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."

Comments

Aw, come on

[lukas84]

It supports BOTH platforms. Windows AND Mac. How much better can it get?

Re:Aw, come on

[Anonymous Coward]

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)

Re:Aw, come on

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Very, very hard. Forget the smaller scale than WINE - you're going to need large parts of the MacOS video infrastructure (CoreVideo, Quartz, likely QuickTime). If the mac client is not written in Cocoa, you'll need large parts of Carbon. (If it is in Cocoa, you could use GNUstep as a basis and avoid some work). You'ld be better off trying your luck with running the Windows version of Silverlight using WINE.

MacOS's BSD-like basis (and X11 support) means it is usually fairly simple to port Unix applications to MacOS (often just a recompile); the other direction is a lot more difficult.

Re:Aw, come on

[Fujisawa Sensei]

Shouldn't that be BOTH platforms: Vista and XP?

Whatever - Flamebait Story

[N8F8]

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.

Re:Whatever - Flamebait Story

[Realistic_Dragon]

That is highly unrealistic. The biggest reason is that as soon as Microsoft pushes Starlight as a 'critical update' (as they did for IE 7) its market share will take a massive jump to over 60%. The best Linux/OSS could manage in an initial stage would be 10% and that is a WILDLY OPTIMISTIC estimate.

If I were a media manager, considering the current penetration of Flash, I might think about targeting a platform with a 60% share in addition to Flash, 10% would be extremely unlikely. So, a new OSS rich media format wouldn't work not because of the player but because of the content producers.

Re:Whatever - Flamebait Story

[alexhs]

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.

Re:Of course

[Trigun]

Good going, ass. Why not give them a few more pointers?