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MS Silverlight To Stream Obama Inauguration Events
Ilgaz writes in to let us know that we will have to install MS Silverlight 2 to watch the US President's inauguration online. Everyone running Mac PPC, Linux, and FreeBSD has been left out, as there are no working Silverlight 2-capable alternatives on these systems. Here is Microsoft's press release announcing the selection of Silverlight yesterday. Streaming of various events around the inauguration begins today at the Presidential Inaugural Committee site, which touts its "inclusive and accessible" coverage.
I think Silverlight is one of the few things Microsoft got right. I've been using Silverlight quite extensively on my Mac since Netflix switched to it, and it's rock solid. This kind of got me interested into looking into the programming aspects of it, and it's pretty darn easy if you know .NET Framework and WPF already, and if you don't, the learning curve is not that bad. I wanted to write a multi-file uploader for one of my apps, and I was able to do so in just a couple of hours, end to end.
Any chance of WikiMedia or someone else hosting an OGG for Firefox 3.1 and Opera users to enjoy the tag?
[...] in that only one website requires Silverlight to watch the inauguration, whereas [...]
Yeah, it just so happens that the "one website" is the official presidential inaugural committee site, which pompously dares to call it the most open inauguration in history.
Welcome to the change.
Or we can start doing it the way it was done in WW2 and shoot them as spies. Tim S
http://citizensbriefingbook.change.gov/ideas/viewIdea.apexp?id=087800000005BUn
Are computers 3 years old outdated? Even back in 1998, sites could provide 3 alternatives (Qt, Real, Wmedia) on same page. What happened to that magnificent technology? Is such a historical event suited for another DRM framework install advertisement? I am not for flash too. It is giving user (citizen) the choice. It is possible, even basic pages on shared hosts can do it. Apple, Real, VLC and Adobe guys will happily install their servers too.
Linux Moonlight PRE ALPHA is not Silverlight 2. I was always wondering if anyone would fall into that trick and there we go. Microsoft doesn't support YOU, your OS. It supports Developers to make a clone of the real Silverlight. Just like Windows Media Codecs for Quicktime, even while excellently coded, can't replace a full feature Windows Media Player. E.g. it can't do DRM streams/music store. You know why they exist? So they can claim unofficial support when a media companies IT guy asks about "What about multi platform support? Mobile support?"
I'm sure that they meant open as in open access. Assuming that they meant open software is a bit of a stretch.
It isn't open access. I'm running Linux and I can't use it. Therefore it is excluding me based on OS usage. I'd gladly use Adobe Flash (they make it for Linux)
Oh! the injustice. Having to load a browser plug-in! You think Adobe would handle a monopoly in any market differently than Microsoft? You must not use their products, then.
Adobe isn't Microsoft. M$ does this because Windows is competing with other OSs and M$ doesn't want Silverlight to work there. If Silverlight didn't exist Flash would still work on Linux. It's just that then we wouldn't have any compatibility issues since everyone would be using Flash. Finally, I'd gladly install the closed-source Silverlight plugin, but M$ won't let me.
If you are from the US and voted for Obama because you thought his platform was somehow anti-Microsoft, then, frankly, you're an idiot. This is it though...*this* is what lifted the veil and caused you to see the world for what it is. Silverlight. When there are lots of other options available, no less (maybe that's what they meant by "most open"?) Your trolling needs work.
If I had been old enough to vote and I had voted for him, it would have been because I expected him to take a sterner line against blatantly anticompetitive measures such as Silverlight. And about the "other options": What if e.g. Congress decided its website would only work on Windows? Certainly people using Linux/Mac/whatever can get the information via news sources etc. right? The problem is that it becomes impossible to get the information straight from the horse's mouth (Why should I have to rely on The New York Times when their photojournalism is blatantly biases?).
$ make available
Actually the most likely reality is someone really cheap (as in how much he was paid by the political party versus how much he was paid by 'er' someone else) came in to do that part of web site and made some choices that where motivated less by their loyalty to the future administration and more by their loyatly to silverfish. A political web site is a political web site, everything about it is part of the message not just the content.
So the Obama camp is already starting to learn some lessons of how it can be manipulated to promote greed based corporate ideals. Of how it's message can be hijacked to promote some deceitful corporations agenda.
It is a major flub, a demonstration of being exploited by corporate intrests right at the very beginning of their term, a painful lesson to be learned but one they need to remember. Not all of their staff, will in reality be their staff and many of them will be their to serve other peoples interests and not the interests of the government they claim to be serving.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Oh! the injustice. Having to load a browser plug-in! You think Adobe would handle a monopoly in any market differently than Microsoft? You must not use their products, then.
Unless, of course, you haven't paid the microsoft tax.
Then you're simply excluded from "the most open inauguration in history".
Msft pulled the same stunt for the Democratic National Convention:
http://ixnotes.wordpress.com/2008/08/26/democratic-national-convention-against-gnulinux-or-bought-by-microsoft/
And for the Olympics.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080623-nbc-olympics-on-the-go-download-service-is-vista-only.html
Must be nice to able to buy so much influence.