Microsoft To Open Source Some of Silverlight

Kurtz writes with word that Microsoft is about to follow in Adobe's footsteps by releasing the source code to part of its Silverlight technology. The news comes less than a week after Adobe announced plans to open source the Flex SDK. Microsoft is hungry to build the developer base for its rich Internet app tools, if it can.

It's Microsoft

It's Microsoft, they'll probably release the comments in the code and keep everything else shut in. I mean comments are part of the source code, why not just release those and claim it's open source?

It's not quite a complete lie, but it's underhanded in the evil villian sort of way.

Re:It's Microsoft

No, they will just open source the simple bits that Mono already has mostly sorted out, leaving a fairly small but extremely critical patent-encumbered bit (video codec, maybe) that prevents anyone else making a useful implementation.

The PR people will then jump around saying Microsoft==open!!!eleven!. Do you see?

Ohhhhh Sources

"according to sources familiar with the company's plans.----Specifics on which aspect of Silverlight will be open-sourced were not available, and Microsoft's public relations firm declined to comment."

So RTFA - but none of it's official, there are no details other then a little about the market space. In fact I suspect the discussion on Slashdot will be more interesting.

Re:Ohhhhh Sources

Read this article http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2123859,00.as p [eweek.com] as it's a bit more interesting. The open source bits are the Dynamic Language Runtime (DLR) and the IronPython language. The DLR sits on top of .NET, so if you are using Mono and IronPython, then I would assume that you would then have all the source from top to bottom.

The MS stuff is here http://www.codeplex.com/IronPython [codeplex.com]

This time I even checked my links :-)

Re:Ohhhhh Sources

The OpenLazlo [openlaszlo.org] TFA mentioned in passing looks kind of interesting, at least enough to check out further. The source for their demos looks pretty clean and straightforward.

Re:Ohhhhh Sources

I don't think you can aquire an open source project. Your comment is a bit misleading. Rather what happened was that the sole developer Jim Hugunin wanted to join Microsoft after meeting with the .NET CLR (Common Language Runtime) team while discussing with them the technical issues he encountered. Jim joined up, and with a team at MS, brought IronPython to it's 1.0 release in September 2006.

There's some history on Jim Hugunin's blog here http://blogs.msdn.com/hugunin/archive/2006/09/05/7 41605.aspx [msdn.com]

There's other Python projects for you purists to get your teeth stuck into, but this one isn't one of them, as it is with a lot of .NET stuff. Here, try Jim Hugunin's JVM based Python called Jython http://www.jython.org/ [jython.org]

Auto-print

I like the way the link wants to print automatically.

Perhaps next we can get one of those nifty `email this automatically to everyone on my contacts list' scripts?

Re:Auto-print

It was probably the printer friendly version that was linked, so it'd make sense to automatically show the print dialog. The alternative would be to have the article on 8 pages each with its own talking smiley pop-up that scares the shit out of you due to its creepy "I wuv you" catchphrase and the fact you forgot that your speakers were on pretty loud.

Really.

Call me cynical, but...

They..
Get behind their new technology and push
Use every leverage they can to promote it to their "partners"
Give away source code under a restrictive license
Give away development tools
Wait until it is a eb de-facto standard
... Then refuse to allow it on any operating system but Windows?

Flash works, Flash movies work, Flash is ubiquitous, Linux/OSX support it, Everybody knows it. So why do we need anything else?

The underlying argument goes like this: when a technology is established and "good enough" for everyday use then nobody needs to fix what is not broken.

Re:Really.

Actually, Adobe released Flash Player 9 for Linux last October... I'm not sure what more you want. They now have Flash Player for Solaris, too. Obviously it exists for Windows and OSX, as well. Yes, Flash can be abused... but Flash can also be really useful for creating engaging user experiences and it's also an EXCELLENT platform for application development, particularly via Flex. Flex 2 is great, Actionscript 3 is a really nice language featuring the best of OO and dynamic languages, the AVM2 virtual machine is a really nice piece of work. I know more and more enterprise developers who do .NET or Java that have been exposed to Flex 2 in recent months and come to like it very quickly. The power that it affords is great, it "just works" (regardless of browser/OS), and it's infinitely better to develop apps of all kinds in than HTML/CSS/Javascript.

So I'm sorry that you have such issues with Flash. But as a development platform, it's appealing in many ways. And ever since the Adobe/Macromedia merger, Adobe has really become more open with their developers and has been releasing more and more tools to help them out (checkout labs.adobe.com for some examples).

Re:Really.

The problem is that Flash doesn't integrate in with anything ASP or .NET . XML is good in some ways for this, but no .NET developer wants to learn ActiveScript, buy FlashMX, learn a whole new way of creating UIs, and learn about AJAX to get Flash integrating with their current systems.

