Silverlight On the Way To Linux

Afforess writes "For the past two years Microsoft and Novell have been working on the 'Moonlight' project. It is a runtime library for websites that run Silverlight. It should allow PCs running Linux to view sites that use Siverlight. Betanews reports 'In the next stage of what has turned out to be a more successful project than even its creators envisioned, the public beta of Moonlight — a runtime library for Linux supporting sites that expect Silverlight — is expected within days.' Moonlight 2.0 is already in the works."

What a surprise... backhanded support

While Windows is getting version 2, and the Mac is almost version 2, Linux is almost getting version 1. Awesome job MS.

Re:What a surprise... backhanded support

Oh, I have an idea; howabout using open standards to implement web sites and services, and then browser builders can implement the standards for maximum interopreability -- nah, that's crzy talk!

Re:What a surprise... backhanded support

A bit of history. Silverlight 1 is a joke as a product, Silverlight 2.0 is the real deal. To start with, Silverlight 1 does not have the CLR (.Net runtime), it was pretty much useless for anything complex. Even back when v1 was released, companies (and Microsoft itself) were releasing all the cool stuff in v2.0 alpha.

So mono never really had to chase v1, which had zero chances of succeeding. Which is probably why Mono is still at v1. However, getting v2.0 running would not be too difficult. It is mostly a scaled down .Net runtime, with some multimedia added.

And if you have ever used Mono, you would notice that they have a remarkably complete implementation of .Net, with compilers compatible with the newest from Microsoft.

Re:What a surprise... backhanded support

What you don't see is that Microsoft wants to have it both ways:
(1) Pretend Silverlight is open and crossplatform and supported everywhere
(2) In actuality, only the Microsoft version works.

The complaint merely states that anyone who buys into this doubletalk will be deceived. If you want a real crossplatform API that's more powerful than HTML+SVG, you really have only three choices:
(1) Java, which is now free software
(2) Pick the subset of Flash that works with Gnash so that your code will work everywhere.
(3) If Gnash is too limited, stick to the minimum version of Flash that supports the feature you need...unless you're extremely advanced, that version should be available on all major platforms.

Re:What a surprise... backhanded support

If that guy wants linux users to view his site, then he should use a technology that linux users can use. Silverlight is not the only technology to do the job. None of them are perfect. but when that guy made the decision to use silverlight, he knew that linux users were not going to be able to view his site. So no, he is not losing viewers because MS doesn't fully support silverlight. He chose a technology according to certain criteria and made the decision that linux users were not the target ones or not relevant enough.

It is exactly the same as writing a site in ways that only IE can display properly ( or the contrary as I have been know to do due to our user base)

Personally I don't really care about silverlight. if a site I go to uses it, then I assume that I am not the target user and go somewhere else. It is neither here nor there, the information will be available somewhere in another more friendly format, and if not, then I didn't really wanted to see it anyway.

Re:What a surprise... backhanded support

I find this the irony of the situation. OSX and Linux basically came out of the gate with the same amount of following. Here we are in 2008, and who has actual market share? OSX...

What that should tell everybody is that MAYBE its not about "freedom". BUT MAYBE its about getting a computer to work when it should...

I am not saying Open Source is bad. Look at Apache, PHP, and co. Those projects work and are VERY popular. Even Linux server side has more damm success.

The GUI people need to start shifting gears...

Javascript

With what is being achieved with Javascript and dynamic HTML, I see less and less need for technologies such as Flash and Silverlight. The only thing they really have going for them are the development environments. To see some of the games already implemented using plain old Javascript and HTML:

http://www.apple.com/webapps/games/ [apple.com]

Re:Javascript

There's no turret defense. How could I live without a good turret defense game?

Re:Javascript

Try displaying text in any way other than in horizontal line (i.e. rotated, at least by 90 degrees) in plain HTML+CSS+JS, then we can talk.

May I present SVG?

there's one thing I'll stay clear of

Standards anybody ?

I still think there should be a new standard that would obviate the need for flash, you can keep your silverlight and shove it.

I think I'll pass

I can't say I have much love for Adobe and Flash, and I simply do not trust Microsoft, but if Linux support is going to be a key point-scoring device in the corporate pissing contests of today then I suppose a few good things might come of it. Let battle commence!

Would rather Silverlight be GPL than this

Unless there was an advantage to the lock in of flash why is there a reason to swap to another propitiatory product? Especially a linux clone that will always be behind Microsoft's offering.

If Silverlight was GPL and available for use by all then there might be a reason to adopt it over flash, but to just swap monopolies, no thanks.

Re:Would rather Silverlight be GPL than this

Not just GPL, but GPLv3, because I don't trust M$ not to pull a SCO and try to sue Ubuntu, or Red Hat, or whoever they want to put the squeeze on.

Look - I don't want to be the "GPL is way better troll" here, but I trust those guys about as far as I can throw them.

People wonder why pro-OSS types have a bad rep...

