Silverlight Released, Linux Version Coming 462
Today Microsoft announced the release of Silverlight 1.0 for Windows and Mac OS X. This cross-browser, cross-platform browser plug-in is fully supported and competes directly with Adobe Flash. Included in this release was the promise from Microsoft to support the 100% compatible Linux version, called Moonlight.
From the tirania.org link (Score:3, Insightful)
They also provide a complete list [microsoft.com] of the supported codecs. I hope that, though I'm never touching *light with a 10-foot pole, this move makes Adobe finally release a x86_64 version of Flash (yeah, we all hate those banners and such, but being able to watch youtube videos without hacks like nspluginviewer would be quite nice. Besides, my nspluginviwer-ed version of Flash SUX at playing real time streaming video...).
It's a trap (Score:5, Insightful)
They are trying hard to encourage
Re:What can posibly happen... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What can posibly happen... (Score:5, Insightful)
Some strange withdrawal by Microsoft will not result in a significant loss of resources here, and will not get in the way of replacing the proprietary Flash platform with a more free alternative. Kudos to the Mono team -- they have played their cards well here.
EULA? (Score:1, Insightful)
Yeah, Right (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What can posibly happen... (Score:5, Insightful)
* The first version will be done in completely open, to show "They" want to work with the
community.
* The next version will have a couple things that are different, but not necessarily documented, so it is difficult to "Know" exactly what is being done, people will still use it because it is not too problematic
* Future versions will continue this trend, until the MS version has completely broken compatibility with other OS systems, and it will be the other companies just aren't cooperating.
History (Score:5, Insightful)
Someone comes out with a technology that threatens Microsoft's dominance: Netscape.
Microsoft develops a multiplatform technology to defeat it: IE on Mac.
Microsoft incorporates it into its OS to get it into 90% of the PCs.
Once the competition is destroyed, it levels off development, and ends support on non-Windows platforms: IE on Mac.
It'll support *light on Linux/OSX until Flash is defeated.
Re:It's a trap (Score:2, Insightful)
Basically, Microsoft finally got something right. That's not to say they didn't take some lessons from Java, but the fact is
I just hope the Mono guys make hay while they can and get Mono up to a fully-usable state before MS decides they've given enough engineering support to the Linux-support guys. I'd love to use
kdawson (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What can posibly happen... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What can posibly happen... (Score:2, Insightful)
What happens when they release an update and decide NOT to release the specs for the new features?
Then Moonlight devs get to learn what it's like to be WINE developers!
Patent-fu? (Score:5, Insightful)
Doing the right thing? (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't expect the Mac version of this to last past the point where this gets to 50% market penetration (Mac IE, anyone?).
This is another exercise in Microsoft suckage, straight up.
Re:History (Score:1, Insightful)
I have to be honest here and state that (IMHO) sites that are riddled with Flash are so '1990' and give thanks to FlashBlock etc
Re:i hope this is well received (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not so much that I think it's evil - more that I find myself profoundly distrustful of Microsoft's motives.
I mean it's possible the leopard really has changed its spots this time. But that's not the smart way to bet.
Re:[AC]What can posibly happen... (Score:3, Insightful)
Because they are marketing it as a programmable language in Javascript/C#/Ruby/Python
Evil Plan (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It's a trap (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe, in another 5-10 years we will see another language emerge. One of these languages will finally become dominant when they design it by committee and make it an ISO standard, like what happened with C++. The problem is, by the time the language makes it through the standardization process, some upstart will already have another language ready.
The game continues forever.
Re:History (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It's a trap (Score:2, Insightful)
As for the classpath complain, I find it moot. I haven't had to fight with classpath in years. I develop on Windows, Mac OS X & Linux and I've used Eclipse, Netbeans and other IDE, as well as the command line.
My $0.02
J-F
Re:What can posibly happen... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's a trap (Score:2, Insightful)
Java's numbers are purely because it's been around longer and has always had a large net presence. The fact that there are more hits for "Java programming" versus "C sharp programming" is really meaningless. Java's been around longer. Of course there are more hits.
That means nothing, though, since search hits don't determine which language is used the most.
Re:Obviously it's a trap - but it can be stopped (Score:5, Insightful)
Dear Matt,
I'm so sorry but real-world companies can't survive on misguided idealism, and if you haven't noticed, we need some money to pay the salaries of our employees. This means we'll not just open source our player, which is already a de facto standard, and s result for which we paid millions upon millions and years of hard work to build.
