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Comments: 251 +- Technology: New Microsoft Silverlight Features Have Windows Bias on Friday November 20, @06:57PM
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An anonymous reader writes with this quote from a story at El Reg about an early look at the Silverlight 4 beta:
"There are ... major changes to Silverlight's out-of-browser functionality, a loose equivalent to Adobe Systems' AIR runtime for Flash. Even when fully sandboxed, which means having the same permissions that would apply to a browser-hosted Silverlight applet, out-of-browser applications get an HTML control, custom window settings, and the ability to fire pop-up notifications. ... Unfortunately, some of these features are not what they first appear. The HTML control in Silverlight 4 is not a new embedded browser from Microsoft, but uses components from Internet Explorer on Windows, or Safari on the Mac, which means that the same content might render differently. The HTML control only works out-of-browser, and simply displays a blank space if browser-hosted. Clipboard support is text-only in the Silverlight 4 beta, though this could change for the full release. More seriously, COM automation is a Windows-only feature, introducing differentiation between the Mac and Windows implementations."
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Submission: Microsoft Silverlight now with hidden Windows bias by Anonymous Coward
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COM Automation = ActiveX (Score:3, Informative)
Re:COM Automation = ActiveX (Score:5, Funny)
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So what you're saying is that any time now they'll announce Windows 9 will be written in Silverlight!
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Re:COM Automation = ActiveX (Score:4, Insightful)
Close, but not quite. ActiveX is a COM component that implements the IDispatch interface. IDispatch is a 'meta' interface that allows dynamic binding to COM objects, rather than the purely static binding that COM defines, allowing COM objects to be called from dynamic languages (like JavaScript). From a purely technological perspective, it's quite slick really, and if you've ever played around in Win32 Python you'll know what I mean.
The security problems with ActiveX was that Microsoft exposed these low-level interfaces to untrusted websites through JavaScript, opening up an enormous attack surface (as now many ActiveX objects on your system, which were never designed with security in mind, were being called from untrusted JavaScript and running under local user permissions). Worse, was allowing websites to request the installation of ActiveX objects themselves. So yeah.... clever technology but a TERRIBLE use.
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History (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:History (Score:4, Insightful)
Who the fuck cares? Just how many people actually use Silverlight anyways? They might as well release "Steve Ballmer's Excrement Beta 4 - Now With More Cherry Flavoring!"
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Re:History (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:History (Score:4, Insightful)
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boo-ya!!!
Zune is sooo much better than the iPod. Anyone who thinks the iPod is a good music platform is just flat out wrong.
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Re:History (Score:4, Informative)
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Two singular events that are long over and a single company don't constitute widespread use.
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We should be boycotting the Olympics then. This is unacceptable.
Re:History (Score:4, Interesting)
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There are plans to use Silverlight for the 2010 winter olympics as well. It seems to be a trend.
Trend? NBC is essentially the mainstream media partner of Microsoft. It seems to me your "trend" is just Microsoft marketing doing their best to buy their way into high-profile events to sway peoples' minds. I don't see this happening elsewhere at other high-profile media events and outlets.
The only trend I see here is Microsoft developing a piece of technology that doesn't play well with others. If history is any guide, this will annoy everyone for awhile before coming back to bite MS in the ass.
Re:History (Score:4, Informative)
Those are high profile, but use kind of drops off after that. Sharply.
It's great if you want to stream DRM content and don't want to use flash. Otherwise the java and flash plugins are more widely installed for the stuff that silverlight's trying to do. They're late to the party and except for DRM they don't really have a compelling story for why someone would want to use their technology.
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Re:History (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not widespread use when Microsoft is giving you freebies and (in effect) paying you/making deals that cost them money, to use the technology, just so more people will be required to install the software and become aware of it.
IOW, the Netflix and Olympics using silverlight are very likely specific efforts by MS marketing/sales.
With the right freebies from MS (where using Flash costs something), or with the right kickbacks/sponsorships/friendly meals bought for the right people to discuss silver light.....
IOW: these few high profile sites using it don't indicate widespread use, only very strong efforts by MS.
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Re:History (Score:4, Informative)
I believe netflix instant viewing is written on top of silverlight.
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Re:History (Score:4, Funny)
Who the fuck cares? Just how many people actually use Silverlight anyways?
"Back in the day" when Netscape was king, how many people used IE? Microsoft will keep pounding away with Silverlight to the large "enterprise" clients, and eventually, one day, it will pass Flash. At that point, AOL will merge with Adobe, and it'll be all over.
