On his blog, Miguel de Icaza announced the first public releases of Moonlight. Moonlight is the open source implementation of Microsoft's Silverlight, the company's Flash competitor. Moonlight is not yet free of bugs, though.
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Member since:2005-06-29
Member since:2006-09-26
Yep, just like WINE and Samba and FAT support. And Java up until a year ago. And Flash up until last week. And DOC and XLS and PPT up until earlier this year.
I find it interesting that people enjoy being able to open binary Office formats and read FAT disks, and transfer files with Windows computers, and view Youtube, but wanting to run Windows programs on Linux is the greatest sin one can commit. (only via Mono/Moonlight of course, most people are fine with WINE.)
Member since:2007-06-28
wine and samba are projects that were started at a much different time and for different reasons. you can't really compare the two (well, three). when wine was started, application support on *nix was not where it is today. and, ultimately, wine is a transitory tool. it helps people migrate AWAY from windows. as far as samba is concerned, simple networking in a mixed-platform environment is more urgent than a development platform of shady parentage. as far as binary formats and FAT are concerned, interoperability and supporting legacy devices and files are simply not comparable. nobody is using FAT or .doc because they simply love the tech. please... it's pretty clear that FAT and .doc are two things everybody is trying to get away from.
***.NET/Silverlight may be great tech.*** but a major reason so many FOSS supporters (and myself) have a problem with it is that it will always be a moving target, ultimately steered by a company that ultimately is not looking out for our best interests. you can scream that C# is an open standard all you want. that doesn't change who's steering the ship. that's not blind microsoft-hate. it's conflict avoidance, and there's nothing wrong with that. it's not irrational and it's not FUD. it's troubling that microsoft has a tendency to urgently need their fingers in EVERY pot. they openly want control of the "whole widget" and that bothers people. it may not bother YOU, but's it's a valid concern. they want to own the desktop, the server, search and advertising, console gaming. and it seems like they'll do almost anything to horn in on any market with potential. again, that may not bother YOU, but it's a valid concern.
and on a sidenote, i realize that people throw a lot of their hostility and negativity at miguel unjustly. (this thread is clearly no exception) but, frankly, it seriously appears to a huge number of FOSS supporters that everything he does revolves around emulating microsoft. so many people have worked so hard to *not need* microsoft (or their standards) at all. it's particularly unsettling to STILL be following their tails after all this time when, ultimately, it's COMPLETELY unneccessary. you don't have to agree with me, but acting like so many opinions are baseless is missing the point entirely.
Member since:2006-01-06
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Member since:
2005-12-04
Not intended to be troll, but nobody actually cares about silverlight and moonlight..
Silverlight is no way a internet standard, it's a try to implement one more closed format. Kinda like XPS.
Open source needs to focus the talent on other things instead of _trying_ to copy bad ideias.
Edited 2008-05-15 14:30 UTC