I think if Adobe invested more in Flash, and specifically getting more developers into Flash, they'd have a solid niche. But they've made Flash development more difficult to get into than it needs to be, and I think that based on that alone you can predict that Silverlight will probably fight a downhill battle and win over Flash.

Re:Really.

"Linux/OSX support it"

Does it? Aside from the fact that it cannot be offered with the OS because of license restrictions, I have heard of many people having problems running Flash on Linux. What we really need is something like this that uses entirely open standards so third party players can be developed (not sure if MS will agree to do that for Silverlight, though).

From what I have heard, the main advantage to Silverlight is that it integrates better with .NET applications on the server-side. Besides, how can a little bit of competition be a bad thing? Worst case it will force Adobe to improve their product in order to keep from losing out to Silverlight. If you were to argue we don't need new technologies when there is already something that is "good enough", we should all be running applets in Netscape.

Re:Really.

They've certainly pulled that trick before. Where are:

* MS Core fonts for the web
* IE for Mac / UNIX
* Windows Media Player for Mac

Microsoft's idea of cross platform is do it till its popular and then EOL everything but Windows. The only reason they're doing this at all is that Flash video is killing WMV.

Always late...

Am I the only one who gets the feeling they keep on arriving too late every single time?

Finish what you started

I mean, call me picky, but shouldn't they finish developing IE to an acceptable standard before they start on a Flash competitor?

Once a noble idea

Of a system being worked on by the users for the users to gain a better system through the networking effect, now is slowly becoming another means for industries to get cheap labor. From the OS community POV quite saddening.

From a commercial POV, if prices do go lower and more people would buy/use it with the backings of corporate Marketing, compared to when it was just OS and mouth to mouth, it might (emphasis on MIGHT) spread more awareness and interest in genuine/creative software.

Why the hell would I put MSFT in a webstack?

Microsoft is anti everything the internet stands for.

The Internet is for open, platform neutral communcation.
Microsoft if for closed source mono-culture.

The internet is for the creation of new tools, paradigms and technology by anyone for anyone.
Microsoft is all about where they think you want to go today.

Fact is, Microsoft has made it their mission to break everything they possibly can, whether it be standard, language or platform.
If it's not from microsoft, they want to kill it.

So any developer that sincerely uses MS in anything but their server-side stack is a user hating pro-MS pundit that wants to try to force their user base to use Windows and Windows related products. And personally, has no business whatsoever calling themselves a web developer. Anti-web developer is more like it.

So I don't care what MS does. A psychopathic culture can not be changed.
And MS has always been and always will be a psychopathic culture, feigning to be "nice" if it thinks it there is something in it for them.

Adobe has been quite sincere and has done some great things with Flex, Apollo and will also be creating some nifty webservices.
Buying Macromedia was a great move and wise to insure that technologies such as Flash, Flex and Director lived on and became more prominant.
Microsoft on the other hand is reviled and dying a public death in the online marketplace.
MSN and it's related services are a joke. Online music? maps? Online calender? Search?
MS will tie their apps to Vista Servers and .Net stacks and the dotcoms will laugh and fart in their general direction.

I am happy to see MS blowing wads of money on what is bound to be yet another failure.

ActiveX all over again

Been there, done that. M$ is trying to do an ActiveX 2.0. Too late. I for one welcome our new Adobe overlords!

How much/what license?

Read the article but it is intentionally vague on the license and the quantity.

Correct me if I'm wrong on this but I think Microsoft have released shared-source programs before but never properly allow modification and redistribution rights. I'd be surprised if this is any different.

On another story...

"[Sam] Ramji[, Microsoft director of platform technology strategy,] made it clear Microsoft has no plans to open Silverlight." http://www.theregister.com/2007/05/01/microsoft_op en_source_mix/ [theregister.com]

Does not compute

Microsoft?... Open Source?... Does not compute, does not compute!

Silverlight In Action

http://channel9.msdn.com/showpost.aspx?postid=3045 08 [msdn.com]

Re:Silverlight In Action

Before you jump on the MS bashing bandwagon please take a look at the linked video. Even better, download the client plugin and view the demos. It's cross platform and supports a ton of languages including C#, Ruby, Javascript, etc.

here's a preview

#include "bsod.h"

main() { if(running_on_linux()) { crash(horribly, messily); } return proprietary_blob(patented); }

/* anyone remember the days when slashdot allow you to quote pre-formatted text? */

WPFE

i thought "windows presentation foundation everywhere" was more catchy, anyway, I don't see it getting everywhere like Flash, so let's just forget about it

This post's comments amuse me.

MS finally announces they'll open-source something, and all that the Linux users do is complain.

