First Look At Microsoft Silverlight 3

snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Martin Heller finds Silverlight 3 gaining ground on Adobe Flash, Flex, and AIR in all the areas where Silverlight 2 had lagged. No longer do developers need to build desktop WPF apps based loosely on corresponding Silverlight RIAs, as Silverlight 3 adds the ability to install Silverlight apps on the desktop, update them in place, detect Net connectivity state changes, and store data locally and securely. Moreover, solid Expression Blend 3 and Visual Studio 2010 betas provide developers with much improved tools to create Silverlight RIAs. '"I do not expect many Adobe shops to give up their Flash, Flex, and AIR for Silverlight 3. I do expect many Microsoft shops to do more RIAs with Silverlight now that it's more capable and to create lightweight browser/desktop Silverlight 3 applications where they might have fashioned heavier-weight Windows Forms or WPF client applications," Heller says.'"

Comments

I'll pass.

[thetoadwarrior]

Silverlight is awful. I hope it dies a quick death soon.

Re:I'll pass.

[Anonymous Coward]

agreed... incoming to w7...

Re:I'll pass.

[martinmarv]

What's this, you say? An anti-Microsoft post on Slashdot with 100% opinion, 0% content or information, modded up to Informative? Say it ain't so!

Re:I'll pass.

[upuv]

It does have the skid mark of .NET on it doesn't it. I feel dirty researching one those rare moments of insanity when look at WinTel horror.

Re:I'll pass.

[thetoadwarrior]

Did you forget that it's Windows only and there goes against everything the internet stands for. That's enough to dislike the software.

Re:I'll pass.

[martinmarv]

Just in case anyone decides to post the parent as informative, I'll point out Moonlight which is an implementation of Silverlight that runs on Linux. There is also Mac support in Firefox and Safari.

Re:I'll pass.

[Anonymous Coward]

Correction to my previous statement, SL3 is not multi-O/S yet... 1 and 2 are (though not officially, on Linux... see Moonlight)

Re:I'll pass.

[Anonymous Coward]

Moonlight supports Silverlight 1. Support for Silverlight 2 is in "preview".

Thus far the Moonlight project is "compatible" enough to tell you your version of Silverlight is out of date, and please upgrade.

That's not even close to what I'd call multi-OS or useful. Hell, I barely put up with flash (no-script saves the day most of the time). If sites are forcing Silverlight down my throat, I'll just not use them.

Re:I'll pass.

[thetoadwarrior]

http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=2316

I asked Becker about Microsoftâ(TM)s plans to support Silverlight 3 on Linux clients. He said if and when that support happens, it will most likely come from Novell, which created the Silverlight port to Linux, known as Moonlight.

So no, it's not really multi-OS. Silverlight will never come to Linux. It will always be Moonlight which will always be behind Silverlight and will always run the risk of MS undermining it.

Re:I'll pass.

[Jussi K. Kojootti]

Advertising something as "multi-platform" is a joke when one platform is always at least one version ahead of the other platforms: it looks like silverlight 3 support will be available on Windows before Moonlight actually supports silverlight 2.

Now, keeping things that way might not be Microsofts intention in this case but knowing their track record I'm not betting on it.

Re:I'll pass.

[Anonymous Coward]

Correction to your latest statement, not even Silverlight 2 is multi-O/S.
If you want to astroturf, at least do it well.

Re:I'll pass.

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows 2000/XP/7 Seems multi-OS for me.

Re:I'll pass.

[Shadowmist]

For the forseeable future, the bulk of desktops and notebooks on this planet are going to be running Windows software. If the failures of VISTA did not push a significant fraction of Windows users to Mac OS or Linux, nothing is going to change that. So yes, site developers will be using Silverlight, especially if MS makes it cheaper to develop for than Flash, because they don't really care if you're going to avoid thier site if the bulk of the computing market doesn't share your issues. This doesn't please me as a Mac user, but I've lived in worse times than this.

Re:I'll pass.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not multi OS. That's multiple versions of the same OS.

Re:I'll pass.

[legirons]

For the forseeable future, the bulk of desktops and notebooks on this planet are going to be running Windows software.

eh? go to any tech conference and the only people not using Mac laptops are the ones with asus eee (xandros or ubuntu) or thinkpads running linux. Maybe 1 or 2 Windows machines per hundred.

Re:I'll pass.

[Peet42]

I'm pretty sure I have Silverlight 2 running on my Mac OSX Leopard - it's what I use to watch the ITV Catch-up service. It's possible that it's just Silverlight 1, but I'm pretty sure the button I clicked to download it said "Silverlight 2.0"...

Re:I'll pass.

[Shadowmist]

And people who attend tech conferences represent what percentage of home and buisness users again?

Re:I'll pass.

[Anonymous Coward]

MS knows how to make developers lives easier - this is why DX is far, far more used these days than OpenGL.

The same will happen with Silverlight. It's expected that within 3 years, nearly 25% of what uses Flash today will be moving to Silverlight, and within 5 years, 50%.

Many shops are looking very closely at Silverlight as the Next Big Thing on the web. It isn't quite there yet, but it will be, so they want to get early experience now.

Re:I'll pass.

[Hal_Porter]

I think the Internet has a good run, but it's now time to move to something more sophisticated. Like Microsoft Winternet 1.0.

The Basic edition will be very reasonable priced.

Muahahaha!

Re:I'll pass.

[Hal_Porter]

We develop for both OSs here, Vista and Windows 7.

Re:I'll pass.

[jcausey]

No, this is FUD.

Silverlight currently runs on the VAST MAJORITY (read 98%+ of non-mobile) of machines today: Windows and OS X.

Anti-MS zealotry on /. is getting a bit nuts: this really isn't a bad platform. It's logic/pres separation is light years ahead of Flash, and as it has .Net underneath it's a much more of pleasure to program with than ActionScript.

Yes, it is vendor 'lock-in'. Sort of (see Moonlight). BUT IT IS NO WORSE THAN ANY OF THE ALTERNATIVES INCLUDING FLASH/FLEX/AIR AND JAVA/JAVAFX!! Please see through the bullshit and realize that the only thing that really sucks about this product is the company that made it.

Re:I'll pass.

[digidave]

I had a couple of Microsofties come in to work to present to us about Virtual Earth. They talked a lot about VE's Silverlight integration, but when asked they admitted that only about 35% of desktop users had Silverlight installed. Even if that is not a high estimate, it's pathetic.

Even if you only care about Windows users, Silverlight is not a suitable technology to roll out to end-users. Flash 9+ has something like 98% market penetration.

Re:I'll pass.

[Skizmo]

> "realize that the only thing that really sucks about this product is the company that made it." 'nuff said... NOW STOP RANTING !

Re:I'll pass.

[abigor]

http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/development_tools/silverlight.html

So yes, it is multi-OS. Linux is such a niche desktop OS that it's not a priority for any commercial entity to support it, let alone MS.

Re:I'll pass.

[malevolentjelly]

Moonlight supports Silverlight 1. Support for Silverlight 2 is in "preview".

Thus far the Moonlight project is "compatible" enough to tell you your version of Silverlight is out of date, and please upgrade.

Silverlight 1 and 2 are much more different than 2 and 3. The Mono development team has explain that implementing the full CLR for Moonlight 2 is one of the largest stages of the development process. For instance, Moonlight 2 Preview already has many Silverlight 3 features implemented. So, once Moonlight 2 is out, it will not be long before Moonlight 3.

Furthermore, I consider this the best pro-developer free software rant explaining the pros of mono in general:

http://www2.apebox.org/wordpress/rants/124/

Re:I'll pass.

[thetoadwarrior]

What MS does is allow people with no programming skills to write programs. That's not necessarily a good thing and that's a big reason there is so much insecure software for windows.

Re:I'll pass.

[thetoadwarrior]

Mac does have SilverLight 2.0. Macs are already popular so porting SilverLight won't be a big problem but I suspect MS wants Linux to be as inconvenient as possible for users.

Re:I'll pass.

[thetoadwarrior]

Doesn't really matter. Any thing on the internet should be platform neutral.

Re:I'll pass.

[abigor]

MS invented Ajax, and for a long time only IE supported the XmlHttpRequest (it was originally designed for Outlook Web Access). So it wasn't a platform-neutral api. I guess it should have been condemned too, because it "broke" the internet, right?

Rich clients and media delivery like Flash, Silverlight, etc. are here to stay, for better or worse. The best you can do is to pitch in and help out with Moonlight, or switch to a Mac and forget about it.

Re:I'll pass.

[ParanoiaBOTS]

What tech conference are you going to? Based on your statement I am going to guess it has something to do with Apple products. Most of the tech conferences I go to have a blend of people running mac, pc and linux.

Re:I'll pass.

[westlake]

when asked they admitted that only about 35% of desktop users had Silverlight installed. Even if that is not a high estimate, it's pathetic

It's not pathetic at all.

Flash has been around since 1996.

Silverlight is a product two years in beta.

If the geek calls a 35% share of the client desktop "pathetic" - what is one to make of Firefox at 20% and Linux at 1%?

Re:I'll pass.

[ParanoiaBOTS]

I had a couple of Microsofties come in to work to present to us about Virtual Earth. They talked a lot about VE's Silverlight integration, but when asked they admitted that only about 35% of desktop users had Silverlight installed. Even if that is not a high estimate, it's pathetic.

Even if you only care about Windows users, Silverlight is not a suitable technology to roll out to end-users. Flash 9+ has something like 98% market penetration.

Pathetic? If your going to make a broad statement like that lets even the playing field. Look at how long silverlight has been out compared to flash. There is a reason that Flash has a 98% market penetration IT'S BEEN OUT LONGER For how long it has been out it is actually picking up market share relatively quickly. If you want a fair comparison take a look at how many people had flash installed when it had been out as long as silverlight has.

Re:I'll pass.

[thetoadwarrior]

Flex/Flash and Java/Java FX are much more open. In fact, Java is open source now so it's much more open than Silver Light.

Re:I'll pass.

[David Gerard]

The alternative to Silverlight 1 is HTML 5.

Re:I'll pass.

[thetoadwarrior]

Ajax is just JavaScript and XML. Both of which were invented beforehand and free for anyone to use. So while MS might have come up with implementing current technologies in that way, they had no way to stop others from doing the same thing.

Re:I'll pass.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's time to realise that Abble's products are the biggest abomination these days. Just say NO to the dumb iAbble way!

Dude, you are such a retard...

Re:I'll pass.

[McBeer]

Silverlight is awful.

[citation needed]. Have you even used it?

Re:I'll pass.

[Anonymous Coward]

http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=2316

So no, it's not really multi-OS. Silverlight will never come to Linux. It will always be Moonlight which will always be behind Silverlight and will always run the risk of MS undermining it.

That assumes that Linux users will want to use it in the first place. Personally I'd prefer to drill my own teeth.

Re:I'll pass.

[easyTree]

What tech conference are you going to?

fanboiCon2009 ?

Re:I'll pass.

[Anonymous Coward]

The internet runs for people with windows, fucktard. quit dreaming.

Re:I'll pass.