*company releases software*
*People complain it's not on linux*
*company ports software to linux*
*people complain it's not OSS*
*company GPLs software*
*people complain it's not GPLv3*
*company forces a GPL2 or later licence*
*people complain that the company has a trademarked logo*
*company curls up in the corner, quietly sobbing*
*people complain that the design of the corner it's crying in isn't covered by creative commons*

Microsoft developing in Linux

I imagine how those developers working on Linux would be looked by the other MS employees. 'Oh, man, they're in the Dark side. They wear dark clothes, long hair, a beard, this can't be a good thing.'

Form Wins over Function Again

"Web 2.0" seems to be nothing more than a non-stop assault of useless animations, personalized/targeted advertisements, and automatically-loading and starting background music to make up for poorly-organized sites. Animated .gif banners, despite often being gaudy, were not so offensive as scripts that scour for statistical data about me to offer localized advertisements. The addition of new, non-standardized software to each user's browser is the worst way to embrace "The Cloud"; it focuses on style alone while only marginally catering to the needs of companies and their clients.
Silverlight will see some adoption by Linux users who cannot bear to browse the internet without clicking monkeys to win iPods. I doubt it would hit even that level of popularity before its current audience becomes so fed up with its more obnoxious aspects. The process of understanding Silverlight will be akin to that of installing Flash:
1) Install Silverlight/Moonlight to be amazed by a few useful applications
2) Install advertisement blocking add-on to avoid the droves of awful applications
3) Tweak blocking black/white-lists until Silverlight loses its appeal
4) Remove Silverlight/Moonlight

On the fringe out here I'll stick to elinks where I can get a majority of my information while avoiding information overload.

I enjoy the web less and less every day

It's a real treat when you find a site that is static html. It's fast, clean, and refreshing. Flash and Ajax have their place, but more often than not they just irritate me. I'm tired of sites that peg my CPU and crash my browser.

Maybe I'm just getting old and cynical, but I'm sure Moonlight will only contribute to web bloat and add to my frustrations. And that is being generous and not bring up that MS is part of the equation.

I just hope this fails to catch on and people forget about it.

can anyone elaborate

what silverlight seeks to achieve that isnt currently offered in the web browsing experience?

I have flash in linux, and spend more time blocking it than enjoying it. i have javascript but also spend more time blocking that from shooting popups, redirects, and ads to me than actually enjoying it.
id enjoy java, but its been embraced and extended by MS to the point that no Java on the web works well, if at all in IcedTea (and icedtea explicitly meets all the requirements for java!)

activeX has turned into a security laughingstock...so perhaps this is why we're seeing silverlight?? if thats the case, i recommend linux stay the fuck away from it.
and imho, i think CSS has been the only tech offered to the web i've really enjoyed. the point of the web is to offer something everyone can share, and the megacorps seem to be diligently working to ensure we cant do that.

Re:can anyone elaborate

http://weblogs.asp.net/jezell/archive/2007/05/03/silverlight-vs-flash-the-developer-story.aspx [asp.net]

Lists the different approach Silverlight takes over flash. It's mostly about making it better for developers than the end user.

No printing support

If we are looking at silverlight as a flash replacement, it is just a flash clone with no market share, so that makes it a non starter. Also, flash comes installed by default this days on every operating system and browser. Silverlight doesn't. That is enough of a show stopper on itself.

If on the other hand, we are looking at it as a way to code the client side of business apps with a rich interface using a strongly typed, compiled language, it could have some potential, except for one thing. No printing support. Printing support is essential for business apps and Silverlight doesn't provide it, at all.

Silverlight ported, nobody cares

Microsoft today announced the release of version 2.0 of its world-beating Silverlight multimedia platform for the Web [today.com]. As a replacement for Adobe's Flash, it is widely considered utterly superfluous and of no interest to anyone who could be found.

"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. Major League Baseball, er, forget that one. 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 resume'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.

Re:What about a Windows release?

What? Windows/OS X users prefer Firefox because they think it's better than the alternatives, not because they care about propietary soft [that much]. If the did they wouldn't be using Windows/OS X in the first place.

Re:Why Is Porting Needed?

A few things: you cannot write a (Mozilla) browser plugin all in managed code, there is simply no interface. You at least need a bridge. Silverlight is also related to WPF/Avalon, which has a native component on Windows. Most importantly, though: Silverlight is not open source. Moonlight is. It is not a port, it is a sanctioned, but independent, rewrite, which is also related to advances in the Mono support for quite a few things that weren't there 2 years ago.

Some remarks and corrections

Silverlight is not open source. Moonlight is. It is not a port, it is a sanctioned, but independent, rewrite, which is also related to advances in the Mono support for quite a few things that weren't there 2 years ago.

Those two words are contradictory: you need Microsoft's sanction (permission, as i understand) if you want to develop a 100% silverlight-compatible browser. (by the way, THAT's the difference between JavaScript and Silverlight). So how is it "independent"? Am I missing something here, my fellow slashdotters?

Re:FUCK MICROSOFT!

In capitalist America, Microsoft fucks you.