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MS Silverlight a Step Back For Linux Users
mattb0611 writes "Just as it seemed that Linux users (especially 64-bit users) would finally be able to enjoy streaming content with a minimum of hassle, Microsoft's new Silverlight software promises to throw a monkey wrench in the works — as they have yet to suggest any sort of Linux platform support."
Is anyone surprised by this? After all, a few stories down from this on the front page is news of the Microsoft Firefox plugin that works "only on Vista and XP". Who would have ever imagined that this would be any different?
thread about microsoft's development tools.
"one needs to 'experience' new products before drawing them off the list" they said.
"this is anti ms rant" they said.
and i said "ms has a bad track record when it comes to hidden motives and reliability".
and voila, now this.
Read radical news here
I'm as much a Linux fan as the next guy but I HATE when I see this crap where MS is supposed to wipe the penguin's ass. Time for hte Open Source folks to innovate or get out of the way. Adobe(Macromedia) Flash has been around for a LONG time and I have yet to see anyone attempt to come up with a serious Open Source alternative.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
We already have java for real stuff and flash for multimedia whatnot. They are ubiquitous and well understood, tested technologies. Silverwind is already dead.
'Once scientists, even the dim-witted social scientists, get muzzled, the Western Civilization is finished.' - oldhack
That is one of the main goals behind Silverlight, to take control of the active media web content delivery mechanisms, so that Microsoft can provide support only for "friendly" operating systems.
Do you really think that Microsoft would do anything to promote the Linux platform on the desktop?
This is only a step back if people actually use Silverlight to develop content. And we all know Microsoft will, but unless they bundle it and make it the default with Visual Studio, then there probably won't be that large of an adoption.
My twitter
Linux users finally get Adobe to provide current product support for Linux with Flash (and presumably a shockwave player), thereby making Linux as a Desktop more attractive, while Microsoft continues to do things to undermine it. If there is any doubt in anyone's mind (even you Mac fanboys) that Microsoft perceives Linux as a bigger threat, then you obviously are not reading the same news that I am.
The solution is; don't use it.
The problem is that many people will complain about this sort of tech, then use it anyway.
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It's an honest question: Why would Microsoft release software to enhance Linux?
Linux users do not pay for software; that's the nature of the beast. I've been running Linux full-time since the early 1.x versions, and I've never purchased a single piece of software for it. So I don't see what the incentive is for Microsoft to support Linux.
Much as I love Linux and free software, it is self-defeating and unrealistic to demand that Microsoft (and other companies) support Linux. Perhaps the much-vaunted free software community should produce its own solutions that are better then the closed-source competition? Instead of complaining about what other people do, take responsibility for your own needs and write the software you want.
Isn't free software up to the challenge?
All about me
Until open standards are the norm, Linux and the Open Source world will always be playing a game of catch-up as far as proprietary technologies are concerned. In many cases, we'll probably never see a functioning OSS alternative.
Unfortunately, I expect patents are a major barrier to the community developing its own standards independently of those with an interest in restricting technologies. Perhaps the best hope is the public sector, e.g. the BBC's Dirac codec.
McDonald's causes great hassle for Burger King as they refuse to release the recipe for the Big Mac's secret sauce. Sadly, this will only be available at McDonald's for the time being. There are no plans for cross-restaurant release.
If it becomes too prevalent to avoid, just reverse-engineer the damn thing. Or wrap it in some WINE-doohickey or something, I dunno.
We've dealt with getting propriety stuff working in Linux, we can do it again.
For inexplicable reasons, people persistantly think of MSFT as a benevolent technically-oriented company which is profitable because it serves the market and gives people what they want.
It is not and has never been. MSFT is a commercial marketing enterprise with considerable talents both as marketers and in contractual/legal arrangements. Their technical talents are very meagre. Most software they have bought from others or essentially contracted (even if inhouse).
They are also an adjudged monopolist (only the remedies were thrown out on appeal, _not_ the findings!) who have been entirely predatory "red-in-tooth-and-claw" and unfairly successful.
The critical issue will be the response of businesses who maintain web sites, not Microsoft. It will come down to dollars and cents for the business. If a web site is inaccessible to you because it's using a non-standard technology, complain about it. If there are enough complaints from the right customers, the businesses running the sites will change or microsoft will help the businesses reach linux users.
Perhaps the Novell deal will give Microsoft an incentive to support Linux.
flamebait moderated improperly will gaurantee a flamewar.
MS has a bad habit of dropping cross platform support for their products:
1) IE for the mac
2) WMP for the mac
3) Degraded MS Office functionality in Office 12 (scripting support for the mac).
They did announce that there might be support for Linux. If there is it won't last.
Step 1: Create cross platform product
Step 2: Get everyone to use cross platform product
Step 3: Drop support for every product that doesn't run Windows
Step 4: Profit (get customers to switch back to Windows)
Even if you use a Microsoft or Real streaming server, the content is ultimately stored in QuickTime. MPEG-4 is the open standardization of the QuickTime file format, and using the standard H.264 video codec and AAC audio codec you can make a movie that plays everywhere. Not just on a personal computer, but also on iPod or PlayStation. This kind of movie is the successor to the DVD, whether you play it off a next-generation optical disc format such as Blu-Ray or not. The MPEG-4 container this movie is wrapped in is identical to the QuickTime file format and can hold any kind of media QuickTime can hold, including Flash and Java. So there is no question how you can include multimedia content in the media players of today and the future. These standards are years old.