[harlows_monkeys]

Never heard of OS X, eh?

Re:I'll pass.

[AppleOSuX]

But, you open source folks always tout the effectiveness of open source methodologies.

Microsoft is doing the right thing here and I hope other companies follow: Instead of building products "for Linux", give them what they need to build their own. I personally wouldn't expend one ounce of energy building a piece of desktop software for Linux users.

They don't pay for anything, so let them build their own.

Re:I'll pass.

[XcepticZP]

Damn it I so want to mod you insightful. Someone needs to stand up to the illogical bullies of this place. But our numbers are small and thus your post got modded flamebait.

Re:I'll pass.

[XcepticZP]

You are most certainly correct.

However, I don't see any open source projects that do anything remotely similar to Silverlight, or flash.

As usual, if I am wrong, please correct me with proof. And I will gladly change my opinion.

Re:I'll pass.

[microbee]

Who are the morons that modded the parent flamebait?

Oh, welcome to mod me down too, when you are here.

Re:I'll pass.

[Anonymous Coward]

JavaFX.

Open source. Does exactly the same thing as Silverlight and Flash.

Also sucks, but, well, can't have everything.

Re:I'll pass.

[ClosedSource]

Since people with no programming skills can't write programs by definition, I don't think there's a problem.

Re:I'll pass.

[ClosedSource]

"Ajax is just JavaScript and XML."

Right. That's why they call it "jax" .. oh wait.

Re:I'll pass.

[JohnBailey]

Just in case anyone decides to post the parent as informative, I'll point out Moonlight which is an implementation of Silverlight that runs on Linux. There is also Mac support in Firefox and Safari.

And I'll point out that it doesn't bloody work on video sites. So pretty much pointless. Offer Moonlight as a token effort, and then try to take over Adobe's niche. SOP pretty much.. Why yes Mr customer.. Silverlight is cross platform.. (It works with Vista and XP..) So your customers will be able to view the rich multimedia experience no matter what platform they use..

Air on the other hand, works great with the BBC iPlayer on Linux AND Windows. No idea if it is available for Apple.

Re:I'll pass.

[fwarren]

Microsoft is doing the right thing here

I call the bluff. To run moonlight you need mono. Microsoft holds ALL the pattens on the dotNET programming environment. When you can show me an app that runs on Mono that Microsoft gives one of those royalty free licenses to, then come talk to me.

I am an old Forth programmer so I don't mind building my own stuff. However, I would appreciate some actual "proof" that I won't get sued. A supporter of Mono saying that "Microsoft would not dare get into a patent war over dotNET with open source comapnies" just does not cut it for me as proof.

Re:I'll pass.

[legirons]

no, not Apple or related conferences

Re:I'll pass.

[kokojie]

Yes I'm sure the entire world model their OS market share data based on your tech conference observations.

Re:I'll pass.

[MMC Monster]

Wake me up when we can view a netflix silverlight stream on Linux.

Re:I'll pass.

[johannesg]

Moonlight supports Silverlight 1. Support for Silverlight 2 is in "preview".

Thus far the Moonlight project is "compatible" enough to tell you your version of Silverlight is out of date, and please upgrade.

Silverlight 1 and 2 are much more different than 2 and 3. The Mono development team has explain that implementing the full CLR for Moonlight 2 is one of the largest stages of the development process. For instance, Moonlight 2 Preview already has many Silverlight 3 features implemented. So, once Moonlight 2 is out, it will not be long before Moonlight 3.

Furthermore, I consider this the best pro-developer free software rant explaining the pros of mono in general:

http://www2.apebox.org/wordpress/rants/124/

And as soon as Moonlight catches up with Silverlight 2, Microsoft will have Silverlight 4 out. Let's face it, this is _exactly_ what everybody was predicting back when Moonlight started: endlessly running after Microsoft but never catching up, a perpetual existence as a "nice, but not useful for anything current" piece of software.

Re:I'll pass.

[martinmarv]

35% is actually a much higher figure than I had in my head. About 12-18 months ago, a Microsoft representative was unable to tell us what percentage of users had Silverlight installed and web estimates seemed to put it at less than 5%. If the 35% figure is true, that's huge growth over that period, and more than enough to make it a serious consideration for shops considering rich internet applications.
I'd like to see some research to back that figure up, because if it's true, it's enough to change our product's technological road-map for the future. We're a Microsoft shop producing premium data products delivered over the web. Creating rich data applications is likely to be far easier in Silverlight (1.0 or 2.0, let alone 3.0) than, say, Ajax, Java or Flash. We couldn't say to our customers "install Silverlight - 1 in 20 people have already", but we can say "install Silverlight - just over a third of people have".

Re:I'll pass.

[im_thatoneguy]

So what should they do?

Slow down and stop offering new technology so that the Open Source guys can keep up at a slower pace?

or

Should they devote resources to a market with less than 3% market penetration and is largely composed of individuals who wouldn't install it simply because of the brand it's associated with?

I don't know how much more helpful Microsoft could be to the Moonlight team short of developing in house. And with the attitude of most Linux users out there combined with their numbers I wouldn't waste very much time trying to make them happy either.

Silverlight is an application largely targeted at the desktop. Its advantages are more interactive and friendly GUIs. If you start with 3% of computers running Linux you can probably shave off a half percentage of that for servers. Then you can probably shave off another % for zealots who won't use it because it's Microsoft. Then you can probably shave off another half percentage for the people who don't want a GUI and are perfectly happy to run everything through bash and CLI. These same people probably haven't installed flash either because good ol' HTML is all they ever wanted. So you're left with like 1% of the market who would use Silverlight on Linux.

Re:I'll pass.

[malevolentjelly]

And as soon as Moonlight catches up with Silverlight 2, Microsoft will have Silverlight 4 out. Let's face it, this is _exactly_ what everybody was predicting back when Moonlight started: endlessly running after Microsoft but never catching up, a perpetual existence as a "nice, but not useful for anything current" piece of software.

Or, the mono community can make use of the moonlight implementations they have finished. It's very useful and makes for a nice consistent way to develop dynamic web content. .NET is really a very nice technology to develop on. You also forget that much of silverlight is open source, so the implementation curve can be narrow. I doubt online applications will be riding the bleeding edge, anyway.

Re:I'll pass.

[dirtyhippie]

The thing that peeves me about silverlight is that MS gets to brag about having a "multi-platform" tool, when in reality, apple and novell do the work porting the code to for osx and linux, respectively. Having a semi-open spec which doesn't rule out third party implementations just isn't the same as having a tool that is officially released on multiple platforms like flash is.

Re:I'll pass.

[Anonymous Coward]

Apples and oranges. What website requires requires a user to install Linux or Firefox in order to view its content?

Duh.

Re:I'll pass.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually Microsoft themselves produce the code for the Apple version.

Re:I'll pass.

[Anonymous Coward]

And as soon as Moonlight catches up with Silverlight 2, Microsoft will have Silverlight 4 out. Let's face it, this is _exactly_ what everybody was predicting back when Moonlight started: endlessly running after Microsoft but never catching up, a perpetual existence as a "nice, but not useful for anything current" piece of software.

well, it's called moonlight. it's nice and romantic but it has nowhere near the uses of sunlight. :))

Re:I'll pass.

[Burpmaster]

when asked they admitted that only about 35% of desktop users had Silverlight installed. Even if that is not a high estimate, it's pathetic

It's not pathetic at all.

Flash has been around since 1996.

Silverlight is a product two years in beta.

If the geek calls a 35% share of the client desktop "pathetic" - what is one to make of Firefox at 20% and Linux at 1%?

WOOOSH!

Silverlight is a platform. Firefox is not (at least in the sense the web developers support it). Firefox implements the open platform of HTML+JavaScript supported by 99% of the web clients out there. 99% is way better than 35%. Turning away 65% of your visitors is just plain stupid. With 35% market share, the only entity that benefits when a company chooses to require Silverlight is Microsoft.

In fact, Microsoft's whole business is based around tricking people into picking them instead of a better option.

Re:I'll pass.

[V!NCENT]

It's just Microsoft is exaclty what it is; Create new, totally uncalled for software duplications done wrong in order to screw every standard/open establishment in order to gain more lock-in and control and in the end more money.

It is and shall always remains "just Microsoft" for me.

Re:I'll pass.

[Bungie]

call the bluff. To run moonlight you need mono. Microsoft holds ALL the pattens on the dotNET programming environment. When you can show me an app that runs on Mono that Microsoft gives one of those royalty free licenses to, then come talk to me.

Actually if you look here you'll see that Microsoft (and sponsors Intel/HP) agreed to make most of the .NET patents royalty free. The only component which contains royaly patents is Windows.Forms, which is why it's not inclued as part of Mono.

Re:I'll pass.

[Bungie]

Correction to your latest statement, not even Silverlight 2 is multi-O/S.

Silverlight 2 seems to have a Windows and OS X version.

Re:I'll pass.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's just Microsoft is exaclty what it is; Create new, totally uncalled for software duplications done wrong in order to screw every standard/open establishment in order to gain more lock-in and control and in the end more money.

Last time I checked, Flash was done by Adobe, which is not an open establishment at all. If you mean Microsoft is attempting to compete with another company then you would be correct, but that's how business works. Flash is entirely in Adobe's hands if they decided tomorrow that it won't support Linux then that's how it will be.

Re:I'll pass.

[fwarren]

To quote from the post you mentioned

But Microsoft (and our co-sponsors, Intel and Hewlett-Packard) went further and have agreed that our patents essential to implementing C# and CLI will be available on a "royalty-free and otherwise RAND" basis for this purpose

They say you can get the license "royalty-free". Try to actually obtain the license. I don't care if the reality is that after being in court 2 years and spending a million dollars proves that Microsoft would have to cough up the license. Until someone with deep pockets goes to court and wins. Microsoft has the ability to take any open-source project to court for violating it's patents. With no money to defend itself the small project will lose. That is the reality.

When you can produce an actual covenant not to sue OR show how an open source project can actually obtain the royalty-free license there is still a danger. Since Microsoft is a convicted monopolist who is known for stealing, swindling and bullying small guys. I want some something more substantial than a quote that Microsoft is willing to provide a license but no one has actually been able to obtain one.

Re:I'll pass.

[moosesocks]

This problem isn't unique to Silverlight. Quite frankly, all of the open/free video codecs are crap.

Silverlight uses VC-1, which is also used by both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD. It's quite a good codec. To make the Apple side of the ecosystem happy, Microsoft also threw in H.264 support to the software. Although we can groan about proprietary standards, these are by far the two most modern codecs in widespread use.

Content-producers are extremely familiar with these formats, and it's hard to fault the Silverlight team (who are not in the business of making codecs) for supporting the two most popular codecs on the market.

Theora, which is part of the HTML5 spec, is not terribly great at the moment. Even the developers admit that it needs a lot of work. Dirac is also fairly open, and used (and developed) by the BBC. However, it's also very much a "previous generation" codec, and hasn't found much acceptance in the F/OSS community.

Re:I'll pass.

[V!NCENT]

Adobe Flash is not only an establishment, it's also as open as it gets. Not open source, but open and free documentation.

