and AIR. Which for some reason people here believe is more "okay" than Silverlight.



No technology starts out completely cross-platform. Not even Google Chrome. It is too big an investment first off. And once again, Microsoft being Microsoft, they will probably not invest as much as other companies towards that goal, but they are trying at least, in their own clumsy haphazard way.

I agree that Silverlight is not nearly cross-platform enough, in that sense it is no better than Adobe's web technologies. But it certainly is no worse either.

For me, as a developer, the time will soon come when I will probably strongly consider Silverlight because of all it has to offer - and it offers a lot - but not for building websites, for it's potential in the enterprise space where interoperability is not the be-all and end-all.

Silverlight allows me, using my existing skills, to build experiences for the web (and off the web) that are much richer than was previously possible. That's how Microsoft sells it, and that's what makes it acceptable to me.

History has already proven you wrong. You might not remember a little thing called Active-X which was a Microsoft-only technology developed by Microsoft for Microsoft OSes. Some commercial websites used this "innovative" technology which made it impossible for those of us who don't use Microsoft OSes to do business with them. Here's an example of the nonsensical use of
<a href="http://news.cnet.com/2100-1023-268947.html">
ActiveX.: http://news.cnet.com/2100-1023-268947.html



See above.

[q]Will you stop with the FUD already?!
Quoting facts is not FUD.

History has already proven you wrong. "

Then you should have no problem providing a link to a website that uses Silverlight AND COM-specific features.

Waiting...



So riko states that no one will use Silverlight's COM features for a public website, because it would make no sense... And your "proof" to the contrary is an article that's over a decade old and has nothing whatsoever to do with Silverlight? Interesting.

The phrase "EPIC FAIL" comes to mind.

Yes, and in-browser, partial-trust Silverlight doesn't support COM interop, so I'm not sure what your point is.

They're harping on that point because they want a Harrison Bergeron-esque world where successful platforms are handicapped to give the Freetards time to play catch-up.

Are you daft?

Offering developers the ability to create applications in silverlight that make use of COM is not turning silverlight into a platform specific system anymore than Java adding OS specific libraries made Java platform specific.

Zealotry getting in the way of the frontal lobe.