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Microsoft To Open Source Some of Silverlight

Posted by kdawson on Tue May 01, 2007 04:02 AM
from the short-on-ideas dept.
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.

Related Stories

[+] Adobe Open Sources Flex SDK Under MPL 134 comments
andy_from_nc writes "Adobe announced that they are open sourcing their Flex SDK under the Mozilla Public License incrementally by December. This move comes on the heels of Microsoft's announcement of their Silverlight and Adobe's CEO's criticism of it. Adobe's action will likely please other open source developers who use Flex, like me, and offers hope that we'll see a full open source version of Flash one day. You can read Adobe's FAQ on the move as well."
[+] Microsoft Common Language Runtime To Be Cross-Platform 308 comments
axlrosen alerts us to a Microsoft sleeper announcement from Mix07: a version of its Common Language Runtime will be available cross-platform. The Core CLR shows up as part of the Silverlight SDK that Redmond is open sourcing. From the blog posting: "The biggest Mix '07 announcement made on opening day of this week's show was one that Microsoft didn't call out in any of its own press releases: Microsoft is making a version of its Common Language Runtime available cross-platform. The CLR is the heart of Microsoft's .Net Framework programming model. So, by association, the .Net Framework isn't just for Windows any more."
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  • It's Microsoft (Score:2, Funny)

    by Turn-X Alphonse (789240) on Tuesday May 01 2007, @04:07AM (#18938271)
    (Last Journal: Sunday September 19 2004, @10:03PM)
    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.
  • Ohhhhh Sources (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Fox_1 (128616) on Tuesday May 01 2007, @04:08AM (#18938281)
    "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.

  • Auto-print (Score:1)

    by jdh41 (865085) on Tuesday May 01 2007, @04:11AM (#18938289)

    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 (Score:5, Funny)

      by lolocaust (871165) <egas> on Tuesday May 01 2007, @04:42AM (#18938393)
      (http://7chan.org/ | Last Journal: Monday November 20 2006, @05:49PM)
      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.
      [ Parent ]
    • Re:Auto-print by owlnation (Score:2) Tuesday May 01 2007, @06:27AM
  • Really. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by apodyopsis (1048476) on Tuesday May 01 2007, @04:13AM (#18938297)
    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. by sjwest (Score:3) Tuesday May 01 2007, @04:25AM
      • Re:Really. by lolocaust (Score:2) Tuesday May 01 2007, @04:46AM
        • Re:Really. by maxume (Score:1) Tuesday May 01 2007, @07:43AM
      • Re:Really. (Score:4, Insightful)

        by dFaust (546790) on Tuesday May 01 2007, @05:36AM (#18938549)

        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).

        [ Parent ]
        • Re:Really. by Anonymous Coward (Score:1) Tuesday May 01 2007, @06:04AM
          • Re:Really. by Zonk (troll) (Score:1) Tuesday May 01 2007, @06:51AM
          • Re:Really. by Hal_Porter (Score:1) Tuesday May 01 2007, @06:58AM
            • Re:Really. by cparker15 (Score:1) Tuesday May 01 2007, @09:47AM
              • Re:Really. by Hal_Porter (Score:1) Tuesday May 01 2007, @09:58AM
              • Re:Really. by jsebrech (Score:2) Tuesday May 01 2007, @11:46AM
              • Re:Really. by Hal_Porter (Score:1) Tuesday May 01 2007, @08:55PM
              • Re:Really. by jsebrech (Score:2) Wednesday May 02 2007, @01:00PM
            • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
        • Re:Really. by metamatic (Score:3) Tuesday May 01 2007, @09:55AM
        • AMD64 support by rumith (Score:2) Tuesday May 01 2007, @02:14PM
        • Too Bad SVG had to Die so Flash could Live by tc9 (Score:1) Wednesday May 02 2007, @09:09AM
        • Re:Really. by jsebrech (Score:2) Tuesday May 01 2007, @11:57AM
        • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
      • Re:Really. by suv4x4 (Score:2) Tuesday May 01 2007, @08:25AM
      • Re:Really. by dana340 (Score:1) Tuesday May 01 2007, @08:42AM
      • Re:Really. by Ed Black (Score:1) Tuesday May 01 2007, @05:25PM
      • Re:Really. by sjwest (Score:1) Tuesday May 01 2007, @06:27AM
      • Re:Really. by Daengbo (Score:3) Tuesday May 01 2007, @06:33AM
        • Re:Really. by owlnation (Score:1) Tuesday May 01 2007, @06:39AM
        • Re:Really. by Pollardito (Score:3) Tuesday May 01 2007, @09:58AM
      • Re:Really. by totally bogus dude (Score:1) Tuesday May 01 2007, @07:45AM
      • 2 replies beneath your current threshold.
    • Re:Really. by Anonymous Coward (Score:1) Tuesday May 01 2007, @04:58AM
    • Re:Really. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by kestasjk (933987) on Tuesday May 01 2007, @06:31AM (#18938759)
      (http://kestas.kuliukas.com/)
      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.
      [ Parent ]
      • Re:Really. by ScottyH (Score:1) Tuesday May 01 2007, @07:21AM
      • Flash and ASP .. by rs232 (Score:2) Tuesday May 01 2007, @08:06AM
      • Re:Really. by l3v1 (Score:2) Tuesday May 01 2007, @08:09AM
        • Re:Really. by fractoid (Score:1) Wednesday May 02 2007, @04:14AM
      • Re:Really. by suv4x4 (Score:2) Tuesday May 01 2007, @08:35AM
        • Re:Really. by kestasjk (Score:2) Tuesday May 01 2007, @10:59AM
      • Re:Really. by jsebrech (Score:3) Tuesday May 01 2007, @11:36AM
      • Re:Really. by fireboy1919 (Score:2) Tuesday May 01 2007, @11:27PM
      • Re:Maybe by Mongoose Disciple (Score:2) Tuesday May 01 2007, @08:21AM
      • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
    • Re:Really. by ryants (Score:2) Tuesday May 01 2007, @06:32AM
    • Re:Really. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by nwbvt (768631) on Tuesday May 01 2007, @06:34AM (#18938769)