The problem with Silverlight is if it only plays on a personal computer it is already obsolete. Even if it played on Windows, Mac and Linux personal computers, still no good. There are too many phones and iPods and various other devices that have the ability to play audio and video (not to mention TV's), and these devices all have H.264/AAC decoders in them. There is no room for multiple codecs and no general purpose CPU to decode them. These are DVD players which are data-storage agnostic.
People say why doesn't AppleTV let you watch YouTube in addition to streaming movie trailers from Apple.com? Because the AppleTV decodes H.264 video in its GPU and YouTube is not H.264. The CPU in the AppleTV is under clocked to stay cool, it would have to run all the time to decode YouTube and it would have to be 2-3x the speed also. YouTube is not iPod-ready, not handheld-ready, not living room -ready by any stretch. It's very PC-oriented.
If MS can't sell WMA then how can they sell Silverlight? It is foolish. Even if every iPod user didn't already have QuickTime on their Mac or PC it would be a really hard sell to content creators to be bothered with multimedia content that is personal computer only. There are two billion phones that all need to be replaced in the next two years and the iPhone is kicking off the true handheld Web by reading actual Web pages plus MPEG-4 audio video. It is way too late for you if you are talking about what format audio and video is going to be stored and streamed in. It is also way too late for MS to get a fair chance with content creators when their greatest contribution so far has been to fuck with QuickTime at every chance they get.
That's easy - first they make the plugin so that people will say "Oh, it's supported everywhere! I'll use this new technology!" and then once everyone's using it, they steadily downgrade the quality of the plugin for the competition's browsers and OSes in future releases (bug fixes and security updates! Really!) until it only _really_ works in IE on Windows Vista. When people complain, they answer with "Well, that's what you get for using that free crap. You should use IE and Vista, it's a better browser and OS! That's why you're having problems."
This will go down in history as one of the many attempts of a dying company to continue having a foothold on the industry. Snap, no I did-n't. But seriously, no one cares about this, we already have this technology.
Promote true freedom - support standards and interoperability.
The point is, do the people who encode their streaming content with sliverlight, know that others will not be able to decode it unless they are using the sliverlight, and consequently that their data is locked in a format that can only be used if they pay their MS tax?
To be fair, I don't think anyone expects an operating system to automatically generate new features.
I'm not a huge fan of microsoft but think of it with an open mind:
WHY should microsoft/windows have to support other platforms?
Thats like saying any program that you create has to support EVERY platform.
Perhaps linux is the one who should be supporting other platforms and not vice versa.
In some companies, programmers are required to support all other applications, while not having the flexibility of having their applications supported.
They shouldnt, but they should support open standards so that other people are able to support other platforms themselves.
As it stands, they keep things proprietary and don't support any platforms other than their own, in an effort to force people to use their other products.
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I'm confused. Did you just say Linux should support other platforms? Are suggesting yanking the NT kernel out of Windows and putting the Linux kernel in its place? If you mean architectures, Linux already supports a whole ton of them, while OSX supports 2 (PPC & x86) and Windows supports 1 (x86) or maybe 2 if the PDAs have a different processor. The most sense I can make out of what you said is that maybe you're confusing Linux with Free Software in general. If THAT's the case, then you should look at the Open CD, which is a cd for Windows with 30-something Win32 Free Software applications and a nice installation GUI. Of course, that's just a tiny selection. Quite a lot of Free Software is ported to (or written on) Windows. The ones that aren't? Generally, it's because A) the dev can't do it because s/he lacks Windows or B) there's already software serving the same purpose for Windows which may not be Free-libre but is free-gratis and then well, most people seem to care more about free-gratis than Free-libre, so...doesn't make a difference to most users.
look! it's a bird, it's a plane, it's....a girl? yes, a girl browsing Slashdot on Linux
Interesting that... As I'm using it on the desktop on every machine I own (all 15 of them). I use it as a desktop at work. AND I use it in the server room too. The only people who say Linux isn't ready for the desktop, are people who themselves aren't ready for the desktop. ;P
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
As Compiz/Beryl now show, X (X11, of course) is quite capable of doing anything that Apple's GUI can do. Apple could have used X in MacOS 10 by adding/extending the 3D support, adding X extensions, and developing an Appley toolkit and window manager (they had to do that ANYWAY for their own propietary stuff). But if Apple HAD chosen to use X, then they would have made it FAR too easy for companies to port Apple MacOS software to Linux. Instead, they have an Xserver for the purpose of running non-native (read: all the GNU/BSD/Linux/Native Unix GUI) stuff in addition to their own apps.
Many people have to wake up and realize that Apple has very little altruism... they have no desire to have competition from Linux any more that Microsoft does. Apple is quite happy to take apps/technology/whatever from BSD, GNU, X, even Linux... but it unfortunately doesn't work the other way around.