Microsoft announces new rich Internet applications development and streaming media features; company outlines plans for supporting Windows, Mac and Linux tools for developing Silverlight applications. Microsoft also announced further support of open source communities by funding advanced Silverlight development capabilities with the Eclipse Foundation's integrated development environment (IDE) and by providing new controls to developers with the Silverlight Control Pack (SCP) under the Microsoft Permissive License.
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Member since:2008-04-20
I wouldn't jump to conclusions too quickly. The mono team is pretty amazing. And Microsoft has already open sourced several parts of Silverlight to help their effort (such as the controls). From my understanding, Microsoft has also made available their entire test suite to the mono team to ensure 100% compatibility.
Now having said that, I still feel that Silverlight is way overkill for most web apps. For a company that has a C# client and wants to move it to the web, Silverlight is great. I think it is also unmatched for speed on a rich featured apps (such as games). So, I think this technology will do very well in the enterprise and certain web apps. But I think the "open web" will continue to be far more popular for most generally available websites. And chrome certainly proves how fast javascript can be if implemented well. Flash... well not sure why anyone on Linux would want a buggy closed source app over an well written open one, but Microsoft hate abounds so common sense may not matter.
Member since:2007-02-17
This is part of the very problem. It is actually at the heart of the issue.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonlight_(runtime)#Microsoft_support
* Microsoft's Test suites for Silverlight,
* Silverlight specification details, beyond those available on the web,
* Binary codecs for Windows Media video and audio, only licensed for use with Moonlight when running in a web browser."
The words "exclusive access" are the heart of the problem. Those words mean "no open source coders beyond Novell". No downstream participants. No open standard, no open development ... indeed, binary codecs, supplied by Microsoft.
Hence, Microsoft control.
Hence, Microsoft can withdraw support, and their permission, on a whim.
Hence, Silverlight is a way for Microsoft to make it a "Microsoft Web", and for Microsoft to put any other party out of competition ... at their whim, whenver they want to.
Hence ... no Silverlight.
Independent thinkers wouldn't touch Silverlight with a ten-foot pole.
It really is pretty simple.
Edited 2008-10-14 08:40 UTC
Member since:2007-02-22
Member since:2005-09-21
Because Microsoft does their Mac and Windows development in-house, but licenses out whatever *nix development they need to third parties? "
That's fine, but if they were serious about supporting Linux they would point to the moonlight site and tell people to get that. The fact that they don't shows that they like to have Moonlight to point to if anyone questions their cross-platformness, but don't have any intention of encouraging people to actually use it or making sure it is actually on par with the other platforms.
Flash is buggy and closed source, but Adobe has no interest in competing with Linux, so it is still infinitely better than Silverlight.
Member since:
2005-09-21
"Cross-platform and cross-browser support. This includes support for Mac, Windows and Linux in Firefox, Safari and Windows Internet Explorer."
Really? Why is it that the official silverlight website has no mention of Linux at all. Not like Moonlight is compatible with Silverlight yet and probably will never be completely, so can't count that...
In other words, Flash, with all its warts is still the best way to go. Microsoft needs to relinquish control of Silverlight and open-source it. Then they could probably take out Flash fairly quickly.