Submitted by During Microsoft’s Professional Developers Conference the company’s President of Server and Tools, Bob Muglia, and Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie talked to a select group of reporters and bloggers about a variety of topics – including Silverlight.
In a world where the web is striving for standards and platform neutrality, things like Silverlight seem to make very little sense. Adobe’s Flash is somewhat understandable in this context because it has become a de-facto standard – but that doesn’t go for Silverlight. How does Microsoft intend to position Silverlight in the world of ever more capable standards, such as HTML 5?
“The thing we want to be careful of is, we’re not trying to say Silverlight is an alternative standardization to HTML 5, and that part of the Web,” Muglia told BetaNews, “We’re not saying, ‘Hey, you should use this instead of that’. We’re trying to provide people with an environment that has capabilities that you just simply can’t do today in the standards-based world.”
Ozzie further explained that Silverlight is the most logical choice for developers experienced in developing C#. “When I’m thinking of Silverlight, I’m thinking a lot in terms of skills leverage for the people who have learned how to program, how to build things in C#, who have built-up assets,” Ozzie explained, “And it is the most seamless transition for people like that to build to things in the browser and build things that are hybrid, between the browser and the service.”
“Our perspective on this is very simple: the standards-based world will advance, and continue to do more and more, and applications will be delivered in that way, and that’s a critical thing,” Muglia said, “There will always be opportunities for people to build applications that take advantage of characteristics that go beyond what the standards do, and that’s what we’re trying to do with Silverlight.”
This is all nice and dandy, but it doesn’t explain that version 4 of Silverlight has platform-specific features. For instance, the out-of-browser functionality of Silverlight now has an HTML control, but this control is tied to Internet Explorer on Windows, and Safari on the Mac. To make matters worse, Silverlight 4 now also has a Component Object Model (COM) automation feature, which is tied completely to Windows because Mac OS X doesn’t offer a similar feature.
Ars asked Microsoft what was up with this, and received an explanation. “In Silverlight 4 we addressed over 8,000 customer feature requests,” a Microsoft spokesperson told Ars, “One specific request was adding support for accessing COM components, enabling common enterprise scenarios such as automating Microsoft Office and providing developers easy access to hardware capabilities such as scanners and security card readers.”
“Unfortunately, the Mac offers no support for COM interfaces and we’re actively evaluating options to get COM-like features on the Mac,” the Microsoft spokesperson said, “Some of our current efforts to provide full cross-platform support include actively evaluating the best way to get COM-like features on other platforms and thinking around the concept of extensions, as well as working closely with the Moonlight team to deliver more features to Linux users.”
Despite Microsoft’s efforts, I think Silverlight will remain a hard sell – which is sad in a cruel way because at least on Windows, Silverlight is a lot more efficient than Flash (i.e., it uses less system resources while doing its thing). I dislike both Flash and Silverlight, but at least Silverlight plug-ins don’t bring my quad-core to a screeching halt.
In the end though, the rising popularity of HTML5 will usurp a lot of the traditional use-cases for Flash and Silverlight, and this can only be seen as a good thing.
The job of enforce standars is for the final user the way I see it, for example:
Provider: I have this great solution for the web with animations, efects and many colours.
Customer: Great, it uses standars
Provider:No
Customer: GTFO and dont waste my time:
The other way is:
Provider: I have this great solution for the web with animations, efects and many colors.
Customer: Great, it is cheap?
Provider:Yes
Customer: Sold.
BTW, to salads looks yummi,
Edited 2009-11-24 19:30 UTC
Provider: I have this great solution for the web with animations, efects and many colors.
Customer: Great, is it accessible? The Disability Discrimination Act here in the U.K. has a fine up to £20’000 if a commercial or governmental website is inaccessible.
Provider: Er. Maybe. No.
“No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.”
If you understood the web Microsoft, then Silverlight would not exist. As it stands, you’re just trying to make ActiveX 2.0.
COM. Lol. I’ve gone beyond feeling pity for them and started laughing instead. It’s that bad.
Tell me how I can access stuff like scanners and webcams from javascript? I get feeling that you have never worked in big enterprise that does business applications, otherwise you would understand complexity of those systems and how you making such with punny tools like javascript and HTML would be pure hell in both development methods and cost wise.
Device API is going through W3C atm. Google are looking to support APIs to talk to hardware through the web with Chrome OS.
Devices require drivers, and though Google might be looking into how to talk to hardware through the web it will be extremely limited for years given the amount of devices that exist.
But I think his overall point is that no one is going to try to build something like Autocad with current web development tools.
It’s extremely naive to think that established businesses are going to port their 10 year old c++ codebases over to Ajax + a plugin + xyz because the tech press says cloud computing is cool.
People were saying the same crap in 2000. The future is in web apps, blah blah blah buzzword. Well it is almost 2010 and the only web app I use is email.
The OS will provide the drivers.
The Browser will provide a JavaScript Engine that supports Device API on the front-end (where the webpages can use it) and interface it to the OS APIs on the back-end, thereby negating the need for webpages to know about driver level details.
While I agree it is naive to think people are just going to up and port those programs – this isn’t so much about making people port programs, and allowing people to write new programs that take advantage of the APIs. No one is going to port AutoCAD to AJAX+plugin+xyz+DeviceAPI+etc; but someone else might write a similar style application for the web using just such technology instead of C/C++.
Uh..you’re posting on OSNews using a JavaScript interface…I’d say that OSNews probably qualifies as a web-app of sorts. Not the kind of web-app predicted in 2000 during the hay-day of the DotCom Bubble, but a web-app nonetheless.
Just like you get to manipulate the DOM – by exposing native objects that provide such access. It’s not rocket science, a browser plugin can do that.
For example:
http://library.forum.nokia.com/index.jsp?topic=/Web_Developers_Libr…
IE doesn’t support DOM (past level 1).
Oh, wait a minute … that too is Microsoft’s fault.
Happily, there is a work-around … install Google Chrome Frame. This will give your IE browser full compliance with DOM level 2.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Chrome_Frame
There again one can see the REAL motivation behind Silverlight: Usurping Web Protocols.
With Silverlight, I guess you will have full DOM 2 access. So what do you do, when you want to get your IE to access other stuff via DOM 2? Yes- use Silverlight.
And Microsot says: Sold! Thank you, Sir.
Edited 2009-11-25 20:32 UTC
Google is working on that, or there is the browser plugin approach which can expose native objects, though how that approach would be standardized I don’t know. In the mean time, however, instead of using Silverlight, use Java instead if you’re going for more than Windows use in a business application that needs to also talk to the os or devices. I wouldn’t exactly call it a web standard, but it’s certainly more attractive than Silverlight unless you’re tied to Microsoft or are just plain addicted to C#.
The fun thing is that in order to complete with Silverlight, no standardization needs to take place (because that’s not done on Silverlight either). Just ship something that works with, say, Firefox and Chrome, and be done with it.
In case you are not aware of this, since XP most of the new Win32 API calls are all COM based.
“We’re not saying, ‘Hey, you should use this instead of that’. We’re trying to provide people with an environment that has capabilities that you just simply can’t do today in the standards-based world – because of Internet Explorer, and our decision to not improve it, so we can push Silverlight.”