In fact we've still not released the Flash 9 spec out there, and when we release it, it'll be full of errors and incomplete, just like the previous flash specs were.
We open sourced parts of our platforms strategically, but only enough to appeal to the OSS crowds, and ensure our platform is seen as a standard, and not enough so we lose control. As you know The Flash scripting engine will be part of Firefox 4. We also open sources the Flex framework and soon the compiler an Eclipse plugin. It didn't sell well anyway, so what else could we do.
Recently we announced that we'll embrace open standards like MPEG4 for our video codec, but what we forgot to mention is we'll still require that you buy our owns streaming servers for live streaming, since we intentionally don't support the standard streaming protocol all other MPEG4 videos stream in.
It's also possible we'll sue the authors of Gnash, if they ever start to matter (they don't now), since our specification of the Flash format specifically says you're not allowed to build players with it, just Flash file exporters.
Basically, it's business like any business for us and Microsoft. Drop the idealism and get on with your life.
Sincerely, Adobe.
Re:Gnash (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, there's the fact that everybody already has Flash, so you have to fight the market inertia to get a foothold.
YABP - Yet Another Binary Plugin (Score:4, Insightful)
Flash does suck in your case, but at the same time *someone* likes to develop using it. Who are these mysterious developers?
Because there is absolutely no incentive. Look at all the reasons Flash is being used: ads, quick games, video, music, forms, etc. With the exception of ads, there is a totally free (open source) method that could work (java, ajax, svg, ogg, etc.). So then why would the "FOSS" community want to reinvent something?
While making a plugin is not so difficult, who would develop for it if there is no content for it? And if there was content for it, why would they want to move from their already existing platforms (Flash) and switch to something new?
Actually I've seen some Nokia devices that support Flash, I think one of the mini tablets also runs Linux. So Flash *could* be more widely supported, and I suspect it *eventually* will. ... I'll bet Windows embedded devices will support Silverlight. ... But again, without content it doesn't matter.
Windows still won't ship with an OGG codec. I also remember reading that OGG was notably more CPU-intensive (still true?). While I have no objections to OGG, I do wish it was more widely supported (especially in some more popular mp3 players).
*** That's the biggest kicker. *** I personally think major FOSS "developer" products are seriously lacking when it comes to multimedia compared to commercial products (Flash, Director, etc.). Even if there was an perfect plugin, the SDK and all related tools including deployment would take a serious effort to polish to be even remotely competitive with current offerings.
A great goal, but unrealistic. In the end the commercial incentive for Flash (or Silverlight) are what pushes it forward, not any form of openness or accessibility. If you can't make money out of it, I doubt it will be widely used or developed.
Ultimately it would be in everyone's best interest to use what (non-proprietary) plugin systems that already exist interfaced with already open standards/technology.
Re:There is no catch (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't know what you put in your Wheeties pal, but some of us take the null hypothesis with Microsoft to be "They're trying to fuck us over somehow".
Extreme Paranoia at Microsoft (Score:3, Insightful)
Just for the record, I despise Flash in all of its incarnations. Most web sites only use it for annoying ads anyway, so avoiding it is a small loss. But why Microsoft feels it has to drive Flash out of the market with their monopolistic efforts is beyond me.
Re:Gnash (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What can posibly happen... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's a trap (Score:2, Insightful)
Even if they fixed that (and I can only pray they did), Maven is still so horrendously overly complicated that it's the number one reason to avoid Java. Maven makes Ant seem easy, and Ant is the number two reason to avoid Java.
what can Microsoft's motives be? (Score:5, Insightful)
1) knock Adobe Flash down from the top of the hill
-why? Adobe has nearly the same distribution channels as Microsoft since Flash is installed on nearly all computers sold. Flash is an API Microsoft does not control and its multimedia underpinnings are a threat to Microsoft's media file formats, ie control.
2) Makes Silverlight look like it's good to everyone in the industry by supporting the three major platforms, Windows, Linux, Mac.
-why? initial support from the industry for one thing. Linux is embedded in way too many devices to be ignored and Mac isn't doing too bad either. As stated by the parent, this won't last if Silverlight is successful in displacing Flash in the market. Microsoft has NEVER been a friend to anybody who's not a Windows-only vendor and they've never considered other platforms in their business model/methods other than how they threaten the cash flow of the Windows monopoly.
3) Make a platform to replace the browser neutral AJAX kits and eventually bring it all home to Windows-only.