The Flash player is a .swf player. The streaming protocol RTMP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_Time_Messaging_Protocol) and the Sorenson codec (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorenson_codec) are missing from the spec, but Gnash (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnash) is clean room reverse enginering this, making that open too.

Here you have the documentation: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/swf/

Re:I'll pass.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's complete and utter bullshit and you know it.

Linux and Mac presence is higher at tech conferences than anywhere else, but representation as low as 1% to 2% for Windows only exists in some wet dream of yours.

Heck, go to a linux related conference and you'll still see a higher represnetaion for windows than that.

Re:I'll pass.

[dhavleak]

It's a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy though.

Maybe if the FOSS community were to stop ostracizing Novell for working with MS, and actually tried to help, then that wouldn't be the case.

Re:I'll pass.

[Anonymous Coward]

How cute! Look everyone, he thinks Moonlight is worth something!

Silverlight a good thing?

[Xest]

Well, not in the grand scheme of things it's not, I'd rather see the likes of Silverlight and Flash dissapear altogether. I think however in this context Silverlight might actually be a good thing. Flash has become so widespread because there was really no challenge to it, Java applets never really ever managed to perform as was originally hoped.

On one hand I'm glad to see some competition for Flash rather than it be allowed effectively a monopoly on RIAs but on the other the worry is of course that this'll just mean more RIAs!

I'd personally rather see the advances in Javascript allow us to move forward for RIAs because no plugin is required, and it's not some compiled proprietary lump of bits. Google's chrome demos mentioned here a couple of months ago looked very promising in this area so hopefully this will eventually the path we see taken for RIAs but in the meantime I think Silverlight is possibly a good thing, if not only because even in the worst case it forces Adobe to make Flash a better product.

Re:Silverlight a good thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

becoming?

Re:Silverlight a good thing?

[pjt33]

There's at least one more "challenger" (I use the term loosely) in the form of JavaFX. The fact that you hadn't even heard of it says a lot about its potential for success.

I do think you're being unfair on Java applets, though. It took a long time for them to perform as originally hoped, but I think they're there now.

Re:Silverlight a good thing?

[maxume]

Java is sort of getting there. My computer still creaks and groans when the JVM is first loaded though, as compared to flash not being noticeable (But maybe flash loads itself when Firefox launches, I haven't checked; that still creates the perception that flash is faster, even if Java is doing a better job of leaving resources alone).

Re:Silverlight a good thing?

[MobyDisk]

I think Java applets seem to perform better now because processors are faster, and because people are comparing it to Flash/.NET/Javascript, not to C++. For example, the JVM took forever to load, but I don't think the JVM is any bigger than the .NET framework. Java was just ahead of its time and hardware caught up.

Re:Silverlight a good thing?

[msormune]

If you look GWT stuff, they use JavaScript in a way it might just as well be proprietary compiled code. As for the required Flash plugin, so what? It's already everywhere.

Re:Silverlight a good thing?

[Nerftoe]

As for the required Flash plugin, so what? It's already everywhere.

Cough.. iPhone... cough.

Re:Silverlight a good thing?

[Xest]

To be fair, I have actually heard of Java FX, but as with Java I've just never come across it in use. Similarly I understand Java has come along leaps and bounds in terms of performance and I've seen some great Java desktop apps, but on the applet front I've still yet to see anything that shows it off as a viable platform. Of course, that's not to say it isn't just that I've not seen it to compare, I have at least seen Silverlight in use in a few places and it does seem to be able to hold it's own against Flash at least.

Perhaps the real issue for Sun then (well, Oracle now) is that they just need to do more on the promotion front? Microsoft spent a fortune pushing Silverlight into some prominent places such as the Olympics etc. maybe Sun/Oracle now need to do the same to demonstrate that Java is a viable RIA platform now?

Re:Silverlight a good thing?

[Xest]

I've not looked at it to be honest, is it obfuscated or has it simply been run through a non-destructive compression process to shrink the size of the .js file downloads for clients?

Either way the process should be entirely reversible else the Javascript interpreter wont be able to do anything with it.

But that's really the beauty of Javascript - it's open, with a plugin you have no idea what it's going to do unless the plugin explicitly allows you to do so, however with Javascript as it's open a Javascript interpreter can block specific actions at the users request (commonly blocking the ability to open popup windows, or resize browser windows for example). You're not restricted in where it can be used so much, if a browser supports Javascript then your application will run, there is no worry about finding an application that supports Javascript and then searching for a working plugin on top.

Plugins are often less rigorously tested than browsers too simply because browsers have a much wider audience so in general plugins are more problem prone - I'm sure most people who have worked in IT have dealt with the absolute pain that a broken Flash install can be.

Re:Silverlight a good thing?

[msormune]

I don't think iPhone runs Silverlight either. This is really Apple's fault. But for some reason, when Microsoft pulls this stuff they get blamed for shutting competitors out, but Apple just gets more praise.

Re:Silverlight a good thing?

[msormune]

GWT JavaScript code is obfuscated and compressed. But if you can expand that back to readable code, you can also argue that every piece of code ever written is "open" because it can be reassembled somehow and run with a debugger.

Don't get me wrong, GWT is absolutely great, I love working with it. Really great innovation. But I would not call it "open" just because it works on JavaScript.

Re:Silverlight a good thing?

[Xest]

Yeah I understand it doesn't necessarily produce open source code.

My point is that it's still parsable in the sense that the browser can work with it. Effectively it can still be used with say, accessibility tools such as screen readers - even if a string of text to be displayed on a messagebox is obfuscated in code, it still has to be de-obfuscated before it's rendered by the browser for example and so it can still be used with a screen reader, or perhaps for kids a piece of filtering software. Plugin based setups like Flash in contrast can't interoperate well with things like screen readers, they'd have to implement these themselves as there is no standardised way across browsers for plugins to interoprated.

Effectively because even though some Javascript is obfuscated, it still has to be standard to output to the browser so the browser can still interoperate well with it. In contrast with applets like Flash they're given their own little playground and the browser can only limit what it does via the plugin API and not necessarily interoperate with it quite so well. Of course you could argue more work could be done to standardise plugin APIs to ensure there is this two way communication but this has problems in itself. With Javascript we've already got the situation where it can work with the browser, rather than as a separate entity within the browser.

BTW, I just had a look at GWT and it seems that the obfuscation and compression is an optional thing although enabled by default:

http://code.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=55203&topic=10212

Re:Silverlight a good thing?

[msormune]

With JavaScript we have a situation where every browser has a slightly implementation of the execution environment. The problem with GWT is it just hides the problem (although pretty well): We need a new standard to building applications and not just JavaScript on top of JavaScript.

I really do not see the actual benefits of JavaScript vs. Flash plugins for example: To me they are just execution environments within the browser.

Good call on the GWT obfuscation/compression, I didn't realize it was controlled that way.

Re:Silverlight a good thing?

[WiiVault]

Same here. When the first applet loads there is a noticeable lag loading the JVM. Its not 30 seconds like it was 5 years ago, but it certainly slows down and disrupts the user. At this point I have given up on Java really ever being of much use when other tech is faster and better. This coming from a guy who started as a Java dev in the late 90's.

Re:Silverlight a good thing?

[Mista2]

Amd HTML5 will do much of the video streaming and onscreen animation that flash and silverlight are offering, but is an actual open standard. I tolerate flash, but silverlight is not getting anywhere near my machines, Windows, OS X or Linux. Now I see it can install apps and updates directly to the desktop, and is based on .net/mono - absolutely no way!
Novell - for some reason they keep shipping this crapware called tomboy on their distros, that required mono. It is the single largest resource consuming app on my machine at boot time. And its just a frikken desktop note-pad app.

Re:Silverlight a good thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Novell, and by extension Miguel, were paid by Microsoft.

Btw, Miguel says Microsoft won't go after you if you use Novell, but any other distros and all bets are off. Typical IP minefield, Microsoft still maintains that Linux infringes on their patents.

If you read Miguel's blog, I don't think there is any other way to read the situtation. Microsoft paid Novell to get Mono in Linux distros, and they didn't do it because the care about developers.

Re:Silverlight a good thing?

[benwaggoner]

Now I see it can install apps and updates directly to the desktop, and is based on .net/mono - absolutely no way!

It's not running native code apps, sheesh. It's the same managed code sandbox and security model as the browser plugin, but can run without being in a browser proper.

But the (high) security model remains the same. It's just like opening "Default.html" from the desktop.

Re:Silverlight a good thing?

[ClosedSource]

Can you post a link to where Miguel says that if you use Mono on a non-Novel distro "all bets are off"? Keep in mind that the mono project predates Novell's involvement.

Re:Silverlight a good thing?

[Jeff DeMaagd]

The one Java app outside of whatever bits are in some obscure part of OpenOffice is an internet-based USPS shipping label printer by Pitney Bowes. That software is crap, I often have to kill it twice and reprint before I can actually get a print. I could wait for it to load, but on loading, it is indistinguishable from crashed, and it's actually faster to kill it and try it again than to wait several minutes to do whatever it needs to do.

Re:Silverlight a good thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Flash can't load when Firefox starts but when a object/embed tag is called. Flash is also a plug-in like Java applets, 3DMLW or other similar things.

Re:Silverlight a good thing?

[AttillaTheNun]

Who says Oracle shares the same enthusiasm for JavaFX as Sun did?

Re:Silverlight a good thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd personally rather see the advances in Javascript allow us to move forward for RIAs because no plugin is required, and it's not some compiled proprietary lump of bits. Google's chrome demos mentioned here a couple of months ago looked very promising in this area so hopefully this will eventually the path we see taken for RIAs but in the meantime I think Silverlight is possibly a good thing, if not only because even in the worst case it forces Adobe to make Flash a better product.

The use of Flash will be dramatically reduced over the next few years. The most prominent use of Flash by far is for embedded video players. I think most major video sites will abandon Flash and transition to HTML 5 video. Hopefully, they'll transition to Theora too. Theora isn't as good as h264 but it's squarely in "good enough" territory, particularly with the new Theora 1.1 "Thusnelda" encoder. Using Google as an example, Chrome's inclusion of ffmpeg suggests to me that Google will be transitioning to HTML 5 as soon as possible, but not necessarily to Theora.

Re:Silverlight a good thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a demo of video playback in combination with JavaScript manipulating the video's canvas in Firefox 3.5 beta. The demo page uses the video tag to embed the video in the page, so if you view it in Firefox 3.5 you can just play it. If not, you'll have to download the demo video separately.

Re:Silverlight a good thing?

[Xest]

Who says they don't show more?

It seems pointless to speculate about, we can only assume business as usual until there's suggestion otherwise.

Re:Silverlight a good thing?

[daemonburrito]

Hey ClosedSource. You can refer to our previous conversation for links; but for the others, you can get it from the horse's mouth:

There is a patent covenant for anyone that downloads [Moonlight] from Novell [...] as to extending the patents to third parties -- you have to talk to Microsoft.

Miguel de Icaza, MIX '08

He was apparently unhappy about it, and the news made Slashdot. He wasn't, however, unhappy enough to stop playing Microsoft's game.