      "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.

      [ Parent ]
    • Re:Really. by jeswin (Score:2) Tuesday May 01 2007, @07:11AM
    • Re:Really. (Score:5, Insightful)

      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.
      [ Parent ]
      • Re:Really. by suv4x4 (Score:2) Tuesday May 01 2007, @09:12AM
      • 2 replies beneath your current threshold.
    • Competition is good! by Dan_Bercell (Score:1) Tuesday May 01 2007, @07:17AM
    • Re:Really. by [HeMaN] (Score:1) Tuesday May 01 2007, @07:47AM
    • Re:Really. by remids (Score:1) Wednesday May 02 2007, @12:28AM
    • 2 replies beneath your current threshold.
  • Always late... (Score:5, Interesting)

    Am I the only one who gets the feeling they keep on arriving too late every single time?
  • Finish what you started (Score:3, Funny)

    by Riquez (917372) on Tuesday May 01 2007, @04:35AM (#18938359)
    (http://www.lost.eu/68bf7)
    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 (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Seiruu (808321) on Tuesday May 01 2007, @04:41AM (#18938383)
    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.
  • 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 (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 01 2007, @04:56AM (#18938435)
    Been there, done that. M$ is trying to do an ActiveX 2.0. Too late. I for one welcome our new Adobe overlords!
  • by mikearthur (888766) on Tuesday May 01 2007, @05:03AM (#18938455)
    (http://mikearthur.co.uk/)
    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.
  • by bsantos (655278) <{moc.liamg} {ta} {sotnasb}> on Tuesday May 01 2007, @05:43AM (#18938573)
    "[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]
  • Microsoft?... Open Source?... Does not compute, does not compute!
  • Silverlight In Action (Score:3, Informative)

    by N8F8 (4562) on Tuesday May 01 2007, @06:11AM (#18938675)
  • here's a preview (Score:4, Funny)

    by NickFortune (613926) on Tuesday May 01 2007, @06:13AM (#18938689)
    (http://www.nymar.demon.co.uk/)
    #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 (Score:1)

    by rjcobain (1095583) on Tuesday May 01 2007, @06:19AM (#18938705)
    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
  • by EveryNickIsTaken (1054794) on Tuesday May 01 2007, @06:30AM (#18938749)
    MS finally announces they'll open-source something, and all that the Linux users do is complain.
  • 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 (Score:3, Interesting)

    by tt42 (647778) on Tuesday May 01 2007, @07:01AM (#18938897)
    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]
  • 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!
  • 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!
  • > Kurtz writes with word
    > that Microsoft

    What? Excel not good enough for ya?
  • "If it can" (Score:1)

    by mstahl (701501) on Tuesday May 01 2007, @09:20AM (#18940393)
    (http://whiskeyandtheweb.blogspot.com/)
    Those are the key words.
  • 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 (Score:2)

    by popo (107611) on Tuesday May 01 2007, @10:23AM (#18941397)
    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.

  • 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!
  • by tieTYT (989034) on Tuesday May 01 2007, @01:02PM (#18944015)
    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? (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 01 2007, @05:10AM (#18938469)
    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.
    [ Parent ]
    • Re:Adobe Who? by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF (Score:2) Tuesday May 01 2007, @10:04AM
  • 4 replies beneath your current threshold.