That’s better.
Edited 2009-11-24 20:01 UTC
Interestingly, we like to contrast Silverlight against Flash (possibly due to “rich media support”; how hard can that be anyway?) – but in reality, Silverlight is just a rehash of Java applets. Probably due to lack of excitement around Java applets (to understate the matter), Microsoft doesn’t really bring Java up in connection with Silverlight all that often.
efficiently. Nor do I remember Java applets having a rich api.
If FOSS advocates had come up with something even half as good as Silverlight 10 years ago flash would be a relic of the past.
But then complaining about standards is a lot easier than coding new ones.
No? What kind of API are you thinking of? Applets have the full capabilities of the Java runtime and of any 3rd-party libraries you care to use – what’s missing?
How about streaming HD video?
HTML 5.
http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/05/google-dailymotion-…
My bold.
Edited 2009-11-24 22:17 UTC
Why do you even bother responding to my thread when I was discussing Java and its limitations? You add ZERO value.
This thread is about Silverlight, its non-compliance with standards and its limitations. I am therefore more on topic than you.
A browser can utilise both Java and HTML 5. A web page can include both elements on the same page, and there is ZERO penalty in doing so. Using this approach brings the enormous advantage over Silverlight in that Java/HTML 5 is both cross-platform and standards-compliant, whereas Silverlight is neither.
Edited 2009-11-24 23:52 UTC
Question is, is it possible to do everything in HTML5 and Java that Silverlight does, and do it as efficiently? If so, then you probably have a point. If not, then it comes down to a question of whether you’re an idealist or whether you’re trying to actually get work done.
http://htmlfive.appspot.com/
http://html5demos.com/
http://people.mozilla.com/~prouget/demos/
http://blog.gingertech.net/2009/06/12/cool-html5-video-demos/
http://9elements.com/io/?p=153
http://www.dzone.com/links/html_5_canvas_game_demo.html
http://www.kevs3d.co.uk/dev/asteroids/
Just a few after a quick search (amongst many thousands of hits)
Umm, you can do anything in Java, including calling native APIS.
Applets died a death but the few that are out there now run really well thanks to vast improvements in the JVM and pre-loading of the JRE. Java now also has a smaller download than .NET. Enterprises use a lot more Java than .NET (since .NET is really a technology for the desktop and home user, and is limited in the enterprise by its huge weakness of platform dependency).
It would be a good idea to take a look at a modern JVM and not use the arguments that were appropriate in 2003.
you are aware that Java… like Silverlight… needs to be downloaded seperatly right? So, why the hate on Silverlight and not Java? It is just as “non-standard” (as if that is even a criticism to give a product like silverlight).
Almost every Windows machine ships with a modern Java pre-installed. While Java is not standardized it is open (see the opening paragraphs of its license) that allow for *anyone* to make a compatible implementation without fee. It is not possible to do so with .NET/Silverlight.
Therefore what is the purpose of .NET/Silverlight? Simply to keep you tied to Windows. They are technologies designed more for Microsoft’s strategic benefit than the end user. If the end user was really important then Microsoft would have adopted Java, *kept the standard implementation* (which they did not do, and therefore lost a court battle with Sun) and added libraries that were kick-ass on Windows. Instead they turned their Java implementation first into “Cool” and then called it “.NET”. Simply to stop the leak of developers moving to Java (since Visual Basic use was huge but being lured by Java and MFC sucked in comparison).
It is the same thing with the Web. Microsoft technologies are designed specifically to make the web experience suck compared to the desktop. This slowed migration of applications to the web enormously. Fortunately they could not stop it forever and we’re seeing an acceleration to the cloud of everything that can be moved there (and it is true not everything can, yet).
So, my comments were not because of an unreasoning hate of Silverlight but instead trying to point out that its technology exists in one form or the other (Java or AJAX web eg. GWT). Adopting Silverlight with its closed-source and desktop-bound focus is detrimental to web progress as a whole.
” If the end user was really important then Microsoft would have adopted Java, *kept the standard implementation* ”
Why? The standard implementation wasn’t suitable for client apps in 1995.
It wasn’t 1995 I was talking about, it was 2002-2003. Were you in the business then, or is what went on hearsay history?
When in comparison to Silverlight/Flash someone mentions HTML5, an unfinished “standard”, which seems like will never ever provide a standard video spec then either that person doesn’t really understand what they are talking about or is living in a parallel universe. You should just stop the discussion right there.
This is all disregarding the many nice features like dynamic bandwidth manipulation which Silverlight does and Flash is going to support. Or having to deal with the f–king mess that Javascript is to provide same interactivity that comes near ready with C#/SL.
Real world is much harsher place than imaginary open utopia.
Edited 2009-11-25 01:02 UTC
watch out…. speaking the truth to those peole will only result in insults.
and don’t expect it to have smooth hd streaming when it is released
http://www.iis.net/media/experiencesmoothstreaming
“Smoothness” is not a function of the format.
Even your supplied link claims this feature as a feature of IIS. It is even called “IIS Smooth Streaming”.
HTML5 can stream HD smoothly, without crippling the machine like Flash. You forget that HTML5 Video is a native implementation of a video player, there’s no man-in-the-middle, and most importantly it can be improved *constantly* by the community. HTML5 will improve in every way very quickly, rather than having to wait on a third party to improve things, which rarely happens—take Flash as an example.
Will it open cans and repair my car too?
HTML5 does nothing. It’s just some markup. It’s up to the browser vendor to actually implement the feature.
They are (in JavaFX incarnation): com.sun.javafx.mediabox
Not bad. Glitchy, though.
Edited 2009-11-25 05:47 UTC
A well designed API for multimedia-rich web apps.
Sun is getting there with JavaFX but they are still behind Silveright.
Web standards which beat Silverlight cold (including DOM2, compliant javascript, SVG, PNG, SMIL and CSS2) are all over five years old.
These standards are not new.
Amarok is the most overenginered music player and collection manager I’ve ever seen, the installation is huge and lets not talk about the memory footprint.
The irony is that Digikam uses the double of memory F-Spot needs.
Edited 2009-11-24 22:44 UTC
Amarok is not a music player, it is a music collection manager. It is the best desktop application for that purpose bar none.
If you want just a music player, run Juk or even qmmp.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JuK
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Linux_audio_software#Qmmp
Digikam is significantly more capable than FSpot.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digikam
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-Spot
Amarok and Digikam are only bulkier than Banshee and FSpot if you exclude the Mono bloatware requirement from the latter pair.
And a horrible one at that.
It is one of the worst music managers out there. Amarok2 received nearly universal hatred from 1.x users, and rightly so. By disregarding this fact you are clearly showing how biased your opinion is.
Old news.
Amarok 1.x is also Amarok.
Amarok 2.0 had some regressions, so people could (and did) still run Amarok 1.x if they so desired (even with KDE 4).
Meanwhile, Amarok 2.2.1 is out.
http://www.itrunsonlinux.com/news/126-amarok-221
This release adresses nearly all of the regressions, bringing Amarok 2.x almost to feature parity with Amarok 1.x, and also now new features are beininng to appear.