Keep in mind that this in addition to (and separate from) the licensing deal struck in 2005, which is its own ball of nastiness. Again, we can go straight to the source (I'm not linking to boycottnovell or anything): http://www.novell.com/linux/microsoft/faq.html.

A relevant excerpt:

Q. What does the patent agreement cover with regard to Mono and OpenOffice? A. Under the patent agreement, customers will receive coverage for Mono, Samba, and OpenOffice.org as well as .NET and Windows Server. All of these technologies will be improved upon during the five years of the agreement and there are some limits on the coverage that would be provided for future technologies added to these offerings. The collaboration framework we have put in place allows us to work on complex subjects such as this where intellectual property and innovation are important parts of the conversation.

As for your favorite talking point about "Mono predating Novell involvement", Miguel has never understood that RAND != FREE. Again, check out our previous conversation, I'm not going to do the work twice. Readers can find everything they need to know on Miguel's blog.

What you fail to understand or accept is that any Microsoft IP in the FOSS ecosystem is destructive. I recall that this was your last stand in our debate: There is defensible Microsoft IP in mono, but it's "reasonable". If that is the case, then FOSS has good reason to be wary.

I don't want another debate with you, as you were totally willing to ignore the evidence I gave you previously. I am posting this for other readers' sakes.

Re:Silverlight a good thing?

[MartinSchou]

No, the reason applets took forever to load and were sluggish as hell, were that the people making them were idiots.

Back in 2002 I made an applet (98kB) that would load off a tiny embedded webserver and communicate with said webserver to display (including history) and control the LON enabled nodes in an office building (lights, air conditioning, radiators, water meters, power meters etc).

The applet would be ready in about 2 seconds and the only 'slow' bit about it was updating the sensors due to the LON controller I was interfacing with (actually its SOAP interface).

Applets that are used to navigate a website and take up 1+ MB are very much the reason applets are frowned upon as being slow. I can easily make a shell in C that is slow as molasses - this doesn't mean that C nor a shell has to be slow.

Re:Silverlight a good thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

If it has the word Java in it I don't trust it or want it installed/running (Thanks NoScript!)

Re:Silverlight a good thing?

[ClosedSource]

I don't recall that my position was as you describe. However, as I've said on several other occasions, MS patents are most unlikely to be phrased in such a way that they are limited to .Net - that's not what legally smart companies do. They make it as broad as possible.

So if there were a patent covering .Net that MS could successfully argue in court is violated in Mono, it's likely that some FOSS code which provides similar functionality but doesn't explicitly tie itself to a MS product will be equally vulnerable.

   

Re:Silverlight a good thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

>Java
>Performing as hoped

>laughingelfman.jpg

Re:Silverlight a good thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

One thing the European Union did was to make Microsoft open up it's API's for a nominal sum, however the article listed from 2008 and by this time Microsoft may have somehow got around their commitment. It is not so much having the API's for Silverlight to create the equivalent Moonlight (version 2.0 at the time of this post) for Linux but will all the Silverlight API's be available for developers.

I think Silverlight is possibly a good thing, if not only because even in the worst case it forces Adobe to make Flash a better product.

I definitely do agree with you here but Microsoft has a history of making sure their product is that much better than their competition by just withholding information. They are not supposed to do this now but US justice won't do much unless the act is ridiculously blatant and while the EU will prosecute Microsoft it takes time for the case to be raised, tried and a verdict handed down. Even if Microsoft do loose to litigation the fines imposed are small change compared to the advantages they have already received. Microsoft as a corporate entity know this and are quite happy to bend the rules even if it means substantial fines down the time track.

It must be noted that Microsoft does not break the Law of the country they work in, in fact they go out of their way not to. Bend or skirt close to being illegal yes (ethics means nothing to business although many do pay lip service to them) but from their corporate perspective this is their way of doing business. The reason for this is if you break a countries laws then individual people start facing jail terms and this is the last think Microsoft wants no matter how much of an advantage this would give them, because then they become a very big target for litigation.

Mod story flamebait

[kramer2718]

Seriously. Silverlight is gaining on flash in all areas. What about portability ... open standards ... interoperability. Not that flash is really that much better, but at least Adobe is making a token effort.

Re:Mod story flamebait

[GF678]

What about portability ... open standards ... interoperability.

No-one cares about such things in the real world. Everyone uses Windows, remember? /sarcasm... or is it?

Doesn't seem to matter much. Slashdotters want such things, business don't care, because such benefits aren't seen when the vast majority of people are using Windows. I see it time and time again - we are losing the battle for open standards. If Silverlight and other proprietary technologies are GAINING prominence, how can we win?

Re:Mod story flamebait

[FlyingBishop]

But the users with highest income use Macs.

And Linux users are techies, who almost by definition have high income.

Most businesses considering Silverlight or Flash want to sell ad revenue, and ad revenue for the demographic not using Windows is categorically higher than that for Windows.

Furthermore, smartphones will not be running x86 any time soon, so making once-off code that cannot easily be ported to a variety of OS's and architectures will only ensure that you're locked out of the young professional demographic, as well as the emerging generation of teenagers who have been using cell phones since the second grade.

Re:Mod story flamebait

[tkinnun0]

Better question, do we want to win, if the winning entry ends up to be the inpenetrable mess that is html+css+javascript?

Re:Mod story flamebait

[Foredecker]

GF678, the problem is that you focus too much on 'winning' and 'loosing' and not enough on simply building stuff that people want. In the large (100's of millions of users, and 100's of thousands of business, just want stuff that works, if they are open, so much the better). There is no religious war here. There is competition to build things people want.

Re:Mod story flamebait

[Hal_Porter]

Silverlight runs on Macs now

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Silverlight#Operating_systems_and_web_browsers

There's the Moonlight package for Linux and since Adobe makes money licensing FlashLite to embedded devices it's reasonable to assume that Microsoft will do the same.

In fact the business model of Adobe Flash could be summarised as this: available on a majority of desktop platforms and with a free player but expensive to developers and expensive to port to other platforms, e.g. phones.

Re:Mod story flamebait

[Allicorn]

Silverlight is gaining on flash in all areas

It is? Color me surprised. I wasn't even aware that there was a Silverlight "2" having never actually seen any Silverlight plugin or warning about it on any website ever.

I suppose, in the same sense, we could say that "Safari-for-Windows is gaining on Internet Explorer in all areas". It rose from 0.07% market share on Windows boxes to 0.21% when Apple bundled it in their update for iTunes/Quicktime.

Re:Mod story flamebait

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as you have contempt for your users and put your own priorities before theirs you won't win.

Re:Mod story flamebait

[microbee]

Or you can filter such stories yourself and pretend they don't exist.

Re:Mod story flamebait

[spitzak]

I believe Microsoft is making an even bigger token effort in interoperabilty, actually.

In both cases it is token, however.

Re:Mod story flamebait

[im_thatoneguy]

. If Silverlight and other proprietary technologies are GAINING prominence, how can we win?

Easy. Just look at Chrome or Firefox: By offering a better product.

OSS advocates need to realize the reason they haven't made headway in areas except for maybe Apache and Databases is because their products are largely inferior.

The reason Flash and Silverlight have taken off is because HTML fundamentally sucks at dynamic applications. The sorts of applications which customers like. As long as proprietary technologies (such as Windows) are better solutions to the customer than their open alternatives they will win. There are plenty of examples of open standards that have taken off. Usually because they're best.

Re:Mod story flamebait

[im_thatoneguy]

Even if 100% of mac and linux users made more than 100k a year and 7% of windows users made more than 100k a year. The TOTAL number of affluent users is higher on Windows.

Percentiles don't mean jack to developers. What they care about are totals. What is your potential market?

Who needs this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Where was the need for it? Why? Just because MS made something, there suddenly should be need for it?

Who are they to decide what the world needs?

Re:Who needs this?

[dyefade]

The market for Flash is huge. That there is a need (perceived or real) is self evident, MS are simply trying to get in on this.

Gaining ground!

[sakdoctor]

I would sooner accept the existence of elves, gremlins, and Eskimos, than Silverlight apps in the wild.

Will Miguel de Iguaza support Silverlight, too...

[G3ckoG33k]

The big Q for me is, will Miguel de Iguaza support Silverlight, too... He has a long winding record on playing with fire.

Balkanization of the web

[Anonymous Coward]

What would the web be without JPEG, GIF and PNG? Can you imagine what a hot mess it would be if you had to install proprietary binary plug-ins to view images on web pages? And if some of the plug-ins weren't available on your platform?

Then go in the other direction and imagine what the web could have been with a universal video format and vector animation format. That's the crazy amount of damage Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, Real and the MPEG4 LA have collectively wreaked on the web at large.

So please, please avoid Silverlight (or Flash, for that matter). It aims to balkanize the web into mutually-incompatible, vendor-dominated fiefdoms in which the overwhelming incentive is to tax users for their access to data.

Re:Balkanization of the web

[janwedekind]

The real underlying problem is software patents. As long as software patents exist, somebody will always find a legally enforcible way to tax users for their access to data.

Re:Balkanization of the web

[westlake]

That's the crazy amount of damage Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, Real and the MPEG4 LA have collectively wreaked on the web at large.

You can't stop these guys.

Napster. Amazon, Hulu, MySpace, Twitter - something new - something corporate - it has happened before. It will happen again.

And to perfectly blunt, the damage they cause is mostly to the geek's bruised ego - he can't let go the thought that the Internet was once his private playground.

The geek places his bets on Dirac -
while Flash becomes the de facto standard for video.

The entrepreneur takes the hyper-sonic out of L.A. He can afford it - and he doesn't give a damn about political correctness.

The standards committee the bone-breaker local from Hampstead.

The standards committee is riven by ideological, economic, corporate and nationalist rivalries. It tends to codify existing practice. It tries to please everyone.

Much is left open to interpretation.

It achieves too little and moves too late.

Re:Balkanization of the web

[ClosedSource]

"And to perfectly blunt, the damage they cause is mostly to the geek's bruised ego - he can't let go the thought that the Internet was once his private playground."

And that bruised ego is probably sympathy pains because most geeks weren't even on the Internet in the pre-commercial days.

But will it run on linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

No? /me doesn't care

Re:But will it run on linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

No? /me doesn't care

That's just exactly the problem. TBH I dont care either. I browse with no flash plugins (if absolutely needed then yes I have a separate installed browser with it), noscript, and all the other little useful privacy goodies.

I want information and I want it fast. In all reality text is still text information is information. I dont need popups, animations, ads, etc etc the list is long.

The problem arises when technologies like flash, silverlight, etc come out. Major websites and corporations start publishing there material and information with these technologies because everyone wants to be "up to date". Then your normal user who doesn't have and idea about technologies being used comes along. These users who think the internet is that blue "e" or the little "fox around the globe" on their desktops. These types of people want content too, and if they cant view it then they start to feel they are "missing out". They just don't care and just want it to "work like designed".

