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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."
Microsoft does not act to make desktop Linux more attractive.
Does that mean every technology or product released by anybody not supporting Linux is a 'step back for Linux'?
Oh come on, self righteous defenders of Linux! I love my Linux, but take a joke already. If you don't know what sarcasm is, you obviously haven't been here that long.
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.-TJ
It's based on .NET, so unless there are specific OS checks in the binaries, it should be possible to run the Firefox plugin with Mono (probably with modifications to Mono, since it doesn't have any .NET 3 support yet). And since there's a Mac version, we can be reasonably certain that things like UNIX-style paths are supported.
This is actually better for Linux users than MS's traditional behavior.
You're clearly not "as much as Linux fan as the next guy" or you might have thought it through for 10 seconds before commenting.
If Silverlight is widely adopted, a whole bunch of the web becomes inaccessible to Linux users. What if sites Linux users depend on start to use Silverlight because it's easier to code than, say DHTML. What if my bank decides to use it? What if it gets used for more than just pretty animations? What if it becomes a critical component of a site?
Any site that deploys Silvershite is going to get a pretty strong email from me.
Let's see, Microsoft as an OS company has no need to support Linux, they only need someinteroperability.
Microsoft as a company in the market to provide content streaming systems has a lot of reasons to support linux: serving content from linux machines which is cheaper for businesses, accessing as much people as possible, marketing as a multiplatform system, possible revenue of people licensing this for use in mobile phones/pda/... running linux, ... It would increase revenue for this specific bussines.
The only problem is Microsoft is a lot of companies, and all are forced to protect the chicken with the golden eggs (Vista and Office), which means the bottom line of the specific department aiming at content streaming can be lower than it could be, if that means feeding the chicken.
I posted this exact same conspiracy theory yesterday! I should have posted it to an add laden blog so Slashdot would whore it for me ;).
Anyway, It's not just 64 bit platform users who are benefitting, the open source flash efforts are now working on PPC which makes a nice change. My old powerbook is now much more useful for web browsing than before.
Think of the Children; Sleep with your Sister
Wow, a copy of an OS News flame post :) (same team of astroturfers ?)
Seriously, there is none so deaf as he who will not hear.
What about all these fine standards made available by the W3C ? SMIL maybe ?
Wait, nobody uses it because MSIE, used by 80% of people, doesn't implement it. Who's at fault ?
From the Wikipedia, implementation have been made mainly for handheld and mobile devices... where MSIE doesn't rule.
I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
Why would Microsoft support Linux?
:O
Hmm... I don't know. Five months ago they signed a deal with Novell in the interest of enhancing interoperability between Linux and Windows. Remember that?
Are you telling me that was all a sham???
This got me to thinking, though - they support Mac. Perhaps that could be leveraged into Linux support somehow? I mean, Macs have a BSD-like basis, and a neat set of well-documented Mac APIs on top of it (Cocoa, etc.). How hard would it be to take a Silverlight runtime and write a 'wrapper' (an emulation layer, perhaps like WINE but on a much smaller scale) to get it to work on Linux?
Something tells me the problems might not all be technical. The Silverlight's Mac version's EULA will probably say something like "You may only use this software on Apple Macintosh computers running OSX".
(But then, Novell have this 'interoperability' arrangement with Microsoft, don't they? They're already implementing Microsoft's
I'll be the first in line to call down MS for yet again trying to create a stupid proprietary format as a means of extending market share but surprisingly I don't think it matters this time. Ultimately google alone will decide which streaming format is the dominant one.
Sure there will be some sites that use whatever MS has and it'll be annoying but most users will have whatever google video and youtube use and thus most sites will use whatever google uses. I can't see google picking MS's streaming format so it will probably work out fine in the end. In fact such a move will only show that MS no longer has the ability to force things on the market in such a way.
Linux users do not pay for software;
Speak for yourself. I have several boxed versions of SuSE, RedHat, and Mandrake. I have purchased plenty of games over at http://www.tuxgames.com/. I could have downloaded everything for free. I choose to pay for it because I'm too busy/lazy to contribute.
The big difference between Linux and Windows is I don't have Linus searching my computer during updates to see if its Genuine
Enjoy,
It's just the normal noises in here.
WTF? Even with Adobemedia I have allways been extra sceptic about their supposed trueness to Linux and Open Source (I'm a full-scale professional Multimedia Designer with 7 years of Flash experience under my belt). Flash Player 9 seems to have done away with the glitches and hopefully Linux developement will be in line with other Plattforms from here on. After the next two iterations have passed and Linux is not lagging behind again by two years in the Adobe line of plugins then it will be safe to say that we have a true x-plattform multimedia RIA kit from Adobe. If not, any professional RIA developer worth his rates will be away from Flash again.
From a professional standpoint this MS Silverthingie isn't even worth mentioning - even if you are a MS user.
There's Flash, then a large gap, then Java, then another large gap and then come XUL, the Laszlo Generator and tons of Ajax Kits. Somewhere down further down the way you'll find Wild Tangent, Curl, Director and some other older plattorms, along with an abandoned Blender plugin codebase.
MS new PR stunt Multimedia tool isn't even on the radar of professionals. And it would take a complete instant 180 turn of MS policiy and 5 years of quality developement from MS for that to change. And we all know how likely that is. It's actually more likely that Java Multimedia will pick up, now that Java is GPLd.
Bottom line:
Silverlight is absolutely nothing more than the usual MS semi-vaporware combined with marketing bullshit as a toping. I don't expect it to get any more attention than Curl.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Which was just IE for Windows built against a (huge, fat, slovenly) Win32 API compat library for Solaris. Why anyone would want to run it (with its reputation as a system crashing app) is beyond me. :)
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
Try to fine Microsoft, then cue the US government complaining to them about how un-capitalistic and unfair it is to restrain the business of a fine corporate citizen like Microsoft. I think we all know where that's going.
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
Microsoft does manage to make Linux more attractive by releasing a crappy OS after 5 years of development and God knows how many resources invested in it.
... now Adobe will have to improve that crappy Flash plugin that on Linux still doesn't support transparency ... and maybe even make it open-source in face of the danger posed by Microsoft. ... so I think they at least are considering the possibility (thanks to Microsoft) ;)
And this new technology is actually a Good News for Linux
They already released the ActionScript engine as Tamarin