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Enterprise clients is exactly how they are planning to get in the door. COM integration says it all. Microsoft is really competing with their own technology as a first step, Adobe is down the road. They need to get silver light on the corporate desktops first. That way people can use it watch football highlights and clips of the Olympics on their lunch break; its after that they decide they want it at home and take the time to install it.
Microsoft has push a great deal of their tech out the door that wa
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Well it's certainly made coding viruses and malware substantially easier.
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Wait... you mean it's better to be Microsoft than it is to be Flash or Shockwave?
I'd say it's better that there's competition between the two, than having just one or the other.
Re:History (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:History (Score:5, Informative)
Unfortunately, some of us have to.
I'm a med student, and many of my lectures are viewed and reviewed at home via MediaSite, a Silverlight-based lecture management system from Sonicfoundry. While our lectures do play in Firefox, Safari, and Chrome with the Silverlight plugin, advanced features (such as the ability to play the lecture at whatever speed you wish) are only available in Internet Explorer. The crippling of Silverlight in competing browsers has forced me to return to IE.
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Re:History (Score:4, Informative)
Try developing some stuff in Silverlight and see if you can claim using the above technologies is anywhere near as fast/easy/reliable/etc with a straight face. XHTML+CSS is a huge pain in the ass compared to Xaml. Javascript is slower, harder to maintain, and has less features then C# + .Net.
Except that those other "painful" technologies let other people actually use the apps published to the Web without necessarily having to invest in a PC and/or Windows. The purpose of Web sites was to have a universal system of interconnected data. Not to create a proprietary framework.
Even if Silverlight was the next best thing, the fact that it only works in Windows, marginally works in MacOS and just doesn't work at all elsewhere just rules it out.
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Re:History (Score:5, Insightful)
Any web page plugin that exists outside of the normal flow of browser control and navigation history is a bad idea. Perhaps HTML5 will go some way to addressing this, which Microsoft will presumably get round to working towards some time around IE12 at their current rate of non-progress.
One hilarious comment on MSDN about this, to paraphrase, was that is was "unfair that Microsoft was expected to keep modifying its browser to account for all these new standards competitors keep coming up with." and that they should "stop making new standards and give Microsoft a chance to implement existing ones." Or as I like to think of it, "stop the world, Microsoft needs to catch up."
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Re:History (Score:4, Insightful)
*And* make an editor like the Flash suite. That's one of the main reasons Flash succeeded: it's easy to use by designers, instead of coders. That's also why most Flash apps/websites suck.
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New Silverlight features have Windows bias? (Score:4, Funny)
Pope discovered to be Catholic
Bears recorded shitting in woods.
IT'S A TRAP! (Score:2)
It's a trap!
/Wait... am I late? I'm always late to these things. It WAS a trap. The next one is not a trap though. The next one will be just fine. Trust me.
Anything about Linux? (Score:5, Insightful)
I really want to run Silverlight in Ubuntu! Well, no that was sarcasm, but Linux should be mentioned when one talks about cross comparability. We should not allow the meme to emerge that the only options are Mac or windows.
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Moonlight. From the same folks who brought you Mono (and sharing much of the code), Moonlight is a free, open-source implementation of Silverlight runnable on Linux, *BSD, and so forth. It's under pretty heavy development, and like Mono itself tends to lag somewhat behind the MS version (unsurprisingly), but it's usable for many of the things that require Silverlight.
Download link (may also be in repositories): http://www.go-mono.com/moonlight/ [go-mono.com]
Download for development version (2 beta 8): http://go-mono.com/ [go-mono.com]
a bit early for lock-in? (Score:2)
Isn't the idea to wait to lock in until, oh, at least 10% of the population is actually using your product?
How surprising that MS couldn't hold off that long.
COM is windows only... (Score:5, Interesting)
...thank God.
Only Microsoft has the peculiar genius that allows them to take a relatively straightforward concept (reference counting/smart pointers) add a totally over-the-top, incomprehensible library that was designed around the limitations of the broken template support in VC6 (ATL), then totally abandon it for "teh new shiny" because you lost a court case against Sun (.net).
I have written a *lot* of code in ATL, and I regret practically every moment of it; I liked the idea of COM/ActiveX, it's actually a really cool concept, and it even seemed to have an awesome future (all these COM objects that could talk to each other...Excel could control my toaster via my custom ActiveX dll) but suddenly it became all about the web and the era of a component-laden operating system ended before it really ever began. So for that I slogged through a bunch of ATL books, got to the point where I thought I knew how it all worked, and then all Microsoft wanted talk about was C# and .net.
