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:2005-07-12
BTW - I just downloaded the Moonlight plugin into my Firefox, running on Mandriva 2008 Spring, restarted Firefox, then went to the MS Silverlight demo website, and it worked flawlessly.
I'm glad I have the choice to use this. There are, and will be, websites that use Silverlight, and I love that I now have the ability to view those sights on Linux.
Also, as a developer who works in both a Windows world and *nix world, I'm glad I have an sdk for .Net and Silverlight to run on Linux.
Also, back to the tired old concern about MS patents - the .Net CLR and C# are open ECMA standards with "no sue" declarations, and MS has completely opened up the Silverlight specs to the Moonlight guys, and even helped them with docs and technical support. Also, it is very much in Microsoft's interests to have this *nix implementation, and with no effort on their part.
So, in short, don't worry, be happy - but still keep a weary eye 
Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:2007-02-17
No. What Microsoft does is partly open the specs. Some vital part it keeps for itself.
.Net is a classic example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_.NET#Standardization_and_lic...
"In August 2000, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, and Intel worked to standardize CLI and the C# programming language. By December 2001, both were ratified ECMA standards (ECMA 335 and ECMA 334). ISO followed in April 2003.
While Microsoft and their partners hold patents for the CLI and C#, ECMA and ISO require that all patents essential to implementation be made available under 'reasonable and non-discriminatory (RAND) terms'. In addition to meeting these terms, the companies have agreed to make the patents available royalty-free.
However, this does not apply for the part of the .NET Framework which is not covered by the ECMA/ISO standard, which includes Windows Forms, ADO.NET, and ASP.NET. Patents that Microsoft holds in these areas may deter non-Microsoft implementations of the full framework."
See? You can have most of .Net ... but you can't write a GUI because Windows Forms is held back. If you try to port Windows forms to another platform, so that a program originally written in .Net using Windows forms can be easily ported to that other platform ... Microsoft would certainly sue.
Absolutely classic Microsoft behaviour, that.
For Silverlight ... the piece of that that Microsoft have held back for themselves exclusively is the content creation part.
You can only create Silverlight content on a Windows platform.
Ergo, it is totally unsuited to become a standard ... just like most of Microsoft's stuff is similarly unsuited.
Member since:2005-07-25
See? You can have most of .Net ... but you can't write a GUI because Windows Forms is held back. If you try to port Windows forms to another platform, so that a program originally written in .Net using Windows forms can be easily ported to that other platform ... Microsoft would certainly sue.
So... why haven't they sued Mono, yet? 
"Mono's Winforms 2.0 is now API Complete"
http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2008/May-13.html
Member since:
2005-07-12
MS has opened the specs of the .Net CLR, C#, and Silverlight. In fact, MS has been helping the Mono guys do Moonlight, with docs, support, etc.
I get as mad as anyone at Microsoft for their business tactics, and some of their software being crap, and not being totally customer focused. But some software MS does is very good, and MS isn't always evil. So a little level headed balance is in order.
Always proceed with caution when dealing with MS tech compatibility. But don't reject it outright.