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Silverlight Released, Linux Version Coming

Posted by kdawson on from the yet-another-plug-in dept.

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.

7 of 462 comments (clear)

  1. It's a trap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...stick to open formats and Free code ;-)

    They are trying hard to encourage .net to kill off the huge popularity of Java, especially now that Java is moving to GPL they are trying extra hard to kill it off.

    1. Re:It's a trap by MobyDisk · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Every 10 years or so, programming languages take another incremental step. We take the best lessons over the last decade and incorporate them into a new language. Java took the best parts of C and C++, cleaned them up, added a virtual machine, incorporated the best exception handling designs of the time, and standardized a good class library. Java is/was a huge step forward. .NET was the next incremental improvement on Java. They added in some of the things that were missing from Java, removed a few over-complications, and made a new class library that incorporated the lessons Sun learned.

      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.

  2. Re:What can posibly happen... by everphilski · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Note that Moonlight is being developed **outside** of Microsoft, although it has the support (not just verbally, but engineering support) of Microsoft. So it can't be killed quite that easy.

  3. Re:What can posibly happen... by AirLace · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Remeber that the Mono project has already independently implemented large parts of Silverlight in their Moonlight implementation with little or no help from Microsoft. Microsoft's official support will definitely be helpful when it comes to test suites and some further details, ie. the "last few percent", but it has already been demonstrated that the community is entirely capable of implementing and maintaining this platform by itself.

    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.

  4. Re:What can posibly happen... by gral · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Actually, if we are talking what they have done in the past:

    * 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.

    --
    Scott Carr
  5. History by allthingscode · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Doesn't this sound like the history of the browser all over again:

    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.

  6. Re:What can posibly happen... by jhol13 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    DRM. I am certain the Linux version will not play DRM'd content.