Like another reader commented about "balkanizing the web" I feel that this hits the nail on the head. Think of the repercussions if major social networking sites, or other major web presences starting implementing code "X" which doesnt run on every system. (And I am not saying it hasnt already happened) They are alienating people. Which then in turn makes movements like FOSS, OSS, or other kind of free and open standards look bad because your "normal user" thinks while it sounds nice and the idea is good nothing "works as designed" and is in the end limiting their user experience.

imo I think its time that the experienced user base starts taking back the web. Implementing more "open" standards. Showing some of these major asshat corporations that it can be done differently. The internet was not intended just to make a $

Re:But will it run on linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean like Slashdot, which is dead slow and rendered with the almighty "new" technologies?

Re:But will it run on linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

Implementing more "open" standards. Showing some of these major asshat corporations that it can be done differently.

This is what Opera, Mozilla et al are all trying to do with HTML5. :)

I take your point that users will have to take back the Web by upgrading to a browser which supports HTML5 though.

Re:But will it run on linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

"But will it run on linux?"

No one cares.

Ad paid by Microsoft?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Infoworld article looks as though it may be a paid ad.

"Bottom Line: Microsoft Silverlight 3 is catching up to the capabilities of Adobe Flash, Flex, and AIR in all the areas where Silverlight was behind."

Moonlight?

[youn]

Moonlight http://mono-project.com/Moonlight (with a semi official technical collaboration from microsoft.. they gave implementation hints). It has been around for a while and I'm sure it'll eventually get to 3.0 compatibility rather quickly

Re:Moonlight?

[Serious Callers Only]

It has been around for a while and I'm sure it'll eventually get to 3.0 compatibility rather quickly

And I'm sure it'll remain consistently at least one version behind the Windows one, and still missing features, just as Microsoft would prefer. Moonlight has not even reached parity with Silverlight 2.0 as a final release, let alone 3.0.

Interesting that they focus on Flash/Flex as the competitor, when really the more important rival for developers' attentions is HTML 5, and the various APIs built on top of the open web (Google Gears etc).

If you're developing a web app, why develop using tech which will only ever work properly on Windows? I guess for a shop which thinks they'll never stop using Microsoft software for everything, it might seem like a good idea.

Re:Moonlight?

[Cyberax]

No, they won't. Silverlight 3 is miles ahead of Mono technically right now.

I don't see that changing any time soon.

Re:Moonlight?

[namityadav]

In theory, with support for Canvas, Audio/Video tags etc, HTML 5 does seem like a better option than Silverlight (and even Flash, for most purposes). But when you consider that not even IE 8 will support these elements from HTML 5, and that a huge part of the userbase still uses (and will continue to use) IE7 / IE6, it doesn't take much to realize that we won't be seeing developers leaving Flash for HTML 5 anytime soon.

Re:Moonlight?

[benjymouse]

Microsofts assistance to Moonlight is actually increasing.

Microsoft helped Moonlight users get legal access to commercially licensed codecs by allowing Moonlight users to download the codecs from Microsoft's site. That way the codecs are covered by Microsofts licenses (Microsoft licences these codes from 3rd party IP companies).

Perhaps more importantly Microsoft also open sourced the control widgets for Silverlight so that the exact same controls can be used in Moonlight.

That said, Moonlight still have some distance to cover to reach SL parity. I believe they are still missing code access security (CAS). CAS is paramount when you let foreign code into your system. It forms part of the sandbox which constrain what the foreign code can do (it has to declare up front was privileges it must be granted, and during execution it cannot go beyond those privileges). I believe that is the most important missing piece.

Silverlight 3 also features hardware 3D acceleration. I don't know how far Moonlight has come there. The other parts such as C# 4 and DLR Mono and Moonlight actually seems to be not to far behind.

But another area where Moonlight may actually be more compelling than Silverlight is in the area of cross-compilation. If not already, you will soon be able to develop iPhone apps in silverlight and cross-compile them for iPhone. As Apple does not allow any VM technology into their precious iPhone garden, this is quite interesting (by being compiled to native code Moonlight circumvent this restriction). Developers can develop games in Silverlight and can use almost the exact same code base for iPhone, Windows, OSX and Linux.

Also, do remember that Microsoft develops and supports Silverlight on Intel OSX too. At present Silverlight then covers some 97% of the market (Windows + Intel Macs).

Re:Moonlight?

[benwaggoner]

Silverlight 3 also features hardware 3D acceleration. I don't know how far Moonlight has come there. The other parts such as C# 4 and DLR Mono and Moonlight actually seems to be not to far behind.

Moonlight has actually had GPU compositing and scaling via Cairo for the last few previews, in advance of that support in Silverlight 3.

Re:Moonlight?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're developing a web app, why develop using tech which will only ever work properly on Windows?

Because everyone uses Windows you fucking retard.

Re:Moonlight?

[benwaggoner]

And I'm sure it'll remain consistently at least one version behind the Windows one, and still missing features, just as Microsoft would prefer. Moonlight has not even reached parity with Silverlight 2.0 as a final release, let alone 3.0.

Functionally, Moonlight is probably somewhere between Silverlight 2 and 3. It already includes quite a few Silverlight 3 features in its current preview.

And bear in mind that Silverlight 3 isn't out yet.

Silverlight already had Mac/Win parity, and most of the code sits on top of a platform abstraction layer. So it's already proven to have full functionality outside of Windows.

Re:Moonlight?

[Serious Callers Only]

Silverlight already had Mac/Win parity, and most of the code sits on top of a platform abstraction layer. So it's already proven to have full functionality outside of Windows.

The fundamental problem with this sort of technical argument for Silverlight is it ignores the long term strategy behind Silverlight.

The story of Microsoft and IE is a good example of why people distrust your company so much. A technically interesting browser, which foreshadowed a lot of the developments on the web now, was deliberately left to stagnate for years after Microsoft imposed it as the dominant browser. It was only picked up again after fierce competition from other companies forced Microsoft to resume work on it, and frankly the work on IE7/8 has hardly been inspiring - it's still way behind the other browsers. HTML 5 support doesn't look like it's coming to IE8 - I wonder why not?

Perhaps you'd like to hazard a guess as to the purpose of leaving IE stagnant for several years? From where I'm standing it looks like an attempt to strangle the web, simply because it threatened the dominance of Microsoft on the desktop.

Now, in lieu of developing the web further, Microsoft has chosen to tie things ever closer to their Windows development strategy. Contrast that to the attitude of companies like Palm, Google and Apple to web technology - there is a huge difference.

I'm sure *in theory* Silverlight could have exactly the same functionality on Windows, Mac and Linux, but until I see it actually happen, it's really of no interest. I wouldn't even install it as an end user, because I just don't need it, and it won't work everywhere (my phone for example). With HTML 5 this sort of binary plugin becomes less and less relevant every day.

If I trusted Microsoft, the technical merits of Silverlight might be of some interest to me (it looks interesting technically). However trust is earned, and frankly, Microsoft is nowhere near earning that trust at the moment.

Re:Moonlight?

[squiggleslash]

It's not between 2 and 3, it's between 1 and 3. There are key version two and version three features that are missing.

Like DRM.

How important is DRM? Well, the one user of Silverlight everyone's heard of is Netflix, who use it as the engine behind their online streaming system. And guess which Silverlight feature they use to prevent people from copying their movies?

Apparently there's little chance that Microsoft will ever release a "DRM plug-in" for GNU/Linux users. Whoops.

Re:Moonlight?

[benwaggoner]

The story of Microsoft and IE is a good example of why people distrust your company so much. A technically interesting browser, which foreshadowed a lot of the developments on the web now, was deliberately left to stagnate for years after Microsoft imposed it as the dominant browser.

The IE6-IE7 gap wasn't due to some clever plan. IE7 was always meant to ship with Vista, and so with the Vista delays, IE6 remained on the market longer than anyone had imagined. But Microsoft certainly was at least as frustrated by how late Vista and IE7 were as anyone else.

Given that every IE6 user is also an XP user who hasn't upgraded to Vista or (soon) Windows 7, Microsoft has a big business incentive to make IE6 go away. And the very fact that IE7 and IE8 exist and are architected to balance compatibility with IE6-specific sites and standards based sites is exactly what needs to happen, so that businesses don't feel like they have to stay on IE6 forever to retain compatibility with crufty old LOB intranet pages.

HTML 5 support doesn't look like it's coming to IE8 - I wonder why not?

Er, because it shipped :)? HTML5's not coming to Safari 3, is it? I assume you're speaking of the tag; IE8 does have some other HTML5 features. Also, HTML5 is still in draft form, and no one has as full implementation of it. There's no tagged content that works in both Safari and Firefox. It's an interesting technology, but it's not final, no one has a robust implementation of what's in there yet, and the whole "what's the basline codec/format" question remains wide open.

If anything, Silverlight would be a great way to implement HTML5. Silverlgiht already has the compositing and media playback engines browsers lack, supports managed code codec plugins, and can have logic updated as managed code out of band without binary updates.

Silverlight would be a better platform to implement than will be a viable competitor to Silverlight anytime soon.

I'm sure *in theory* Silverlight could have exactly the same functionality on Windows, Mac and Linux, but until I see it actually happen, it's really of no interest.

Well, what have you seen so far? Any sites that work in Silverlight for Windows but not Mac? Any features in Silverlight which Moonlight isn't going to be able to implement? increasing divergence between Silverlight/Moonlight? It seems like things are going in the direction you're saying you want them to go.

With HTML 5 this sort of binary plugin becomes less and less relevant every day.

Why do you think HTML 5 won't be implemented with a binary plugin? Chrome uses ffmpeg. Safari uses QuickTime. Building a robust media pipeline is HARD; it'd take browser developers years to integrate that kind of functionality as a truly native part of the browser model, instead of a "oh, binary over there, you own this rectangle" approach.

Re:Moonlight?

[Anonymous Coward]

For a complete AJAX working of Canvas, please see InkSurvey: http://ticc.mines.edu/csm/survey.php/

Disclaimer: I'm involved in the project, although I admittedly don't do much.

Re:Moonlight?

[Serious Callers Only]

I was just going by the Moonlight website, which says it has not yet reached parity with 2.0 in all areas. From their website, at present their 2.0 version is in Alpha, not beta, or a final release:

Mooonlight 2.0 Alpha - Silverlight 2.0 compatible engine.

So, for example does it support PlayReady just now? From the Microsoft website it doesn't look like it:

Silverlight 2 will provide digital rights management support built on Microsoft PlayReadyâ content access technology, on Windows and Mac. For Silverlight-compatible playback on Linux we are discussing possible approaches with Novell, which is developing a Silverlight-compatible implementation for Linux.

There's a promise that it will someday support it, that's not the same as supporting it now.

Any features in Silverlight which Moonlight isn't going to be able to implement?

It really isn't a question of not going to be able to - really most things are technically possible, it's a question of whether I as a consumer and developer trust Microsoft to a) Allow other operating systems to work just as well as Windows, b) Not choke off support later at a time of their choosing to assert control over the platform's direction (see PlaysForSure, Java, IE Mac, etc).

The answer to both is no, based on their past actions.

Why do you think HTML 5 won't be implemented with a binary plugin?