By disregarding these facts you are clearly showing how out of date your opinion is.
Edited 2009-11-25 02:09 UTC
I said collection manager for amarok, read my post again.
Mono is not a problem for many, maybe to some doom sayers, but not for me, is not bloated, is fast and lite.
If Mono is not a problem, then why is Miguel splitting Mono into the safe parts and the problem parts?
http://blog.christophersmart.com/2009/07/09/novell-to-split-mono/
Even if you use GNOME, if you drop Mono and use replacement GTK+ applications, you get a faster system and save a significant amount of disk space and memory.
http://www.theopensourcerer.com/2009/10/29/how-to-remove-mono-from-…
You won’t miss out on much:
Edited 2009-11-25 02:50 UTC
I couldn’t care less what Miguel has done about it, I have no problems with Mono and Im 100% sure MS won’t sue anybody,if you like to live in fear is your problem not mine.
And quit spamming links I won’t read them anyway because the source (you) is not trustworty.
Edited 2009-11-25 03:04 UTC
In order to “spam” I would have to be making a profit from links. I’m not. It matters not at all to me what you read and what you don’t read … it matters only to you how much you know versus how ignorant you are.
I didn’t write anything which is in the links. In the links you will find information and backup to what I said. You are saying that you will not read those sources which verify and vindicate what I say because you don’t want to believe what I say.
That is OK, you believe exactly what you want to, but for the sake of others I must point out exactly what wrong impression you are apparently trying to push about what I say.
I’m fairly certain also that Microsoft won’t sue anyone about Mono, but that is not the point. The point is the impression that Microsoft are trying to send to people. By syaing that only certain pieces of Mono come under Microsoft’s Open Promises, they are clearly trying to create FUD about the rest of the pieces of Mono.
So why should I support Mono and help Microsoft to push its FUD?
That is a great reason to avoid installing and running Mono.
There are no compelling reasons at all to install it.
You can scream all the “bad” and “unethic” things MS has done, I don’t care, I trusth Mono in this one, you don’t? your problem, Mono from the technical pov is excelent and a viable solution, as politics? I don’t care. You can keep your personal war with MS for another 100 years for what I care and meanwhile you are busy googling for more links to spam I’ll be enjoying the good software like F-Spot, TomBoy, Banshee, GNOME-DO, MonoTorrent, etc, etc. Good luck with your political war, Im not interested in it.
Edited 2009-11-25 03:34 UTC
Relevant how?
What you do, and what you believe, is totally up to you. Enjoy yourself.
As for everyone else – Mircrosoft have split their “attitude” towards Mono into two parts. One part they condone, another they do not.
The Mono Project has itself split its project into those same two categories. One part is under a promise from Microsoft, another is not.
What people do with this knowledge is totally up to them … but it is always better for people to have the knowledge and to be informed than it is to be ignorant.
For those people who are thinking that “well, if Microsoft won’t promise that there is no problem with parts of Mono then perhaps I shouldn’t use it” … then in order to make a decision it is helpful for them to know that: (1) “the amount of code being written for FOSS projects using C# was pretty negligible at just 1.33%”, and also to know that (2) KDE doesn’t use Mono at all, and that (3) the Mono-infected GNOME desktop applications all have as good or better KDE equivalents.
As for everyone else
You don’t know what eveybody else think, you may quote or link opinions from people who think like you, but there are also many who don’t witch I can also quote.
OK, for clarity as to my meaning, please read it as follows:
“As for everyone else, be aware that Mircrosoft have split their “attitude” towards Mono into two parts. One part they condone, another they do not. The Mono Project has itself split its project into those same two categories. One part is under a promise from Microsoft, another is not.”
I hope that that was clear.
Correct. I never claimed that I did. I can’t see a point in your strawman statement.
As I said before –
That remains perfectly true, as it always will.
Fine. Quote away.
As I said, my information was “For those people who are thinking “well, if Microsoft won’t promise that there is no problem with parts of Mono then perhaps I shouldn’t use it”. For those people, I provided them with information.
Now, what exactly are you doing for anyone?
Ah, you’re 100% sure. Good. I’m glad that’s legally settled then.
Microsoft has a *history* of suing people. How is it that you don’t know this? Do a google search on Microsoft and suing and I’m sure you can find lots of your own examples.
Wait, let me make sure I understand you: When presented with an opinion that’s backed up by factual information you choose to ignore the factual information and would prefer that it not be brought up in the first place. Is this correct?
Please help me to understand how this behavior which looks to me like the behavior of a troll is not trollish behavior? This resembles the behavior of http://www.politicsforum.org/images/flame_warriors/flame_34.php“&g…
Lets make a bet, tell me when MS is planing to sue, how many years (months or weeks) from now, if the time pass and don’t sue anyone I win if it does you win, so please, name a date.
Microsoft will not sue over Mono AS LONG AS Mono does not get into the “can’t dump that out of Linux” – type of Software.
Once a critical part of any Linux distribution is based on Mono, and Linux distributions continue to be a PITA for Microsoft, lawsuits WILL be coming.
Or why else do you think does Microsoft take great care to NOT make a legally binding and UNREVOCABLE patent license grant for Mono?
As my dear departed grandmother always said, “Stevie, if it don’t support SMIL… what good is it?” In fact, after the Alzheimers ramped up, that was just about *all* she said. All day. Every day.
FOSS advocates would rather just have Flash specifications.
Well, Silverlight, Flash, and Java Applets are all basically the same thing – browser extensions allowing applications to be built in a style owing more to traditional desktop development than to the web.
Of those, Java has been an utter failure despite early promise, and Flash is by far the dominant option. Silverlight, granted it’s a relative newcomer, but I’ve only ever seen it used on Microsoft-affiliated sites. Not convinced it has a serious future…
There are a non-Microsoft sites using Silverlight. For example, nearly all NCAA college teams’ multimedia sites use silverlight now, because CBS bought the old cstv.com site and converting everything to silverlight, which is used to allow users to watch live and archived audio and video streams of games, press conferences, etc, dating back to the early 2000’s (for a fee, of course, just like the old cstv site).
Silverlight was/is/will be also used for the Summer Olympics, 2009 Wimbledon (in the US), Final Four, NFL Sunday Night game, Winter Olympics, Democratic National Convention, Netflix, etc. (And there are many lower-profile sites using it as well.)
Clearly, Flash is the defacto standard, I’m just giving examples of non-Microsoft sites that use silverlight.
The only other place I’ve seen it used were with the SmarterStats and SmarterMail apps (stats & webmail) running on an IIS server – both offered the option to install/use Silverlight for animated charts. I’ve always declined the option, so I’m not sure what it does though.
<hat type=”tinfoil”>
Given that both applications run on Windows-based servers, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Microsoft gave them some prompting/incentive to add Silverlight support.
</hat>
Browser extensions? No, they are black-box binary applications that run themselves inside the browser (with Flash being 90% bloat).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Openjdk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IcedTea
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnash
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swfdec
None of these are black-box binary applications.
Java is fine. It sucks for most web browser uses (already been discussed), but it’s fine. I should have mentioned that. It’s just Silverlight and Flash.