Quick, someone notify Miguel! (Score:3, Interesting)
Obviously this is some kind of mistake. Miguel assured all us Linux users that Microsoft was a changed company, they would NEVER do something like this! Surely Moonlight would be 100% compatible with Silverlight and Linux would be considered a tier 1 platform!
He wouldn't have lied, would he?
So what? Freedom of choice is good. (Score:3, Informative)
It has the ability to support older API's that aren't available on all platforms. Developers who care about maximum cross-platform reach just won't use them. On the flip-side, if it didn't allow interop with the old stuff, the current adopters would be pissed for obvious reasons.
This way the people creating Silverlight apps have freedom of choice and choice is good.
As far as IE goes, I have a product that integrates with IE. I looked closely at Webkit and Gecko. Neither one is very friendly to program against with .NET and the API's don't expose nearly as much automation capability as IE. If the maintainers of those browsers want developers to embed them in desktop apps as an alternative, they need to make an investment.
Why should Microsoft do it? As far as I know, anyone can create and distribute Silverlight components. If you want a good API for WPF/Silverlight for Gecko, talk to the Mozilla Foundation. I'd be glad to have it, but I'm not mad at Microsoft because it doesn't exist. (BTW, I am aware of GeckoFx and XulRunner. The API is very shallow compared to the IE COM interfaces.)
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I wouldn't say that's quite a fair estimate in this case. Silverlight apps are still cross platform (mine run identically on Win 2k, 2k3, 2k8, XP, Vista, 7, and even a few Mac clients running IE6, 7, 8, and FF3.5) and will continue to be so in v4. But, if you call COM services, they only exist in Windows anyways. So who' cares that the COM functionality only exists in the windows bin, so long as it compiles and throws an exception when COM services aren't available for Mac bins.
This is hardly the dreaded lo
Microsoft pollution at its best (Score:4, Interesting)
Each time I read about silverlight I get angry. Why won't Microsoft invest time and energy making IE html5 compliant instead of promoting this f*** product that nobody wants anyway. I mean, look at the competition for god sake. IE is stuck with Javascript 1.5 since November 2000. Man we are now 9 years since Ms has updated its Javascript engine. Firefox, Chrome, Safari, name it, all have javascript support almost if not ready for ECMAScript 5.
What is comforting in a way is the low deployment of silverlight. Google can give us a slight idea : http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=adobe%20flash%2Cmicrosoft%20silverlight&date=today%2012-m&cmpt=q [google.com]
I know at least that it is not deployed at work : 20,000 less pcs for Microsoft + the 2 mine at home.
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Perhaps you should click on the "Learn what these numbers mean" link. Here, I'll do it for you:
The numbers on the graph reflect how many searches have been done for a particular term, relative to the total number of searches done on Google over time. They don't represent absolute search volume numbers, because the data is normalized and presented on a scale from 0-100. Each point on the graph is divided by the highest point, or 100. When we don't have enough data, 0 is shown. The numbers next to the search terms above the graph are summaries, or totals.
The number of searches in google has no objective relation to the number of deployments, for either flash or silverlight.
Farnsworth: "Bunk! Bunk, I say! Bring me a bag of Bigfoot's droppings, or shut up!"
Re:Microsoft pollution at its best (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't know where they are in terms of language support (not great, if Acid3 is any indication), but IE8's JavaScript engine was a massive step up from IE7's and an even more massive step up from IE6. It's more standards-compliant (i.e. less incorrect behavior), implements more of the spec (not necessarily any of the newest changes to the spec, but more of the language as a whole), and is much, much faster than before.
Don't get me wrong, it's still way behind the other big-name browsers, but claiming 9 years since MS updated the javascript engine is a bald-faced lie.
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MS releases Silverlight 4, nobody cares (Score:5, Funny)
Microsoft today announced the release of version 4.0 of its world-beating Silverlight multimedia platform for the Web. As a replacement for Adobe’s Flash, it is widely considered utterly superfluous and of no interest to anyone who could be found [today.com].
“We have a fabulous selection of content partners for Silverlight,” announced Microsoft marketer Scott Guthrie on his blog today. “NBC for the Olympics, which delivered millions of new users to BitTorrent. The Democrat National Convention, which is fine because those Linux users are all Ron Paul weirdos anyway. It comes with rich frameworks, rich controls, rich networking support, a rich base class library, rich media support, oh God kill me now. My options are underwater, my resumé’s a car crash, Google won’t call me back. My life is an exercise in futility. I’m the walking dead, man. The walking dead.”