For the user/developer doesn't matter if it is done as a binary plugin, so long as it is supported in all mainstream browsers (i.e. not a separate plugin download), and is not controlled by one vendor. I don't want either Microsoft or Adobe to be in charge of all the content I produce, and gatekeepers for tools to manipulate that content - that's why I prefer HTML.

But again, you're attempting to argue about whether things are technically similar - I don't think anyone would argue that Silverlight is somehow technically hobbled, or inferior technology, it's evidently not. Its credibility is however hobbled by the past actions of Microsoft and the attitudes of the current CEO of your company.

Re:I still use Windows XP.

[Peet42]

The only Windows I'll have in the house is Windows 2000. My day-to-day machine is a SuSE Linux box, and I have an OSX Leopard "Hackintosh" for things like when I need to stream video using "Silverlight". (I don't like it, but some TV catch-up services don't give a choice and reject "Moonlight" clients.)

Silverlight is becoming ... Java

[LizardKing]

Applications that can be run in the browser or installed on the desktop? Java's had both for many years (applets and webstart).

Ability to update desktop apps? Webstart again.

Access to a rich, general purpose library? Yup, Java provides that - and it's very similar to .NET for some reason.

So suddenly the old thing is the new thing.

Re:Silverlight is becoming ... Java

[bertok]

True, but in my experience the difference between Java and the .NET stuff is performance.

Sure, some synthetic benchmarks might show that Java beats .NET by some margin, but in practice, that's not what matters.

What users notice is that Silverlight loads almost instantly (as fast as Flash), and that desktop .NET apps run just as fast as native, and look as good, or better than native apps.

I can always tell when a Java app starts because the JVM startup brings my machine to its knees, and the end result is inevitably some "non platform specific" GUI that looks like a Solaris desktop app from the late 1990s.

Re:Silverlight is becoming ... Java

[Anonymous Coward]

True, but in my experience the difference between Java and the .NET stuff is performance.

Sure, some synthetic benchmarks might show that Java beats .NET by some margin, but in practice, that's not what matters.

In practice, Java is demonstrably faster than .NET but what matters is that you say it is slow.

What users notice is that Silverlight loads almost instantly (as fast as Flash), and that desktop .NET apps run just as fast as native, and look as good, or better than native apps.

I can always tell when a Java app starts because the JVM startup brings my machine to its knees, and the end result is inevitably some "non platform specific" GUI that looks like a Solaris desktop app from the late 1990s.

Swing's look and feel is completely configurable, and you can make your app look like whatever you want. You can have a near-native look, or you can choose a fully customized one, as it's done on Windows by other Solaris-looking applications like Microsoft Office, Internet Explorer, Adobe Reader, Photoshop, Google Chrome, Windows Media Player, Corel Paint Shop Pro, Google Earth, Microsoft Expression, Visual Studio, none of which use the native Windows toolkit.

Re:Silverlight is becoming ... Java

[Anonymous Coward]

It's been quite a long time since I've done anything with Java, and I never did much GUI stuff. However, I do remember that it was quite easy to choose between a number of GUI styles in Swing. If you're stuck with a Solaris look then it's not because Java/Swing doesn't support it. It's not inevitable, it's because someone didn't take the trouble to use the available options.

Re:Silverlight is becoming ... Java

[Anonymous Coward]

Java is a bit long in the tooth and the bloat is incredible but .NET is a Java clone; ultimately it suffers from many of the same problems. The real winner in the RIA arena is already the web browser; say hello to HTML5.

I'm having a hard time figuring out where stuff like Java, .NET and flash will fit into the overall scheme. These VM's can provide some degree of portability for simple apps on constrained/mobile platforms in instances where a browser based app would fall short. Not having to recompile or maintain for different platform / arch is an easy win for developers -- but that's the strength of browser based apps too.

Portable, cross platform code is where it's at and the VM's are a compromise with better solutions on either side.

Re:Silverlight is becoming ... Java

[javacowboy]

How up to date is your Java plugin? Sun made dramatic performance improvements with Java 6 update 10.

Re:Silverlight is becoming ... Java

[Shados]

No, this is not the same thing. Webstart is like .NET's ClickOnce (which, admitedly, came in later).

What Silverlight 3 does is let you make a browser RIA that the user can "detach", and move and use locally, with or without an internet connection. So basically imagine if you had an applet that could become a WebStart app, with virtually zero effort on the developer side, and completly streamlined on the user site.

Re:Silverlight is becoming ... Java

[spitzak]

Translation, having seen this "amazing" technology:

IE8 can turn off all the decoration around the applet in the window, thus making it look like the applet is a native application.

I do have to say that is a good idea, but I have problems with Microsoft advertising it as though it is some incredible complicated development rather than just a simple good idea.

Re:Silverlight is becoming ... Java

[Shados]

Its a little more than that, since the app can work offline, and detect in which context its working (so you can make the app work differently when its in a browser and when its stand alone: the described scenario example is to have you save data locally in a sandbox when offline, and synchronize with the server when online...there's tools provided to do it).

You're right though: its not exactly complex. Its just a good idea. And in 2009, good ideas are harder to come by than technology :) Thats true for most fields, too.

Re:Silverlight is becoming ... Java

[Anonymous Coward]

JAVA? yea right... I am forced to use some java apps at work and they SUCK. I am always 4 versions of JAVA bechind because everytime SUN releases an update it breaks something.

What a joke.

This is what adobe should do

[bogaboga]

For Silverlight, the only direction it had to go was "up". I mean, it had an almost zero percent installed base. Now if I were Adobe, I would seriously consider open sourcing Flash and all technologies around it. Otherwise Adobe will only continue to lose market share to Silverlight.

Re:This is what adobe should do

[Lorien_the_first_one]

That's probably going to be a good thing. But I think it's going to have to start from the browser side. I like what Google is doing with Chrome in that respect. They have the capability to distribute and support a browser that will encourage or maybe even require open standards on the web.

So while we do have a few companies seeking their own private monopolies, choosing a browser that requires open standards to render will register as feedback to the various websites we visit. Remember that each browser "identifies" itself. I guess it's a chicken or the egg thing, but the more people can choose replacements for the "big-blue-E", the better. At least Google and Mozilla are creating choices that are easy to acquire and install.

I believe that it starts on the browser side.

Re:This is what adobe should do

[christurkel]

Exactly. I see a repeat of the browser wars here. If Adobe doesn't do something radical, and soon, flash is going to relegated to the dustbin of history.

Re:This is what adobe should do

[kpdvx]

Fwiw, Adobe already /has/ open-sourced Flex, the Flash framework that really makes Flash useful for developing RIAs (they haven't open-sourced their compiler, I don't believe, but all of the Flex ActionScript is available). I'm a Flash/Flex developer, and at least a few times a week I grep through their source code to figure out how to do something, or how to change something about a built-in component, etc. Adobe has also released a specification for their swf file format, available at http://www.adobe.com/devnet/swf/.

Re:This is what adobe should do

[Anonymous Coward]

You're an idiot if you think open sourcing it will change anything. Freetard.

Re:This is what adobe should do

[pebs]

While it's nice that Flex is open source (I also have been working with recently on a recent project), but we need an open source implementation of the Flash Player. The SWF file format being open is a start, but the libraries that implement the Flash API are not part of this. I speculate that this is why Gnash has not been able to keep up, they have to reverse engineer and reimplement the libraries for the Flash API.

Do not want

[Anonymous Coward]

just 3 words: I do not want!

Re:Do not want

[BSDetector]

Learn to count -- "I do not want" = 4 words!

JavaFX?

[javacowboy]

Why does any RIA discussion fail to mention JavaFX?

JavaFX ties in seamlessly with server-side Java code. It has a desktop component, a mobile component, and a TV component. This means it uses common APIs among the three, which no other RIA framework has. What's more, depending on what Oracle decides to do, it may become the only open source RIA framework.

Granted, JavaFX is late to the party, but JavaFX 1.2 has shown solid improvements, with more to come. There was a demo of a really cool media builder tool at JavaOne.

So why are only Flash and Silverlight get mentioned in any RIA discussion?

Re:Will Miguel de Iguaza support Silverlight, too.

[Anonymous Coward]

Say what you want but it's nice to see an open source developer playing well with proprietary technologies.
I don't agree with his excessive support to Microsoft, but when it comes down to it, this dispels the myth that open source developers write software because of their hate rather than love. Not everyone hates Microsoft (ok, maybe except for some frontend web developers that live in a world of hurt) but some people just like writing code and the more people can use their code the better.

So, instead of making money, give it all away

[Anonymous Coward]

That makes a lot of sense . . . to commie bastards like you. We in the real world can only mock, laugh, and piss on commie bastards like you. Suck my balls!

Re:So, instead of making money, give it all away

[FlyingBishop]

I hate to feed a troll, but obviously no one is suggesting Adobe should open source their dev tools.

Just the flash interpreter. They give it away for free anyway (those commie bastards), why not let other people deal with fixing it? Then they can proceed to rake in tons of profits from people who want to build apps that they now can rest assured will run on the coming generations of Flash-enabled smartphones.

Silverlight = Silverfish

[that this is not und]

Silverlight is a terrible marking choice for a name. I automatically think 'silverfish' when I see the word in print, and find myself substituting that word when I say 'silverlight' or sound it out in my head.

Silverfish, as far as I know, are a small bug that scuttles down further into your mattress when you pull up the covers.

Work on it a little in your head:

Silverlight ,,, Silverfish

Silverlight ... Silverfish

I think you, too will start to associate silverfish... er ..light, with a scourge.

I am rather uninformed but...

[erroneus]

I am rather uninformed, but since when has that ever stopped me from making commentary?

I have heard/read casually that a lot of HTML 5 will do what Flash does. That rather puts Flash and anything Flash-like (including Silverlight) out of business soon doesn't it?

Re:I am rather uninformed but...

[vux984]

I have heard/read casually that a lot of HTML 5 will do what Flash does. That rather puts Flash and anything Flash-like (including Silverlight) out of business soon doesn't it?

Internet Explorer 6 on Windows 2000/XP is still a significant percentage of the internet browser use. It supports flash.

In fact nothing out there today except beta's and previews really support html5. But nearly all of it supports flash. Its going to be a LONG LONG time before the current crop of browsers have been sufficiently phased out in favor of versions with support for html5 to let html5 come into its own.

Re:I am rather uninformed but...

[Shados]

Flash and Silverlight 1, yes, you're right. Flex and Silverlight, not so much: they're just not browser APIs, but actual app frameworks, so they go a lot further than just providing end user features: they help the programmer, too (like Silverlight can consume an ADO.NET data service with LINQ, which is a lot better than using the built stuff, even in HTML 5. Flex has BlazeDS, and so on. Just an example)

Re:I am rather uninformed but...

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know about "out of business," but I look at the issue from the non-technical point of view, in that content should display properly on any device that tries to access it. Although we're probably a while away from reaching this "Utopian" vision, I do know that since recently beginning to browse on a mobile device, I have quickly learned who makes compatible content and who doesn't.

Why would I choose to continue to have a disjointed experience with those who don't make mobile-compatible content, and instead to have to wait until I have access to a PC to view certain content? Being able to properly load a screen full of content is what I care about. Whoever plays most nicely with open standards and mobile OS vendors will win the mind- and market share in the end.