Moonlight can work as well as it wants, but a single Windows-only line of code, and you’re screwed. Good a for FOSS business that wants things java isn’t good at, but for ends users…meh.
Swfdec: OK, but it seems, like Gnash, to be highly incomplete. I haven’t tried using it, but its own Wiki does nothing but point out everything it is lacking.
Gnash simply does not replace Flash.
http://www.hulu.com/
If you’re lucky, sometimes the videos work, but on those occasions, the UI doesn’t (why even that isn’t consistent, I’m not sure). Hopefully the HTML5 folks will agree that both sets of A/V codecs are good, and we can going with hat, instead, for this kind of use case.
Edited 2009-11-25 13:00 UTC
It’s far more like Flash – which came around at around the same time as Java. Java was/is a large slow, bloated, crashy mess, compared with Flash, which starts and downloads fast (content issues not withstanding – any successful platform will have bloated inappropriate content on it).
Aside from that, Java always had a strange and scary security model, where most apps would try to access things they probably shouldn’t have been accessing – compared with Flash, which still can’t access anything outside of it’s very web centric sandbox (bugs not withstanding).
Silverlight is much more like Flash, quick and easy to install, and starts quickly, with a sane security model.
BTW, JavaFX still has the same fracking problems. All these years later and they haven’t cleaned it up yet.
Much as I’d like Silverlight (and Flash, too) to die ignominious deaths, Silverlight will get some adoption because Microsoft is paying providers to use it. I’ve already seen it with some content sites on the ‘net that I visit, much to my disappointment. Right now I use my Windows laptop for those, but viewing them on my Linux HTPC or any of my other non-Windows boxen is going to be difficult.
I haven’t tried Mono on Linux because I don’t want the bloat, but I think the Silverlight version there is one or two versions behind the Windows one, so I’m not sure how well it would work anyway.
Banshee and F-Spot don’t feel bloated to me.
The Mono package is 91MB on Arch64, and while there are certainly bigger libraries, this seems a bit much to install to watch a few web videos. I’ve never tried any other Mono apps, though.
I’ll probably break down and load it on my HTPC if Silverlight gets much more penetration (in every sense of the word).
That is probably because you haven’t tried Amarok and digikam, which are both significantly better in that neither one requires the trojan Mono bloatware.
Edited 2009-11-24 22:22 UTC
Amarok is automatically disqualified because it has vertical tabs. Any application that has vertical tabs may never be used in any discussion to argue superiority. It is mathematically and cosmologically impossible.
not anymore…so his point IS valid. Must say though that vertical tabs are indeed puke worthy
Amarok no longer has vertical tabs.
http://amarok.kde.org/en/releases/2.2.1
http://amarok.kde.org/files/amarok_221.png
Amarok is better than Banshee in that Amarok has no dependency on Mono.
That is not opinion, that is fact.
PS: Amarok 2.2.1 is perfectly reliable on Kubuntu 9.10 on both my netbook and my x86_64 desktop machine. This happens to be fact too, but it is a non-verifiable (by you) personal experience of mine and you are perfectly entitled to disbelieve it if you choose.
Edited 2009-11-25 22:22 UTC
All I have heard from my (multiple) LINUX using friends recently (and they use a wide range of distros and are also a range of skillsets, including some sysadmins) is hat, pure hate, for Amarok 2. Even after any recent revisions.
Amarok 1.x – hmmm.. I was never convinced by it.
Well, does that mean we can invent facts now? I think you need to discover the difference between “opinion” and “fact”. You are putting forward your (or maybe, your social groupings) opinions as facts, when they are actually as flawed as if I stated that Amarok was a bad application because it *doesn’t* use Mono. Circular arguments are not helpful and ranting against a subject because you are a pedant is even less helpful. Blinkers off, take a deep breath and realise that you are not convincing anyone that you are putting forward much over pure FUD.
Sigh! I think you really need to learn how to read.
It is a fact, not an opinion, that Amarok has no dependency on Mono.
BTW, it is also a fact that Amarok no longer has vertical tabs.
Blinkers off, take a deep breath and realise that you are not convincing anyone that there is anything wrong with any of my statemets on this topic.
Nor is there anything actually wrong with Amarok that you have yet identified, come to mention it.
Edited 2009-11-27 01:13 UTC
Nor are you convincing anyone with your constant proselytizing for FOSS.
You can tell from the other posts in response to yours that the statement “Amarok is better than Banshee” can’t be quantified quite so easily – I find it truly puke worthy (and less reliable too in my testings) compared with Banshee.
Of course that’s opinion, not to be confused with “truth” or any kind of faith based belief in the goodness or evilness of one kind of technology over another.
I frankly think that if applications can leverage tech A better than tech B – that means tech A is better, even if it’s proprietary.
I tend to be a patriot more than a nationalist – I want my faith in my country and my social choices (open source in this case) to be validated by proof – dogma be damned. If we truly believe open source can do something better then we demand they do it better. We don’t pretend then do – people can see through that.
The above is opinion, not to be confused with fact.
I don’t care much in for open standards or the like. I consider lockin a viable technique to ensure cash flow. This is not to say I support such things… I’m just not against such things.
I think customers are more than capable of finding the benefit between openness and functionality. Apple is very closed, but for some reason they offer excellent functionality… so people don’t care as much about their closed nature.
However, the key to using proprietary techniques is that they MUST make things easier or better. I don’t even use word documents at work (aside from the formally required ones) because we have a wiki system in place. Easier to share, easy to see diffs…
So the question is will silverlight make things easier for developers? That is the question. The only question that really matter. And by making things easier… I also include, does your site work for your customers who might have a different browsers… support issues on silverlight install…
Now I’ve done some work with silverlight (2.0), and it’s not bad. You can do a lot of dynamic things with it including local file access (great for internal apps). Supposedly,the charting and what not is very good as well. The COM access will bring in older code as well. If silverlight is played well, it could do very well in the enterprise… which in turn solidifies its presence.
I am sure Google or some other company can deliver a solution based on HTML 5 that makes development that much easier. yes that means source completion, separation of html from code, good libraries, easy deployment…
Websites keep track if you have it installed or not and as long as nobody has it installed it will remain non-standard niche crapware.
The only problem with that is that MS will just bundle it with Windows (if they haven’t already)
Edited 2009-11-24 22:57 UTC
It comes with Windows update and honestly that makes my job easier.
They’ve already started doing that by bundling it with windows updates, and somehow half the time it seems to ignore the fact that I unchecked it and installs it anyway. Convenient for ms, eh? Is that an intentional bug, or just a feature (TM)?
++
IMO, Silverlight falls in between Flash and HTML 5 – in that it has both of their weaknesses, but neither of their relative strengths. It essentially offers the worst of both worlds.
Flash’s advantages are its ubiquity (most users have it installed, it works with most browser+OS combinations), and its relative maturity – which has lead to a healthy ecosystem of third-party solutions that use Flash.
Silverlight? Not so much.
HTML 5 (specifically the areas in which it competes Flash) has the advantage of openness, being a formally-defined standard, not requiring dependence on a single vendor, and it will (potentially/eventually) be even more ubiquitous than Flash.