Silverlight was created by Microsoft to leverage its desktop monopoly on Windows, to work off the tremendous sales and popularity of Vista. Flash is present on a pathetic 96% of all computers connected to the Internet, whereas Silverlight downloads are into the triple figures.
“But it’s got DRM!” cried Guthrie. “Netflix loved it! And web developers love us too, after all we did for them with IE 6. Wait, come back! We’ll put porn on it! Free porn!”
Similar Microsoft initiatives include its XPS replacement for Adobe PDF, its HD Photo replacement for JPEG photographs and its earlier Liquid Motion attempt to replace Flash. Also, that CD-ROM format Vista defaults to which no other computers can read.
In a Microsoft internal security sweep, Guthrie’s own desktop was found to still be running Windows XP.
Speaking of Bias.. (Score:5, Interesting)
From TFA:
Unfortunately, some of these features are not what they first appear. The HTML control in Silverlight 4 is not a new embedded browser from Microsoft, but uses components from Internet Explorer on Windows, or Safari on the Mac, which means that the same content might render differently. The HTML control only works out-of-browser, and simply displays a blank space if browser-hosted.
The difference in rendering between IE on Windows and Safari on Macosx is a reality, whether silverlight is involved or not. The purpose of the HTML Control is to allow scenarios dependent on the HTML Bridge, the part of silverlight that blurs the lines and allows communication between the html dom + javascript and C# code, to run correctly when the app is hosted out of the browser. It's essentially a crutch to allow developers that want to use siverlight a way to leverage existing investments in web application development.
More seriously, COM automation is a Windows-only feature, introducing differentiation between the Mac and Windows implementations. Since cross-platform Mac and Windows is a key Silverlight feature, it is curious that Microsoft has now decided to make it platform-specific in such an important respect. Microsoft Office and parts of the Windows API have a COM interface, so access to COM makes Silverlight a much more capable client.
This is a fairly obscure feature, and I'm fairly surprised that it was included at all, but doubt it'll be of use to the vast majority of current and future silverlight developers out there. Like the html control, it's a crutch, to allow developers that want to use silverlight a way to leverage existing investments. The mantra I've heard out of the silverlight team is to focus on unblocking customer scenarios (scenarios they cannot unblock themselves) without compromising the overall feature goals (like keeping the runtime download small).
Nevertheless, Silverlight has crossed a threshold. It is now a runtime that has extended functionality only on Windows. That will not help Microsoft win developers from Adobe AIR, which has the same features on both Mac and Windows.
I don't think it'll matter. Any developer that is seriously considering using silverlight over Adobe AIR, but is then persuaded not to because Silverlight's Trusted Out-Of-Browser scenario has COM support on Windows and not on Mac is "Doing It Wrong". It's an edge case feature that doesn't affect Silverlight's over all "Cross-Platforminess".
Flame On.
Features? (Score:5, Insightful)
So far, the only feature in TFS that I can see as having "Windows bias" is ActiveX support. Which is kinda not surprising (I mean, who doesn't know that ActiveX is "that evil Windows thing" - even people who don't even understand what it is and how it works?). Qt also has an ActiveX support module, and it doesn't make it any less cross-platform - no-one forces you to use it. Same applies here.
Re:Features? (Score:5, Insightful)
Thank you for a voice of sanity and reason. The fact that you can embed COM objects in the latest version of Silverlight does nothing to harm Silverlight on other platforms; it simply means that if you (as a developer) are willing to limit yourself to Windows users, you can now embed third-party controls written in C++ into your desktop app (what a bizarre concept, I know...) If you want portability, you don't use this feature (any more than if a Java developer wants portability, he doesn't rely on a native code module that does registry I/O).
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Windows bias? Is that what you see? (Score:3, Interesting)
The HTML control in Silverlight 4 is not a new embedded browser from Microsoft, but uses components from Internet Explorer on Windows, or Safari on the Mac, which means that the same content might render differently.
So on the Mac it'll use Webkit, which means it'll render correctly. On Windows it'll use IE, which means... okay, anyone who's done any web development at all knows what that means.
I guess I'm not seeing the "pro-Windows bias" here - it looks like an anti-Windows bias to me!
You are bitching about a lack of IE on Mac!? (Score:3, Insightful)
WTF? If I'm viewing something on my Mac, I want it to use Safari components, so it will behave like I'm used to on the Mac. If I'm viewing the same thing on Windows, I want it to use IE components, so it will behave like I'm used to on Windows. This is a good thing.
Silverlight was supposed to be a departure from CO (Score:3, Interesting)