Re:I am rather uninformed but...

[Alistair Hutton]

I look forward to the day when the HTML standard is flawlessly implemented by all browser vendors. On that day I will stop developing in Flex.

securly install Silverlight on the desktop

[viralMeme]

'No longer do developers need to build desktop WPF apps based loosely on corresponding Silverlight RIAs, as Silverlight 3 adds the ability to install Silverlight apps on the desktop, update them in place, detect Net connectivity state changes, and store data locally and securely'

I don't have admin rights on this computer and how does installing some remote app make this computer more not less secure?

I have a question about that...

[Lorien_the_first_one]

...I'm not a programmer, hence the question. Can HTML five do the things you talk about above? Just wondering.

Thanks.

Re:I have a question about that...

[Anonymous Coward]

Somewhat. Additions like Google's Gears (included in Chrome, plugin for other browsers) or AIR allow offline running of normal HTML/JavaScript-based web applications.

On the other hand, I do not think there is anything for JavaScript that you could call "a rich, general purpose library" with a straight face.

Advertisement

[blackjackshellac]

This reads and smells, no make that stinks, like a microsoft advert. Since the user "snydeg" links to InfoWorld I think that conclusion is at least worth considering.

Re:I still use Windows XP.

[genghisjahn]

The only windows box in my house is Win 3.1. My day to day machine is a Beowulf cluster of Swedish bikini models. So there.

Re:securly install Silverlight on the desktop

[FlyingBishop]

You misunderstand. Silverlight doesn't allow you to store your data more securely. It allows the developers to store their data more securely on your computer. That is, so you can't access it without their permission.

UltraLearn

[SteveFoerster]

UltraLearn Studio uses Silverlight.

Re:UltraLearn

[Anonymous Coward]

And they are? Seriously, never hear of 'em.

Re:securly install Silverlight on the desktop

[benjymouse]

I think he was referring to "isolated storage". Basically you can allow "applicatoions" to store data locally on your machine. By default only a limited quota is granted (the application can ask for more and the user has to approve it).

The stored data is obfuscated to avoid malicious apps downloading files/scripts and then use social engineering techniques to fool the user into launching them. This allows an app access to data even when offline.

Silverlight itself executes inside a pretty restricted sandbox. Silverlight has an impeccable security record Secunia reports zero vulnerabilities in both SL1 and SL2. That is not to say that there are no vulns in SL. But at least compared to Flash it's quite good.

Even so, installing yet another plugin/app will *never* make your computer *more* secure, except when you're installing some lock-down app or firewall. Obviously any app only increases the attack surface.

Silverlight obscurity

[MITpianoman]

They're already on version 3? I had no idea there was a v2

Hello monopoly abuse

[Eternal Annoyance]

Apparently Microsoft isn't learning from it's experience with the EU and US antitrust and competition regulatory organs.

Adding silverlight support to visual studio, instead of making a separate IDE for that or a plug-in which is sold independent of visual studio, smells like abuse of monopoly position to me.

In order to make silverlight applications, you now need visual studio. In order to run visual studio, you need windows. You can bet on it that some future version of silverlight will become buggy on linux and will be rock solid on windows... or it simply won't be available on linux, once enough market penetration has been reached.

Lets hope Adobe and Sun start complaining about this anti-competitive behavior of Microsoft.

Re:Hello monopoly abuse

[Gadget_Guy]

Surely you jest? The Silverlight tools are an installable plug-in to either Visual Studio 2008 or Visual Web Developer Express, which is Microsoft's free IDE.

Or you can get the Silverlight(TM) 2 SDK without the extra tools to use it without any IDE at all.

Microsoft have also provide support to open source projects like Eclipse4SL to add support to the Eclipse IDE to "enable Java developers to use the Eclipse platform to create applications that run on the Microsoft Silverlight runtime platform".

I have never installed Silverlight (my web is rich enough without that or Flash), but all of the above was found with the first few matches of a Google search. But hey, feel free to jump to the anti-competitive conclusions.

Re:Will Miguel de Iguaza support Silverlight, too.

[Anonymous Coward]

this dispels the myth that open source developers write software because of their hate rather than love

I don’t think there was such a myth to be dispelled... whoever thought such a senseless thing couldn’t but be so ill-disposed toward “open source” that he’ll probably continue thinking bad about it, no matter what the developers actually do.

In this particular case, I think that the open source community running after MS will lead to the following results:

• It will legitimate Silverlight adoption in the eyes of developers, because of course Microsoft will advertise it as being cross-platform, when it actually isn’t. This will mean even more trouble for Linux (well, non-Windows) users.
• It will not put Linux users on par with Windows users, because - as it had been abundantly foretold, and as it has been happening for two years now - the community-provided Silverlight version will always lag behind the Microsoft one. Even if the community puts heroic effort into developing Moonlight, since Silverlights development happens behind closed doors, it will never be possible to have Moonlight ready the same day as Microsoft delivers a new release of Silverlight.
• In the end it will put the overall Linux desktop experience in bad light, because after seeing one or two “please update your Silverlight” banners instead of their favourite web sites, end-users will start complaining that, when surfing under Linux, they encounter problems they do not see under Windows (see the never ending complaint, “wine sucks because it doesn’t run Photoshop CS{n+1}”).

Long live the Moonlight team and their efforts, but it would be much better if their work was not necessary in the first place.

Go MIcrosoft!

[oDDmON oUT]

I expect Silverlight© to enjoy the same sterling security reputation as the rest of the Microsoft® stable of software, increasing the joy and ease of use customers have come to expect over the years.

Silverlight is Evil!

[A12m0v]

Microsoft push of Silverlight as a media framework undermines current and new standards (HTML5). Silverlight is meant as yet another way to lock people into Windows and patent-encumbered proprietary products.
The web belongs to no one! Not Adobe and not Microsoft.
Use open standards!

The Old Librarian fallacy

[Anonymous Coward]

Some people see the web as being like an early library, with beelions and beelions of books to be searched. However, they don't like these newfangled 'movies' or 'records' because they are in binary formats and aren't composed of text, which is all that the purists think belong in the library.

Yet, in modern libraries, movies and music are integral, despite not being text. On the web, RIAs provide experiences that aren't available in other formats, yet the Old Librarians of the Web don't like them and want to eliminate them, because they're not text, or because the Librarians say that one day, someone will make a 'book' that kinda sorta does what RIAs do now, but the new format will be approved by the Old Librarians. I suppose there was once resistance in the Iibrary community about buying proprietary movie projectors and phonographs to access this content with, which sure seems silly today. If it were up to the Old Librarians, libraries today would only have books, and the web would only be text, and everybody would be using Lynx. Good thing the Old Librarians are limited to Slashdot ranting!

I'm still going with Flash

[StarbuckZero]

As of right now IE is lagging behind when it comes to most of the web technology. So even when support for HTML5 comes into play I'm sure MS is going to lag behind like they always do. For the company I'm working for now I have to build a HTML and Flash version of the company website. Let me tell you I can't wait to do the Flash version because most of the hacks I'm doing for the CSS/XHTML version is for IE, that's even with a AJAX toolkit. In Flash it will work across the board and I don't have to worry about writing hacks for different browsers and platforms. I don't want Flash, Silverlight or even JavaFX to become the norm. I just want Microsoft to support W3C standards just like the other browsers. Everyone at my work place think I'm not trying to support IE when it comes to the project. They just don't realize how much in the pain in the ass it is to even support IE.

Elves, gremlins, Eskimos, and baseball

[tepples]

I would sooner accept the existence of elves, gremlins, and Eskimos, than Silverlight apps in the wild.

Mr. Simpson: Elves[1], gremlins, and Eskimos exist. And until recently, Major League Baseball used Silverlight. Believe it.

[1] One axis, two axes. One Elvis, two...

Re:securly install Silverlight on the desktop

[robmv]

And Java has done that for years, FileOpenService, FileSaveService and PersistenceService, JNLP (Web Start) one of the most useful API on Java that nearly everyones ignores

Re:I still use Windows XP.

[Anonymous Coward]

The only OS I'll have in the house is MS-DOS. My day-to-day machine is a vorteron abacus with display routed to a Qulbathog grid running on dual NCC-1305-E cores, and I have a Tirellian cat for things like when I need to intercept subspace anomalies. (I don't like it, but some species don't give a choice and reject "Tirellian-only" clients.)

The Cost of Graphical Internet Solutions

[LifesABeach]

What does Siverlight, Moonlight, and Twilight give me? I have SVG on my Internet Browsers that I test with; they are Firefox, Opera, Chrome, Safari, and IE. SVG can work with Javascript, and through Javascript access PERL, PHP, Ruby, Python, and any other language that can handle HTTP Posting. XSLT with my XML can generate SVG, and HTML web pages. mySQL can SELECT/DELETE/UPDATE just a good as the other brands. Even Microsoft agrees that Apache is better than IIS. I think if Microsoft wanted to lead the industry, maybe Animation of SVG would be the direction to go. There are other paths of Innovation that Microsoft could follow, like Server Side File Processing, and Graphic Format Handling. These two areas are fertile fields of opportunity. I think my major concern is even thinking of putting ".NET" anything on any of my machines, or clients machines. This global recession has definitely accomplished one thing, and that is the initial evaluation of cost outlay of .NET to openSource, and the need to have a business partner that will sue you to get their way. As for Moonlight, and Twilight; my need socialize to with all things junior high ended in the late 1960's.

Re:The Cost of Graphical Internet Solutions

[Shados]

mySQL can SELECT/DELETE/UPDATE just a good as the other brands

You had a point until there.

Silverlight's published standards + Moonlight

[benwaggoner]

Silverlight is essentially .NET bytecode + XAML markup + media .NET ECMA spec: http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/standards/Ecma-335.htm

Silverlight XAML spec (under Open Specification Promise):
http://blogs.windowsclient.net/rob_relyea/archive/2008/10/14/ms-slxv-silverlight-xaml-vocabulary-2008-specification-v0-9-published.aspx

Media is MPEG-4 or MP3 (ISO), Windows Media (VC-1 is a SMPTE spec), and the Raw AV pipeline for extensitbilty to aribtrary codecs.

As for interoperabilty and portability, how about a GPL'ed clean room implementation?
http://www.mono-project.com/Moonlight

Re:securly install Silverlight on the desktop

[Shados]

JNLP is closer to .NET ClickOnce (actually its the same thing, just for .NET. And yeah, ClickOnce came in later). The other .NET technologies that need to run in a similar sandbox just tap into the same APIs. So XBAP apps and Silverlight, for example.

How slow is Java, really?

[peppepz]

In order to really get an idea of how fast (or slow) Java is, I tried the following on my outdated machine, a 1600 MHz AMD Turion. First, I tried to measure the dreaded JVM cold startup time by running Apache Rhino:

peppe@tikal:~$ time java -jar /usr/share/java/js-1.7R2.jar -help
[...]
real 0m1.444s
user 0m0.232s
sys 0m0.084s

Then I’ve done it a second time to see what the delay becomes on a hot start:

peppe@tikal:~$ time java -jar /usr/share/java/js-1.7R2.jar -help
[...]
real 0m0.358s
user 0m0.252s
sys 0m0.036s

...that’s a little more than a third of a second. So there is a one-time delay to pay if you write your app in java, but it’s not so user-noticeable as many believe.