Silverlight? Again, not so much.
You think silverlight will not have similar ubiquity if given the same amount of time that Flash had?
and your crap about what HTML 5 offers is garbage wrt silverlight. Silverlight is not meant for the HTML 5 problem space.
What reason is there to think that will? Between Flash and HTML5, there’s not a whole lot of empty ground for Silverlight to occupy.
Whoa, who pissed in your cornflakes this morning?
Ahem… and I quote (with emphasis) from the post that you’re replying to:
Edited 2009-11-25 01:46 UTC
Uhh… you cite your comments as support for your comment?
Eh? No… I cited my previous comment to illustrate that your “rebuttal” was really just a restatement of a point that I had acknowledged earlier. AKA, it was a slightly more polite way of saying “thank you, Captain Obvious.”
Hmmm…except that your point was not relevant to what I said.
So, getting back to the thread topic at hand, what “problem” space IS Silverlight meant for?
I mean to say, where is the actual “problem” that Silverlight solves which is not already addressed by cross-platform and standards-compliant solutions?
Edited 2009-11-25 02:07 UTC
1) Silverlight is cross platform
2)the problem space is streaming media (especialy video at which is is exceptionaly goo), allowing .net developers and now COM developers to easily deploy their applications onto the web and finaly, proving a usable programming model for the real world to create web based services leveraging the microsoft tool chain.
No, it is not. “Windows and partially Mac on x86” is not cross-platform.
There you go … as you just said, not cross-platform. COM is most decidedly not cross-platform. Microsoft themselves say that only parts of .NET functionality are “allowed” on platforms other than Windows/x86.
Also requires an expensive Microsoft tool chain.
Streaming media is not a problem, as HTML 5 does that.
Edited 2009-11-25 08:38 UTC
Hello Mr blinkers, first class citizen of Blinkerton on Blindside. *sigh*. Pedant.
Yes, cross platform. Microsoft supports 2 platforms. PowerPC Mac is not supported because there isn’t a PowerPC based Mac that has been produced in the last 4 years and Apple are EOL support for all but the newest G5’s pretty much. There is no forward path for the PowerPC platform – the Mac OS X 10.6 onwards leave them cold.
So, what else? Mono, bless their little hearts, have a stack that runs Silverlight – yes it does before I hear you shout me down. Okay, you really need to be running the bleeding edge version, but it does work.
Now – I have fed the biggest anti-MS/Mono/Silverlight/Flash troll, I await the endless pointless links that he/she/it will produce to defend their blinkered and extremely single focused vision of opensource utopia.
Kroc… I see you too. HTML5.. Hahahahahahaha! That’ll be the day 😉
Note to self : less coffee..
Edited 2009-11-25 10:53 UTC
My the shills are out in force over this one.
They have come out of the woodwork.
Sigh!
Cross-platform is across all platforms, or at the very least, multiple platforms.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-platform
One-and-a-half platforms (Windows and partly on Mac except for COM bits) doesn’t cut it bud.
FTA –
Edited 2009-11-25 11:12 UTC
I guess Java isn’t cross platform then either since it supports platform spesific features as well.
Not a sound argument.
It is possible to develop fully functional Java applications without using these features. However, they are available if you really, really need them (which is a bad idea in my opinion since you want to be able to sell to Mac, Windows, Linux, BSD, Solaris/Unix etc without requiring extra development effort [you want more profit]).
Wow… and guess what… it is possible to develop the same damn things in Silverlight. you do not need to to use the platform specific features for anything at all!!!!
My argument about Java is as valid as the argument about Silverlight. if the Java argument is invalid, then so is the silverlight one.
Shill? Do you even know what that word actually means? Look at my account history – yeah sure, this account was created only to offend you. Oh.. but I had the foresight to join a year before you did.. right.. and I’ve been here longer than that as that was only the point when anonymous comments were removed as an option.
So… I read a rather over excited blog post from Miguel the other day.. you know, Mr de Icaza (the man you either love or hate – never both..) gushing about Mono supporting all this Silverlight 4 business Microsoft just announced – including out of browser execution. So, well, as Mono supports the *other* platforms that Silverlight supports, via their Moonlight stack, I’m guessing you might be ever so slightly wrong on your assertions? Maybe slightly, maybe more.. time will tell 🙂
http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2009/Nov-23.html
Probably not, he’s one of the folks around here who treat words like “shill” and “astroturfer” as if they were just more strongly-worded ways of saying “someone I don’t agree with.”
The really beautiful thing is that they obviously don’t realize that accusing someone of being a shill or an astroturfer is also potentially an accusation of fraud. I really can’t wait until some Freetard moron finds himself in court for libel/making false accusations.
No, HTML5 does not do that. That, however, is a strength of HTML.
It can just say, “here’s a video.”
Everything else is up to the user agent (usually a web browser). Flash and Silverlight, OTOH, are actually doing the streaming, and controlling the decoding, display of it, UI, etc..
That makes the former worse, and the latter better … how exactly?
It looks like Flash and Silverlight, in actually doing the streaming, and controlling the decoding, display of it, UI, etc, were merely attempts to keep these functions as proprietary binary blobs inside the browser.
That yields control of web content delivery to the providers of the binary blobs.
Unacceptable.
Only recently with only Flash has that control been surrendered.
Tolerable.
At all times with open standards has anyone and everyone been able to write both provider-side and client-side software for the delivery of web content.
Preferred solution.
“That makes the former worse, and the latter better … how exactly?”
That the browser, and thus user, for good browsers, gains control over what happens to content coming to them. If I just want to get the content, and use it some other way, it becomes easier to do. If I’m on a lower-end machine (or mobile device), I can defer use of the content, but still know what the content actually is.
If open implementations fall a little bit behind, that’s not a big deal, IMO (if Gnash reaches current version parity, FI, they could probably implement a new Flash version in some matter of weeks).
Not being entirely beholden to MS, Adobe, etc., for implementation, is important, because those companies end up, with a fully closed system, able to push crap a lot easier (I keep multiple Flash installers on my old Notebook, FI, because sometimes I need Flash 10, but for content that doesn’t need it, it loads and runs far slower than Flash 9), and also limit what can be done with the system.
Closed development of the format and what it can do can be quite good, as the perpetual bugginess, and design-by-committee issues are easier to avoid. But, we then need a balance, so that those of us without support from closed vendor X, can still use things made with closed vendor X’s tools. Given that said vendors make sure even the good open standards don’t succeed, I’ll take open me-too implementations as an option.
Edited 2009-11-25 14:57 UTC
*smacks you in head*
COM is not a required component for the use of Silverlight. It is there for those developers who have a COM object they wish to use. I think you are confusing the ability to connect silverlight to a COM object with the ability to serve material cross platform. Java has Libraries that are OS dependant and if you create a java application with one of them, the app can’t run anywhere but the OS you targeted… similarly, if the developers decided to use a COM object in their application it would not be targeting other platforms…. that is a developer decision. Giving them the ability to choose that is not a failure of MS to be cross platform.
Your Zealotry is causing you to fail in the logic department.
Would you please point me where I can download the Silverlight plugin for Firefox on Linux on an ARM-processor powered Computer!
