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Microsoft Woos Developers Under the Silverlight
CWmike writes to tell us that with the impending release of their Silverlight 2.0 product, Microsoft is poised to enact the next phase of their plan, wooing developers and designers directly. Microsoft is funding a French open-source project designed to allow programmers to utilize the Eclipse framework to build Silverlight apps. "Microsoft is also releasing for free a set of programming templates called the Silverlight Control Pack under its Microsoft Permissive License, as well as the technical specification for Silverlight's Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML) vocabulary via Microsoft's Open Specification Promise. The latter, said Goldfarb, should make it easier for would-be Silverlight developers."
Flash is multi platfrom and there is GASH as an option.
I also trust Adobe to be OS neutral a lot more than Microsoft.
99% of our your users already have Flash so why make them download and install Silverlight.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
We can expect an open source Silverlight viewer? If so and MS has agreed not to enforce any patents on the technology then I see little reason for it to not overtake flash. Flash sucks, a lot. The sooner we have another cross platform app for doing online animations and movies the better.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Sounds like marketing drivel to me.
While financials are right in stating that past performance does not guarantee future performance, microsoft does not get the benefit of the doubt. They have (and continue to, albeit subtly) acted maliciously towards their competitors for a long time, and will spread FUD whenever they can to drive users to the "platform of choice*", namely Windows and Windows-derivatives.
Not to say that Microsoft hasn't come up with some good things. The problem is that adopting these good things puts you right where Microsoft wants you: following them lockstep, but never quite able to catch up.
That said, your post reeks of cheerleader. Wake me up when Mono catches up to .NET 3.0 (I think they just got 1.0 WinForms support and are nearing 2.0 compatibility?)
I think that you are glossing over three decades of Microsoft stifling innovation, locking out others, and bullying. It is a very healthy thing to scrutinize Microsoft's activity and make sure others know to be wary of them. If they are going to behave differently they are not going to gain trust over night. But there is nothing so far that show that Microsoft is behaving any less badly than they have before.
Well it has more to do with standards. I don't want to have anything I do on the internet tied to one OS, browser, or even software supplier.
Flash is supported on more OS's and more browsers than Silverlight.
Also I just can not trust microsoft to keep supporting anything but Windows.
IE, Mediaplayer, and VBA for Office all show that Microsoft will not support anything but Windows.
That isn't really politics it is just logic. The internet should be OS and Browser neutral.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
But flip through the site and check out the functionality.
I'm sorry, but you're making me more interested in what McCain's got to say.
Saying Microsoft is trying to kill Adobe is "pro-" or "anti-" anything. It's an observation. It's what Microsoft always tries to do.
I think you're being just a little too sensitive here when talking about a company for which nothing is too low when it comes to smothering the competition.
Aside from that, if Silverlight is good, people will use it. Frankly, all I could ever get it to do is ask to be installed, even when it supposedly was. I guess it doesn't support Firefox. Flash is closed-source, a performance hog, and Adobe can't seem to port it to 64-bits even though they've been allegedly "trying" for years. If that doesn't tell you volumes about the quality of the code, then nothing will.
Silverlight is from Microsoft, therefore it will _not_ come without some huge club beating you in the face to lock you into Microsoft regardless of whether it's good or bad. This is an important consideration. Just when software is more cross-platform friendly than ever, Microsoft comes along and tries to set the clock back 10 years. No Linux support? Is this 1998 again?
These are important considerations above and beyond whether Silverlight is easy to work with and performs well. All Microsoft technology comes with a big ball-and-chain attached, backed by an obscenely powerful company who is not afraid to extort, intimidate and lie to maintain their advantage. For many people, that's not a problem and may even be seen as an advantage. For other people, it could be a deal-breaker.
If Microsoft wants to be treated based solely on the merits of their technology, then perhaps it's time, after 30 years, that they attempt to compete based solely on the merits of their technology.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Agreed. The web is meant to be cross platform and Microsoft keeps trying to tie the web to ther OS or their BROWSER or their TOOLS (which then tie back to their BROWSER which ties back to their OS). This is why people are anti Microsoft because Microsoft is anti-open and 'anti-cross platform'. Everytime they make the motion to be cross platform, they ruin it by tying it in to something else or exploiting it or making it obsolete. They can't just leave something open and cross platform. This is why people are suspicious that the have never accepted the GPL or any other truly open license.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
As a developer, isn't the point to write better/more robust code?
I used to be platform-agnostic and hardware-agnostic, but after a few rounds of companies pulling platforms out from under me... "better" code that depends on a single vendor is something I have to look long and hard into before I'm going to jump on board. I don't care whether it's called NextStep or .NET, SmallTalk* or BeOS, if it's under the effective control of a single company it's pre-doomed. Over the past 30 years I've been burned too many times to trust ANY proprietary platform.
take better advantage of the rich Internet experience
Another buzz-phrase that was just as scary when it was the rich Desktop experience. That turned into a Microsoft-controlled virus hive. Not going there again.
I tend to use the best tools available
Me too, so long as nobody can pull those tools out from under me because they went out of business or changed their goals. I don't care so much whether it's open source or not, so long as there's multiple sources out there.
Actually, I imagine this as some late 30s, early 40s year old guy living in his mom's basement with trollish rants ready to copy and paste. He also has a barbecue sauce stain on his shirt.
Actually, that's how I see all trolls.
Mono isn't a 1:1 implementation of .Net ... they are compatible with everything in 2.0 that matters.
And Wine is compatible with everything that matters in the Win32 API. That doesn't cause all programs that matter to run correctly.
Those who would give up liberty to obtain working drivers, deserve neither liberty nor working drivers.