-why? AJAX is spread all over the place and businesses are migrating old apps and/or creating new apps which run on any browser/platform. There is no NEED for Windows in this world and Silverlight brings that all home to Bill, Steve, and the friendly people at Microsoft.
Microsofts motives in everything they have done over the past 15+ years has been to keep Windows in a position of power and control. There has never been any desire to profit from cross platform software and nothing shows they've changed. This attempt at cross platform support is only a tool, or hammer if you will. It's going to smack everyone but Windows users on the head. But Microsoft has changed you might say. Just look at how they are manipulating the ISO process in attempts to get a proprietary format, MS-OOXML, as an international standard. They have not changed and Silverlight on Linux and Mac is nothing but a carrot hanging over the trap. There is no trusting of Microsoft and Novell is the fool for thinking once again, they can play in the pen with the wolf. IMO.
LoB
Re:There is no catch (Score:3, Insightful)
Really we ought to be looking to improving the browser html/css/javascript/svg environment itself including SVG and SMIL and adding all the features it needs so it can complete with things like silverlight, and do so in a matter where it can be viewed using an open source software program. SVG and SMIL support has been coming along much too slowly in firefox even though the internet is being ruined by multitudes of proprietary flash content pages.
Re:[AC]What can posibly happen... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What can posibly happen... (Score:3, Insightful)
I know that MS has a lot of talented developers and a Lot of them will be able to code circles around me... But also I would be able to code circles around other MS developers. But what happends people get stuck into thinking the same way and keep recoding the same problems over and over again, while a different perspective will be able to fix the problems.
Sometimes there are problems that they didn't even know there was a problem yet.
Re:It's a trap (Score:5, Insightful)
Every 10 years or so, programming languages take another incremental step by implementing a little more of what's already in Lisp.
Fixed that for you.
Re:What can posibly happen... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Extreme Paranoia at Microsoft (Score:1, Insightful)
It is not that Microsoft is against other companies selling software, it is simply that they have revenue and Microsoft wants that.
Microsoft's business model requires that the revenue increase contiually. This keeps the share price rising and allows the employees to be paid with options which eliminates tax liability.
Any significant fall in the share price could lead to the options being taken up or employees requiring to be paid with money. This could lead to MS having to pay taxes and then where could that lead.
Since the PC market became saturated MS has had to move into new markets in order to grow its revenue. This included servers (bye bye Novell), office software (bye bye WordPerfect), internet (bye bye Netscape), PDAs (bye bye Palm), Games Consoles (..), and many other new areas. Sometimes it simply buys the company (eg FrontPage), sometimes it just drives them out of business (Netscape _and_ SpyGlass, 2 for the price of 1, no wait, 2 for the price of none).
Soon it will be producing its own X-PC in order to take the resiual revenue from Dell and Gateway that it is not already getting from them for the software it forces them to install exclusively. This will be accelerated because Dell are offering Linux boxes. Not only does this threaten MS's revenue directly but it undercusts the price they could charge for an X-PC.
Re:Obviously it's a trap - but it can be stopped (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:[AC]What can posibly happen... (Score:3, Insightful)
They want to kill off Adobe, not Linux.
Wow! Where have you been? Microsoft wants to kill-off everyone who isn't Microsoft.
Re:[AC]What can posibly happen... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:My take on Silverlight (Score:1, Insightful)
Not everyone's going to install Silverlight just to view your site. If you're targeting your site at techies, go ahead, but if you're not then Flash is likely still the right move. Especially as you've got a deadline, you'd have to gamble the final 1.1 will be out of the door by then.
Re:SVG/SMIL (Score:3, Insightful)
Xaml at it's core is essentially an object instantiation language. It allows developers to declaratively create objects, describe their members, and relate them to other objects. As long as the objects referenced follow some simple rules, said Xaml is compiled down and loaded, either while building an application or on the fly, as may be the case with Silverlight.
It's handy when the UI and Codebehind for a Window or Canvas can be worked on independently by the designer and developer, and have both parts compile down to the same class. It also makes for some interesting solutions if you want to alter look or behavior after shipping.
Perhaps I'm too suspicious... (Score:3, Insightful)
...but I don't understand why Microsoft even needs its own closed source implementation when it's actively supporting an OSS implementation. Surely the OSS implementation could be ported to Windows, and probably will be anyway sooner or later.
The only reason for a closed source edition that I can think of are that Microsoft is using the OSS support for PR purposes only, and has future plans to make sure they're incompatible over time.