No?
Bad Luck – cross platform is not available with Microsoft.
Moonlight sources are available, there is an ARM port for Mono so here you are:
http://mono-project.com/Main_Page
I second this! I’ve had a Mono GTKsharp app* (Twitter client, but that isn’t important), running on Windows, X86 Linux (Ubuntu IIRC), Mac OS X *and* a Nokia N800. The N800 being ARM based, obviously. Moonlight is based on the same stack, so it will support ARM in the near future if not already.
* App I coded to be clear.
Edited 2009-11-26 11:05 UTC
There is no ARM port of the x86 binary blob codecs from Microsoft that Moonlight needs to download in order to be able to view video content.
Edited 2009-11-27 01:16 UTC
COM interop is only for out-of-browser, full-trust apps. It’s not really “deploying to the web”.
Listen… a COM functionality for silverlight does not expose some sort of fancy cool features of the system, it simply lets developers who are on windows and who have windows systems built on COM to expose those to the web through silverlight.
As to the HTML control…. On windows it is IE specific, HOWEVER, on OS X that same functionality is provided for through safari’s engine. Do you have a problem with the use of native look a feel?
COM interop is only for out-of-browser, full-trust apps, by the way.
So competition is now not only undesirable, but immoral? The web standards are such brilliant enlightened pieces of technology that any challenge against them is sacrilegious?
Seriously, I find the endless complaining bizarre. The web standards are all around fairly crappy, the W3C is an amalgam of commercial interest, and is not really morally superior to its competitors. Being a “standards organisation” is not some special position to hold that grants the ability to dictate what the world should look like.
I get complaining about IE not implementing already accepted and major standards fully, but I don’t get why Microsoft is wrong to offer competition to a standard-to-be without significant current market penetration. The only reason why the standards have started moving a little bit again is because of some reasonable competition, notably Flash showed what an multimedia-filled and properly interactive web could look like, and now the web standards are scrambling to catch up to.
Well, this is slightly rambling, but I am not really sure what the position of those I am arguing against are. We need competition, just having a bunch of browsers implementing the same set of crappy XML standards and not daring to move beyond that is the surest way to bring us back to stagnation on the web. We have no idea what the future of the web looks like, and it is much too early to try to look the landscape down with committees and year-long processes as the only route for innovations.
Why? I saw Microsoft and I know lemur2 would come with his flood of open source advocacies. I saw Silverlight, so I knew Kroc would come with his HTML5 apologies.
Nothing “bizarre” for me
I don’t apologise for HTML5. I write HTML5.
Standards and competition are not incompatible. In fact, standards promote competition.
With a standard in place, all software vendors can compete to produce the best implementation of it.
However, no party is disallowed from proposing better ways to do things. Standards do not mean “thou shalt always do it this way”. If there is a better way, then by all means let it be proposed as a new standard … as long as all parties are allowed to produce an implementation of it. Otherwise, it is not a standard, period. Having some parties barred from competing is, by definition, anti-competitive and antitrust.
Think of the television broadcast standards. No company is barred from making TV transmitter or television receivers. Any company that wants to compete is allowed to make and sell a product as long as it meets the standard. This is a fundamental attribute of the whole market that makes competition possible in the first place. There is competition in television sets, not in television broadcast standards.
There would be absolutely nothing wrong with Silverlight if all software suppliers were allowed to produce their own implementation of it, without having to pay or otherwise be beholden to Microsoft. Given that there are restrictions on producing an implementation of Silverlight, then by definition it is not a standard, and it is not cross-platform, and that in turn means that anything else is by definition infinitely better. Better for competition, too.
Edited 2009-11-25 10:11 UTC
I’m sorry, but this just strikes me as needless Microsoft-bashing.
I’m all for standards compliance – but there is no requirement that everything on the web has to adhere to standards.
Particularly since innovation on the web doesn’t happen through standards, standards are usually a result of innovation that came about from outside the scope of the standards. Video in HTML 5 is a good example: while it has been on the cards for a long time, it probably owes something to the ground broken by Flash, YouTube etc.
“Adobe’s Flash is somewhat understandable in this context because it has become a de-facto standard – but that doesn’t go for Silverlight.”
This is hard-to-understand logic. So Adobe Flash, which wasn’t a standard to start out with (and still isn’t) is acceptable but Silverlight isn’t, just because it hasn’t been as widely adopted yet?
Yes, I know Microsoft plagiarises various bits and pieces from other companies and technologies. Yes, they are not as open as Linux or Google. But if they want to release their own web framework leveraging their own infrastructure and user/developer base, why not?
Silverlight 4.0 adds some platform-specific features (like COM, help us all), not because Microsoft wants to bring them onto the web, but because users want to use Silverlight in out-of-browser scenarios and have access to Windows platforms in the enterprise. This doesn’t make the core of Silverlight less relevant or less platform neutral, it just adds features users have asked for.
I don’t see the problem with that. Silverlight is an extremely powerful framework, mostly not as a Flash clone, but for the possibilities it offers when you want to move out of the pure web standards space and onto the company intranet. It combines the wide adoption and good design of .NET and C# with the ubiquity of the web and web browsers.
There are many things one can bash Microsoft about, but Silverlight is not one of them.
Edited 2009-11-25 10:32 UTC
It actually isn’t hard to understand at all. An acceptable standard is one where all comers can implement it without hinderance. It has nothing much at all to do with how widely it is already used, and everything to do with the ability of all possible parties to implement it.
Standards are competition-enablers. Think of broadcast TV. There is competition in making television sets, but not in setting television broadcast standards. In point of fact, the only reason there is healthy competition in providing television set to the market is because there is no competition in the broadcast standard. There is only one broadcast standard, and all manufacturers are allowed to make fully compliant products without royalties or other impediments to competition.
Au contraire, Silverlight is one of the primary things Microsoft rightly deserve to be utterly bashed for.
So to return to my statement, how exactly does Adobe Flash fit into this (or any other) definition of standards, while Microsoft Silverlight does not?
I don’t think that is a fair comparison. What about terrestrial vs. cable or satellite TV? Here in the UK, you can only watch Sky if you have a Sky dish and box. If I want to watch a sports game which is only on Sky, I have to install their dish and their box and pay their subscription, and no-one else can show what they are showing. So the enabling technology is standard, but Sky has built something non-interoperable on top of it to create a commerical venture for themselves. And it is my choice as a consumer whether I want to use their service or not. Exactly like on the web.
What, because they are, at least to some agree, innovating and developing new solutions for the web which the current standards doesn’t allow? Preventing that would be anti-competitive, not better for competion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Screen_Project#Open_Screen_Projec…
Anyone may implement. Fully available, royalty-free specs. Allowed to be implemented on “devices such as personal computers, mobile devices and consumer electronics” and not just Windows desktops.
Nevertheless, the web is a marketplace like broadcast TV, and not like cable TV.
Deal with it.
You have not shown that current standards do not allow something that Silverlight does allow.
And, as I said, even if Silverlight does allow for something obscure to be done that current standards do not allow for, Silverlight is a better proposition ONLY when all parties are able to implement it fully (like as in the broadcast TV standards. Play no favourites, then and only then do you have competition).
