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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.
It supports BOTH platforms. Windows AND Mac. How much better can it get?
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
Does that mean every technology or product released by anybody not supporting Linux is a 'step back for Linux'?
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
... they just finished the Media Player plugin for Firefox after toiling on it for years. They should have Linux support for Silverlight in ... let's see ... carry the one ... divide by zero ...
It's safe to say they will announce Silverlight for Linux at the next Mars landing.
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.
The solution is; don't use it.
The problem is that many people will complain about this sort of tech, then use it anyway.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
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
Sure it's cross platform compatable
It supports both XP and Vista!
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.
From the press release: Leading media companies and solution providers have announced support for Silverlight including Akamai Technologies, Brightcove, Eyeblaster, Limelight Networks, Major League Baseball, NaviSite Inc., Netflix, Pinnacle Systems Inc., Rhozet Corp., Skinkers, Sonic Solutions, Tarari Inc., Telestream Inc. and Winnov. All have indicated plans to deliver Silverlight-based experiences for their viewers and customers.
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.
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.
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
I give Google a week before they buy another technology to snuff silver surfer (or whatever it's called) out.
If an officer ever threatens to taze you, say you have a pacemaker.
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.
I've got a new project for you...
Summation 2
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.
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.
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.
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
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