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: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:2006-09-19
Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:2005-07-06
Can't add anything more to that. That's about the size of it. Open source and non-Windows platform support will continue only as long as Microsoft wants, and you can bet that if Silverlight reaches what they feel is a critical mass of usage you will see non-Microsoft platform support dropped faster than a diarretic camel.
Like a Microsoft manager let slip once, as developers you're being wooed as a one-night stand until they get their wicked way with you ;-).
At this juncture, you will usually get some smart Alec talking about Flash and Adobe. Yep, the situation with Flash is certainly not ideal, but it's a case of who your worst enemy is. At least with Adobe they don't have their own OS and platform to protect, so they're at least going to be committed to keeping Mac and Linux ports of Flash going because they need to keep maximum usage.
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.