Edited 2009-11-25 11:40 UTC
Oh, that’s convenient, so the web should be like “TV, but just broadcast TV”.
Sounds to me like you’re just trying to impose your own idealistic views of how the marketplace on the web should work.
Well, neither real life, nor capitalism works like that. Deal with it.
Shows how much you know about Silverlight. How about reading up about something before bashing it. I’m not going to list it’s features here when a simple Google search will suffice.
I’m not trying to defend Silverlight or sell it. All I’m saying is that just because someone offers an additional way to do something doesn’t mean it’s inherently bad.
Really, is that how the real world works then? So Adobe is shining beacon of light now, after they already entrenched themselves in the marketplace with a closed, proprietary technology, only to open it up after the fact?
Not at all. Microsoft have already once before been tried and found guilty of this exact same wrongdoing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_tying
You have STILL not shown that current standards do not allow something that Silverlight does allow.
Better late than never. Even so, your point here has some validity:
Open standards, free to implement from the outset by any and all comers, such as W3C standards >>> Adobe Flash, which started as proprietary and only later became open and cross-platform >>>> Silverlight.
I agree with that.
Edited 2009-11-25 12:20 UTC
The product tying of IE8 with Windows 98 was a bad idea and it was correct prosecuting Microsoft for that.
Still, how is Silverlight (which isn’t tied to anything, it’s a free download) similar?
And don’t say that using a Silverlight-enabled website ties you to the Windows platform, because it doesn’t.
Using a Silverlight-enabled website ties you to the Windows platform.
Yes it does.
Just try and use a Silverlight-enabled website from your mobile phone or your Qualcomm Smartbook (ARM), and see how far you get.
You are not making fair comparisons here. Does Flash-enabled websites work in these environments? Or Google Gears for that matter?
Apples to apples, please.
Well, I don’t personally own an exhaustive set of “environments” with which to test, but nevertheless all of Flash, Java, Javascript and W3C standards will all work far better and cross-platform on multiple devices than Silverlight does, without a doubt.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartbook
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_internet_device
No contest. Silverlight is the hands-down loser in this race.
Edited 2009-11-25 13:00 UTC
How is that apples to apples anyway. Silverlight is ALOT less mature than flash, who has years of existence and barely a Linux plugin working. And after all these years we still don’t have a native BSD flash plugin, and are still forced to jump hoops with linux binary emulation or wine to watch youtube.
How is Flash and Adobe better than Microsoft is pure zealotry.
Moonlight works better than GNASH and has come a lot farther in 1 year.
If anything, Silverlight/Moonlight wroks better on Linux/BSD and soon, many other platforms than Flash.
Yeah Lemur,
Cut Microsoft some slack. Their “new” solutions are platform portable. They work perfectly on Windows XP Home, Windows XP Pro, Windows Vista Family Edition, Windows Vista Home, Windows Vista Expensive, Windows 7 Starter-one-process-only-Kit, Windows 7 Home edition, Windows 7 So-Expensive-It-Must-Be-Good Edition.
Yes, I agree Microsoft does excellent innovation of patent-encumbered standards that work only on Microsoft platforms. We should continue to encourage this wasteful and inefficient means of competition that only huge monolithic institutions can afford to enter, but of which only Microsoft has enough money and head start to beat every other “huge” monolitihic institution.
In the same spirit and logic, I think we should dispense with not only British banana units (inches, feet, ounces, pounds, etc.) but also the metric system (meters, kilograms, liters, etc.). I believe that the metric system is stifling competition and innovation in the physical measurement standards ecosphere.
Any overbloated company should have the right to come up with its own patent-encumbered physical units of measurement that only its products can legally adhere to. Moreover, those companies should have the right to prevent other companies from reading the documentation on their new, innovative, units of measurement.
Yes. I think this proposal is the best, most efficient, use of our natural resources which will insure a never ending supply of profit^H^H^H^H^Hconsumer satisfaction in purchasing our one-of-a-kind physical unit of measurement which works only with our products.
There are many things one can bash Microsoft about, but Silverlight is not one of them.
Only if your universe is a Microsoft only universe.
Technologically, C#/.NET/SilverLight are fine, but… MS has the utterly annoying tendency to tie everything they do back to Windows. Understandable from MS point of view, but a huge thorn in the side of people who don’t buy into the use-Microsoft-from-the-cradle-to-the-grave phenomenon.
Silverlight is an MS control affair. Why? Because the only way to (try and) get Silverlight stuff running on Linux, I need to install Novell’s outdated, third party, knock-off, hackware called Moonlight. MS graciously provides a plug-in for Apple though.
If MS makes it possible to tie Windows specific functionality into Silverlight, it will be only a sigh and a blink until we see windows/IE only developers make the mistake of pulling in a Windows dependency in a Silverlight app intended for public web use.
If Silverlight really was meant as a pure competitor to Flash and W3C standards, MS would offer an up to date MS written plug-in for all desktop OSes. As it stands now, it looks like Silverlight is just another attempt to widen the moat around Windows.
outdated? Moonlight is under active development and is silverlight 2.0 complaint.
GNASH doesn’t even provide for Flash 7 compliance.
My feeling is that C# developers are caught in a trap where their only way to reach web clients is a dead-end technology.
Why should I fall into this trap when I can use Google Web Toolkit (Java to JavaScript) or just plain use JavaScript?
The WWW is inherently interoperable and Microsoft proposals are inherently non-interoperable. Sounds like a set phrase but it is literally what happens again, and again. Jesus, I bet IE will be at 20% of world-wide usage and they’ll keep trying to create the MSN network. Good luck with that.
Edited 2009-11-25 10:46 UTC
Souns like FUD to me. Microsoft definitely used to try to be non-interoperable, but I don’t think that’s any longer the case. Certainly, they focus on pushing their own technology over being interoperable. But they are not against being inter-operable, and they even take strides to accomplish that nowadays (mostly because they’ve been burnt by the DOJ and/or EU for not doing that, which is a good thing).
So Micorsoft are more concerned over their bottom line than over web standards and interoperability – so what? So are Google, Adobe, Sun/Oracle and above all, Apple.
FTA –
Can you say anti-trust?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antitrust
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refusal_to_deal
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-competitive_practices
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barriers_to_entry
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coercive_monopoly
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tying_%28commerce%29
Edited 2009-11-25 11:24 UTC
Silverlight 4.0 has platform specific features – so what?
As explained in my post above, these features aren’t intended for the wider web, they are additional features requested by users to enable richer solutions built with Silverlight outside of the web.
You will likely find that there are security restrictions on these features which mean that they are not available from a normal WWW Silverlight plugin, but only in an out-of-browser or intranet environment where developers are designing specifically for Silverlight running on a Windows platform.
I don’t see anything wrong with that.
To claim that just because there are Windows-specific features in Silverlight Microsoft is guilty of anti-trust or refusal to deal is, once again, FUD.
Microsoft has never sold Silverlight as being an interoperable, open web standard. It is their own prioprietary technology for rich user experiences on the web, just like Flash is Adobe’s. They aren’t forcing it down anyone’s throat, in fact, FTA:
Silverlight content is being pushed over the web.
http://www.osnews.com/permalink?396256
From the horses very own mouth.