Microsoft has open-sourced a lot of stuff...

Microsoft has been using open source for some time, albeit sometimes with restrictive licenses, but rarely has any of it been useful for anything but developers already committed to Microsoft's platform.

There are several reasons people may be interested in open source, but they all have one thing in common ... people are interested in what open source does for them. Open source frees them from dependence on a single vendor, it frees them from license fees and royalties, it allows them to share responsibility with a large pool of like-minded developers, and so on. Open source products tied to a single vendor, whether it's hardware (like a Linux-based set-top box or PDA) or software (one of Microsof's efforts was an open-source installer for Windows applications) is only going to be interesting if it's useful for the things they're already doing.

Open-sourcing *part* of a product, when you're potentially going to have to pay Microsoft to use the rest (the price I read was the first million users free, then 25 cents per user after that), is a pretty obvious poison pill.

Xaml v/s Flex, Format is the key

More important than the source code is an Open Format, which IMO is a key advantage over Flex/Flash. Silverlight's Markup Language, XAML is pure XML and easier to decode. Flash is a proprietary, binary format and the Specification [adobe.com] forbids you from building an alternative player.

The Flex Plan
1. Open Source Flex, and Flash Runtime
2. Drive a strong adoption wave, since its "Open Source"
3. Alternate Tools spring up, Flash becomes the "*.doc" of RIA
4. Flash format remains proprietary, all RIA belongs to Adobe
5. Profit!

I can't imagine any other reason why anyone would want to open source the tools, while protecting the format.

Anyway competition is good, and might actually result in Adobe opening the Flash Specification.

Scott Guthrie on Silverlight

While not directly related to the open-source angle of this story, here is Scott Guthrie (Silverlight team manager) talking about some of the more in-depth aspects of it. (36m long) http://channel9.msdn.com/showpost.aspx?postid=3045 08 [msdn.com]

Microsoft and internet apps == trouble

God I hope that Microsoft never gains ground in the internet application area. With them pushing non-compliant code in Internet Explorer version after version, just image what they would do if they had control of any development, and utilization applications.

One word.... scary!

Dear MS, please open source Windows 2000

I'm not kidding either. I still have my W2K partition, and the only trouble I have with it is that no one writes software for it. Granted, I don't have the network drivers installed, but that's what would be fixed once it was open sourced!

He wrote with Office?

> Kurtz writes with word
> that Microsoft

What? Excel not good enough for ya?

"If it can"

Those are the key words.

Under which freakin' license?!

Jeebus, this is frustrating. Saying a company is "Open Sourcing" some of their technology tells me almost nothing about it. Will it be under a reciprocal licensce, an academic license, a Microsoft wannabe open license? You've got to hand it to Microsoft. They're spinning this one pretty well, even though they're coming late to the party and without any pants on.

LOL Silverlight

When has Microsoft ever released small, tight, fast, bug free code that did one simple thing and didn't try to incorporate every other business agenda into a single offering? This software will be buggy, slow, not-really-open-source, bulky and have hooks into every single Microsoft package (in an effort to solidify the united front of Microsoft offerings).

Yawn. I've seen this movie before. It ends badly for Microsoft.

silverlight will try to build a developer support?

There's already a developer community built around silverlight. For starters, i would say that you have at minimum 40% of the .net developer community. On top of that, i would say you have maybe 1000 at minimum developers who want to do some rich internet application development, but don't have the money for flash and media servers. On top of that, i would say you have 8% of the php crowd interested in silverlight (actually 20% are probably interested, but 12% of those don't trust microsoft).

so, add all these up and you are gonna have a fairly large developer community already, and adobe knows it. that's why they open sourced flex right as it was used, so that people would start using it!

Why isn't this considered good competition?

When it's Nintendo vs Sony, people respond that this is good for the industry because it creates competition and raises the bar. How come when it's Microsoft vs Adobe, the response is always the opposite?

I'll take a stab at my own question: I think it's because there are a lot of software engineers here that have first hand experience with Flex but they only play console games. When they talk about Nintendo vs Sony, they're speaking from a gamers perspective. When they talk about Microsoft vs Adobe, they're speaking from the developers perspective.

In the grand scheme of things this may be better for the industry. After all, if Microsoft hadn't entered the browser war, we wouldn't have AJAX. Perhaps this Microsoft vs Adobe competition will result in the next AJAX.

Adobe Who?

Remember that Adobe is the company that sais:
"you are allowed to read the SWF specification, but if you use the information and thoughts created in your brain by reading this document, you are not allowed to implement a SWF viewer!"

Or in other words, legal barking:
"If you threaten our monopoly in the SWF business, we'll sue the crap out of you for the most absurd reasons".

So, legally, Adobe is worse than MS.