When Microsoft chief software architect Ray Ozzie unveiled Silverlight at MIX07, he vowed that it would be a cross-platform technology. It appears as if the software giant is making good on that pledge: SD Times has learned that some of Microsoft's top developers have provided technical guidance for a Linux implementation of Silverlight.
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Member since:2005-11-13
I don't know, I don't trust Microsoft any more then the next guy, but then again, in this case they may need as much support as they can get in order to compete with Adobe and in this case it may be to Microsoft's benefit to help the Free Software comunity with an implementation, for all of the issues people have with Mono, this could be a huge improvement on Adobe's closed source x86-only flash player. I think it is far better that the Linux comunity is in on this action than sitting on the sideline rooting for Adobe. A bit of competition wouldn't hurt anybody.
Member since:2005-07-06
True - given the state of flash on the platforms, and the lack of support for certain platforms (FreeBSD, Linux on PPC, SPARC etc) - I want to see Adobe step up to the plate and stop treating their customers like trash.
I mean, Microsoft won't provide a client, but if they at least provide assistance, its a damn site more than the lack-there-of of assistance that Adobe provides to gnuash.
Ultimately I hope Microsoft realises that those who don't run Windows don't necessarily hate Microsoft - and as such, are happy to purchase services from Microsoft.
Member since:2005-07-08
Moonlight is free software. We can redistribute it freely. We can fork it. We can study it. We can add cool functionality. That makes it different from Flash or any other proprietary development framework available for Linux.
Some parts of Mono are perhaps questionable. But these parts are contained, and the rest is simply the best high-level runtime we have in the free software arsenal. I'm not a fan of Novell or Microsoft as companies. But I like the free software implementation of Microsoft's rich Internet stack. It's more elegant and advanced than the Sun stack, and it shares more components with the Adobe stack.
The only other option is to get cracking on a purely home-grown solution. We have Parrot as a suitable starting point. It'll take a few years to get it to the point where Moonlight, JavaFX, and Flash are today.
Member since:2007-02-17
... except for, of course, the standard for animation of web graphics, which is SVG and SMIL.
http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG11/animate.html
http://srufaculty.sru.edu/david.dailey/svg/SVGAnimations.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SVG_animation
Member since:
2007-01-18
I'm a bit of a hypocrite, but I'm not touching Silverlight. Then again I don't like flash either.