NCAA college teams’ multimedia sites, Summer Olympics, 2009 Wimbledon (in the US), Final Four, NFL Sunday Night game, Winter Olympics, Democratic National Convention, Netflix, etc.
To view these public broadcasts over the web, one would need Silverlight. To get full Silverlight, one needs a Windows platform.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_tying
This is a case of product tying.
Edited 2009-11-25 11:39 UTC
Will you stop with the FUD already?!
This is simply not true. If you want to view a Silverlight-enabled website, you can do so on most Windows, Mac or Linux machines (via Moonlight, regardless of what you’re opinion on that is).
I can promise you, no one will use COM-specific features for a Silverlight-enabled website. It wouldn’t make sense. Silverlight 4.0 enables multiple scenarios, only one of which is interacting with legacy technologies like COM, and like I pointed out above, that scenario is not intended for the general web.
To imply just because some features does not apply to your platform you are not getting the “full” Silverlight experience is ill-informed.
Anyway, I can see when I’m not welcome. I’m not a Mircosoft-lover or hater. I’m just trying to bring some balance and point out that Silverlight is no less evil than Flash and Adobe AIR. But when people are purposefully blind just so they can stay on their own high horse, it’s a lost cause.
This is not correct.
In order to view such content on other platforms, firstly it must be an x86 desktop platform. All other devices and architectures are not supported.
Secondly, Mono and Moonlight does not come with the required software to view such sites. One needs to download proprietary blobs from Microsoft, and even then Moonlight is so far behind that most of these sites would not work.
Ergo, one is still beholden to Microsoft to be allowed to view such content. Microsoft could cut such support at any time, at their whim.
Ergo, Silverlight is not acceptable. Utterly unacceptable, in fact. It is not NEARLY cross-platform enough. Not by a long shot. Not by light years.
What was the platform support of Adobe Flash like at this stage in its life cycle? I’m not saying, I’m asking, because I don’t know.
But my suspicion is, or this was my impression when Flash first started gaining traction, that it started out with limited support as well.
And Adobe AIR, which is more comparable to Silverlight than Flash in terms of functionality, is limited to x86, Windows, Mac OS and Linux as well, as far as I can tell.
That said, I agree that Microsoft probably has less interest in expanding inter-operability than Adobe, because they are more than happy for people to just use it on Windows. So if they do ever tie people into Windows through Silverlight, that would be illegal and wrong. But I don’t see that they’re doing that at the moment. They are just expanding Silverlight’s functionality.
So could Adobe. I’m not comparing Silverlight to open web standards. It isn’t one. It doesn’t claim to be. I’m comparing it to Flash and AIR. Which for some reason people here believe is more “okay” than Silverlight.
No technology starts out completely cross-platform. Not even Google Chrome. It is too big an investment first off. And once again, Microsoft being Microsoft, they will probably not invest as much as other companies towards that goal, but they are trying at least, in their own clumsy haphazard way.
I agree that Silverlight is not nearly cross-platform enough, in that sense it is no better than Adobe’s web technologies. But it certainly is no worse either.
For me, as a developer, the time will soon come when I will probably strongly consider Silverlight because of all it has to offer – and it offers a lot – but not for building websites, for it’s potential in the enterprise space where interoperability is not the be-all and end-all.
Silverlight allows me, using my existing skills, to build experiences for the web (and off the web) that are much richer than was previously possible. That’s how Microsoft sells it, and that’s what makes it acceptable to me.
History has already proven you wrong. You might not remember a little thing called Active-X which was a Microsoft-only technology developed by Microsoft for Microsoft OSes. Some commercial websites used this “innovative” technology which made it impossible for those of us who don’t use Microsoft OSes to do business with them. Here’s an example of the nonsensical use of
<a href=”http://news.cnet.com/2100-1023-268947.html“>
ActiveX.: http://news.cnet.com/2100-1023-268947.html
See above.
[q]Will you stop with the FUD already?!
Quoting facts is not FUD.
Then you should have no problem providing a link to a website that uses Silverlight AND COM-specific features.
Waiting…
So riko states that no one will use Silverlight’s COM features for a public website, because it would make no sense… And your “proof” to the contrary is an article that’s over a decade old and has nothing whatsoever to do with Silverlight? Interesting.
The phrase “EPIC FAIL” comes to mind.
I agree. You have EPICALLY FAILED to understand the point. So I will harder to make it clearer. Here goes:
1) Microsoft “innovates” a web technology that requires features that only a Microsoft OS can provide. AKA things like I don’t know, ACTIVEX or maybe say COM.
2) LOGICALLY one would expect that such technologically would not be used by one to create a website that uses such a technology to LOCK OUT any clients who use an operating sytem OTHER THAN Window OS.
I PRESENTED an EXAMPLE of such behavior by microsoft AND website developers. Do you get the point?
Here’s the quote from Riko in case you forgot:
He claims that just because it wouldn’t make sense that therefore no would do such a thing based SOLELY on the fact that “it wouldn’t make sense”. I gave an example of where “it wouldn’t make sense” DID NOT STOP people from doing such things with Microsoft technology encouraged by Microsoft. Understand?
Now, maybe “you” don’t know of a website that uses silverlight and com, and maybe there aren’t any right now, but as my example has demonstrated that’s no barrier to some sites being that stupid with encouragement from Microsoft.
Here’s another quote for you. Link:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc296246(VS.95).aspx
And quote:
Note the choice of words. It’s intended for use within an application, but there’s no barrier here for using it within IE. Steve knows best indeed!
And just remember: denial is not just a river in Egypt.
“Now, maybe “you” don’t know of a website that uses silverlight and com, and maybe there aren’t any right now, but as my example has demonstrated that’s no barrier to some sites being that stupid with encouragement from Microsoft. ”
A barrier is that COM interop is not supported for browser-based Silverlight applications. It is only enabled for out-of-browser Silverlight applications running in full trust mode.
I have no idea what you’re on about with the agcore.dll COM interfaces, but they have nothing to do with the new COM interop feature. agcore.dll is the core of the IE version of Silverlight; it provides a set of COM interfaces so other applications can embed it as well.
Hahaha! Pot. Kettle. Black.
And you know why it wouldn’t make sense? Because, as several others have already pointed out, IT WOULDN’T WORK. At all.
Silverlight’s COM features simply don’t work with apps running in a browser. Do you think maybe that’s enough of a barrier?
Yes, and in-browser, partial-trust Silverlight doesn’t support COM interop, so I’m not sure what your point is.
They’re harping on that point because they want a Harrison Bergeron-esque world where successful platforms are handicapped to give the Freetards time to play catch-up.
Are you daft?
Offering developers the ability to create applications in silverlight that make use of COM is not turning silverlight into a platform specific system anymore than Java adding OS specific libraries made Java platform specific.
Zealotry getting in the way of the frontal lobe.
Muglia says total utter bullshit. These are zero-reasonable-arguments. MS is pushing the crap like Adobe ant that’s all. No philosophy. BTW – not everyone grabs what you throw, so you better listen to the wiser part of your userbase.