Watch the Obama Inauguration With Moonlight

bigmonachus writes "Miguel de Icaza has posted on his blog that linux users will be able to watch the Obama inauguration using Moonlight. Just go to the Moonlight download page to get it. He also said that some Microsoft engineers worked hard last night to make this happen."

Comments

A point for MS

[uberhipduck]

And we thought all MS Engineers were evil. My hope in humanity has been restored.

Re:A point for MS

[murdocj]

Yes, you are overly cynical. Let's face it, for some folks MS just can't win... if they implement something early, it's a trap, if they implement it just in time, they are just making the gesture, and if they don't implement it, they are trying to squash the competition. How about just appreciating the fact that some MS employees work hard to support a platform that competes directly with their own?

Re:A point for MS

[Darby]

How about just appreciating the fact that some MS employees work hard to support a platform that competes directly with their own?

Because that's not what happened? The "platform" in question is Silverlight. That competes with Flash, so they worked hard to support their platform *against* the competition. This has nothing at all to do with Linux as a platform versus Windows as a platform.

So there is nothing at all here to appreciate. It was obviously a completely self-serving action.

Pay just a little bit of attention and you won't look so dumb in the future.

Re:A point for MS

[murdocj]

From the Moonlight download page:

"Moonlight is an open source implementation of Microsoft Silverlight for Unix systems."

So MS engineers worked overtime to make an opensource implementation of their product work on a an OS that competes with Windows. Which is what I said.

And I noticed that you didn't have an answer for the point of my post, which was that on something like this, MS is going to take crap no matter what they do.

Or not

[brejc8]

This is fairly low isn't it?
Using the climax of a massive democratic process to tie people to a monopolistic format just to show some stats how even Linux users have Moonlight so it is perfectly acceptable for this to become a new standard.

Re:Or not

[Anonymous Coward]

I suppose that this, codeplex and their other efforts could be all a big plot to win mindshare from OSS developers and users and convert them to MS, then they'll break compatibility again, but really if they think that will succeed, they're living in a fairy tale world.

Really? I see their Silverlight/moonlight cooperation as being the same strategy of DirectX/Internet Explorer, as a second chance to try and take over the Web once and for all.

I'm never installing anything from Microsoft again. And if your website requires it, you just lost a customer.

Re:Or not

[mweather]

I love Linux and run it on many computers at home, and have never been particularly fond of Microsoft, but you really have to give this to them. It's more open than what Adobe have to offer and they're being far more cooperative than Adobe generally were. Remember, mono/moonlight are *open source*.. not even just a binary blob provided by Microsoft.

More open that what Adobe has to offer? Microsoft isn't offering Moonlight, so that's not really a fair comparison. There have been open source Flash implementations for years. The only reason they aren't at feature parity with proprietary Flash is that Adobe actually releases it's software on Linux. Had they not, then Gnash would probably be much further along, if not at total feature parity. In essence you're giving credit to Microsoft for not releasing Silverlight for Linux.

Re:Or not

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the main reason the free flash implementations are lagging, is that they have been reverse engineering the format, unlike the Moonlight people, who have specs to work from.

There were specs for Flash too, but until very recently, the license for those specs specifically forbid using them to implement a viewer.

Because of this, even though flash player is the most crappy piece of software I've ever seen on any Linux machine, the free alternatives still haven't been able to beat it.

So yes, Microsoft has been more open. Not just more open, but so much more open that they ended up forcing Adobe to become more open. Competition
for the flash format is good, and Adobe opening up the specs after Silverlight appeared is proof of this.

The best way to watch the inauguration

[BadAnalogyGuy]

I was on the National Mall for Bill Clinton's second inauguration, so let me suggest that the absolute best way to watch the Presidential inauguration is to watch it on the news that evening.

They'll cut out all the boring crap. You don't have to spend all morning standing around in the freezing cold. And you don't have to miss work.

MS makes a very compelling case

[AvitarX]

I just downloaded it, it was a 64-bit XPI.

Way easier than installing flash, now I am curious if it will work.

Additionally, the client is open source, and Adobe has wielded the software patent hammer in the past (against flash I think even). So it's not easy to call MS particularly the greater evil here.

Re:Change but not all change is good...

[palegray.net]

It is just a hack for a one time occasion.

Ummm... I just took the ten seconds to install the Moonlight plugin for Firefox 3 (running under Ubuntu 8.04 i386). After I'm done watching the presidential inauguration, what precisely is stopping me from continuing to use the plugin to interact with other Silverlight-based content?

Listen, I'm a fairly serious open source developer myself, and I'm excited about a new technology that attempts to rectify some of the shortcomings we've all suffered from with Flash. Why can't you just give credit where it's due? Feel free to trot out your recent open source software engineering contributions...

Re:Change but not all change is good...

[Anonymous Coward]

To be honest, between Silverlight/Moonlight and Flash, Silverlight/Moonlight is obviously the superior technology. It's also, ironically, the more open of the two.

Do enlighten me, how is silverlight superior in such an obvious way? It's not as if flash was standing still for the last 4 years.
Do you honestly think mono will ever be on par to .NET? Not just talking about versions here. I mean really, have you even seen a program using winforms on linux, because it just looks broken most of the time(just as broken as 2 years ago).
Anyway have fun.

Re:Oh God no!

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh please. Give it a rest.

It is a historic occasion in that the first African American president of the United States is being inaugurated.

Millions of African Americans are witnessing something that many of them never in their wildest dreams believed they'd see in their lifetimes.

I didn't vote for the man, regardless of that he won, and as of this afternoon he will be my president. I am happy to witness this historic moment myself and I am happy for those people for whom this event is a dream come true.

Re:Oh God no!

[up2ng]

Oh Please..................

I am fucking tired of always hearing 1st African American president this 1st African American president that !
How about we just call him what he is.......... The new President !
Enough of this divisive bullshit we have grown accustomed to, stop pointing out the differences and encourage the similarities it makes a lot more sense !

There should not be this title that constantly follows him around " 1st African American president " who fucking cares, all I want is a President(whether i voted for him or not !) I don't care if he White, Black or has Polka Dots. I just want someone to do the Job !

I didn't vote for him, not because he was African American but because I didn't agree with his ideals and I am not a 'cult of personality' follower. I just like my money in my pocket where it belongs, I should decide to do with it as I wish. I didn't work for it so someone else can spend it for me.

Re:Silverlight is the way to go

[im_thatoneguy]

Silverlight is just a pleasure to program in. Being a subset of dotnet you have just a gazillion great classes at the top of your fingers for you to use in any language you want that just supports .NET.

This is modded funny--only because there are evidently at least 3 moderators who have never programed anything in ActionScript: the only programming language more frustrating than a crude stick and a punchcard.