So far for the startup time. Then I tested the run time.
Probably the JVM cannot compete with native code as a byte-pusher. But how well does it fare when it comes to support high-level languages? I wrote two small nonsense programs, that aim to exercise some random high-level functions I expect to be common in today’s software. The two programs try to do exactly the same thing, the first in C, and the latter Java.
Link to the C source
Link to the Java source
(sorry, slashdot didn’t let me put the snippets inline without making them unreadable)

I compiled and timed the C implementation:

peppe@tikal:~$ gcc -v
Using built-in specs.
Target: x86_64-linux-gnu
[...]
gcc version 4.4.0 (Ubuntu 4.4.0-6ubuntu2)
peppe@tikal:~$ gcc -O3 -march=athlon64 cperf.c -Wall -o cperf.exe
cperf.c: In function `main':
cperf.c:18: warning: ignoring return value of `asprintf', declared with attribute warn_unused_result
peppe@tikal:~$ time ./cperf.exe

real 0m43.429s
user 0m43.351s
sys 0m0.028s

...then I did the same with the Java version:

peppe@tikal:~$ javac -version
javac 1.6.0_14
peppe@tikal:~$ javac JavaPerf.java
peppe@tikal:~$ time java JavaPerf

real 0m28.300s
user 0m27.770s
sys 0m0.464s

Not only Java performance was comparable to native, but Java was even faster in this case. And that included the JVM startup penalty.

Finally, about the JVM size versus the .NET framework size, the latest win32 version of the JRE weighs 15.50 MB (link), while the latest win32 version of the .NET framework weighs 231 MB (link).

Re:How slow is Java, really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Great, but nobody runs Java from the commandline, and it still freezes up Firefox when it loads.

Re:How slow is Java, really?

[Bungie]

I think part of the problem is that when the JRE starts from browser (on my Windows box) it seems to allocate a lot of memory all at once. I think this is so it's internal memory management system will have contiguous pages to work with and not have to suddenly request more (from Windows) when working. There's a performance hit while Windows allocates that memory especially in the page file.

Re:securly install Silverlight on the desktop

[robmv]

The same is happening on the Java world, since Java 6 update 10 the applets (java plugin) uses JNLP, and JavaFX too

You need to meet new people.

[westlake]

eh? go to any tech conference and the only people not using Mac laptops are the ones running linux. Maybe 1 or 2 Windows machines per hundred.

The tech conference is - let us say - somewhat - unrepresentative of the larger world!

It's a trap

[weston]

We're going to trust the future of rich media/apps on the web to a company that studiedly ignored any progress on their basic web browser for over five years?

Seriously, the IE 6 fiasco seals it. It was a concrete and persistent demonstration that the company simply does not care about the quality of their products beyond their position in the market, a giant middle finger rising from Redmond to web developers everywhere for the better part of this decade. They sat on a nearly unmatched trove of resources and let said developers waste millions of man hours making things work on a broken if dominant platform for an eternity in the software industry -- essentially stealing time from those developers -- and I don't know if the most rabid reactionary Microsoft hater's hatred has actually reached the depth of contempt that the company deserves for that.

Part of me recognizes they've been making some awesome stuff, the .NET platform really is cool, Seadragon and Silverlight and Photosynth, all good stuff (especially together). I don't care. The fact is, they've spent a long time being the abusive jerk of the computing world, and all the flowers and chocolates and "honey, I can change!" talk in the world shouldn't woo anybody into trusting a Microsoft solution.

Re:It's a trap

[Anonymous Coward]

IE 7 on Vista has one thing that I've not seen by default with other browsers, although it is not hard to do with a jail, VM, or even a loopback ssh to a non-prived account: It runs in a sandbox.

These days, browsers are for the most part operating systems, running untrusted/potentially hostile apps and code on a constant basis. All it takes is for either the browser or one of the many plugins to have a security issue, and the complete account that the browser is running on is compromised. However, IE7 and IE8 run in a lower prived environment out of the box, so it is far more difficult (though not impossible) to own a machine.

This is something that Safari, Firefox, Chrome, and Opera need to consider doing -- use the operating system's facilities for running stuff with restricted access (FreeBSD jail comes to mind, RedHat Linux can use SELinux profiles, and so on.)

Microsoft releases Silverlight 3, nobody cares

[David Gerard]

Microsoft today announced the release of version 3.0 of its world-beating Silverlight multimedia platform for the Web. As a replacement for Adobe's Flash, it is widely considered utterly superfluous and of no interest to anyone who could be found.

"We have a fabulous selection of content partners for Silverlight," announced Microsoft marketer Scott Guthrie on his blog today. "NBC for the Olympics, which delivered millions of new users to BitTorrent. The Democrat National Convention, which is fine because those Linux users are all Ron Paul weirdos anyway. Major League Baseball, uh, scratch that ... It comes with rich frameworks, rich controls, rich networking support, a rich base class library, rich media support, oh God kill me now. My options are underwater, my resume's a car crash, Google won't call me back. My life is an exercise in futility. I'm the walking dead, man. The walking dead."

Silverlight was created by Microsoft to leverage its desktop monopoly on Windows, to work off the tremendous sales and popularity of Vista. Flash is present on a pathetic 96% of all computers connected to the Internet, whereas Silverlight downloads are into the triple figures.

"But it's got DRM!" cried Guthrie. "Netflix loved it! And web developers love us too, after all we did for them with IE 6. Wait, come back! We'll put porn on it! Free porn!"

Similar Microsoft initiatives include its XPS replacement for Adobe PDF, its HD Photo replacement for JPEG photographs and its earlier Liquid Motion attempt to replace Flash. Also, that CD-ROM format Vista defaults to which no other computers can read.

In a Microsoft internal security sweep, Guthrie's own desktop was found to still be running Windows XP.

The straight line

[westlake]

And Linux users are techies, who almost by definition have high income.

There's so much fun to made of this. So little time.

Of course...

[Junta]

On the other hand, more and more cell-phone devices are gaining userbase to worry about.. The picture is more interesting there...

Most mobile browsers still lack flash support, though their general capability of rendering and interacting with websites is nearing parity with desktop browsers otherwise.

So if your website can only expend effort to develop to one of Flash, Silverlight, or standard Javascript/HTML5, which do you pick? Desktop users in theory would be able to download a free browser to support the standards, but mobile phone users are quite limited. It may be wise to accommodate the market without much recourse and hedge your bets on free desktop apps filling the gap.

Even putting aside HTML5 for a moment, many people continue to use flash for things that can be readily handled in HTML4/Javascript/CSS broadly. Multimedia content isn't well accomodated, however some use flash just for 'dynamic' looking interfaces/content, which can largely be implemented in more universally available javascript.

Re:I still use Windows XP.

[MR.Mic]

I'd like to know where you got bikini models that can do binary math.

xhtml+css+javascript == a PITA

[McBeer]

I see a lot of people here advocating javascript+xhtml+css over silverlight. I have to assume you've never actually used silverlight, because anybody who has would see that it is immensely easier. XAML makes way more sense then xhtml+css. C# is way easier to maintain then Javascript. The .net library has way more functionality then anything Javascript has to offer.

Simple example: A 3 column layout in xaml:

<Canvas x:Name="LayoutRoot">
<Rectangle Fill="#BBBBFFFF" Width="800" HorizontalAlignment="Center"/>
</Canvas%gt;


As simple as this is, html+css simply can't do it. At best you can kind of fake it

SILVERLIGHT IS NOT WINDOWS ONLY

[Anonymous Coward]

There is an OSS port of Silverlight (Moonlight), that Microsoft has done all that can be reasonably expected to support. If this project is inferior to the Windows version, that is a failing of the OSS development model and not of Silverlight or Microsoft.

Re:SILVERLIGHT IS NOT WINDOWS ONLY

[colinrichardday]

If it were a competition between Moonlight and Silverlight to implement a neutral, third-party standard, I would agree. But such isnot the case.

Missing a few details there

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that having relied on computers for a long time now, businesses are beginning to realize that relying on software that isn't interoperable isn't a very good thing for them in the long run.

Microsoft Ad

[Mybrid]

Is it just me or did this read like a promo right off of Microsoft's web site?

Is slashdot going to go the way of PC Magazine back in the late 1980s and just becoming a venue for corporate promotion?

This article was kinda depressing.

It is nice to have at least one corner of the Netverse not dominated by the corporate overlords.

Re:Microsoft Ad

[Zarf]

It is nice to have at least one corner of the Netverse not dominated by the corporate overlords.

Really? What part of the net was that?

35% Mac + Linux + Firefox + Safari...

[benwaggoner]

only about 35% of desktop users had Silverlight installed.

Which is more than the combined marketshare of Mac OS X, Linux, Firefox, Safari, Opera, and the iPhone.

You mean US military might

[ClosedSource]

"Did you forget that it's Windows only and there goes against everything the internet stands for."

Since the origins of the Internet are from a US military project, I assume it stands for world-wide military intervention. I didn't realize that Windows was so peace-loving.

Loyal Microsoft minions are loyal.

[Alex Belits]

I do expect many Microsoft shops to do more RIAs with Silverlight now that it's more capable and to create lightweight browser/desktop Silverlight 3 applications where they might have fashioned heavier-weight Windows Forms or WPF client applications," Heller says.

In other words, loyal Microsoft followers will use new Microsoft tool that produces Windows-only GUI software instead of older Microsoft tools that produces Windows-only GUI software.

Re:Will Miguel de Iguaza support Silverlight, too.

[ClosedSource]

So what is best for Linux, being a version behind on Silverlight or not having it available at all?

Dirty Tricks History repeating here

[Helldesk Hound]

Microsoft has a history of attempting to subvert standards based technology.

Also, for quite a number of years now Microsoft has not supplied a version of its browser for Unix or Linux - especially since being put under pressure to make its browser comply with the published HTML standards - despite having previously supported those popular platforms.

Also, Microsoft had previously attempted to embrace-extend-extinguish the multi-OS Java platform by modifying it with features that only worked on a Microsoft operating system.

The Flash browser plugin is available for most if not all major browsers on all major operating systems.

Silverlight is not available on Unix or Linux platforms. Not sure if it is available on MacOS.

In your view do you think that Microsoft will behave any differently with Silverlight?

Do you genuinely believe that MS will in the long term support that browser plugin for all major browsers on all major platforms?

While I would hope that would be the case, I do not trust MS to behave any differently from its entire history to date, of entirely attempting to kill any and all products or services offered by any organisation or corporation that it perceives to be a threat or competitor in a "market" that Microsoft is either already dominating or is seeking to dominate.

In the last browser war as soon as Microsoft had killed its opposition it stopped actively developing its browser.

Do not be deceived. Silverlight is Microsoft's attempt to kill Adobe/Shockwave Flash. Microsoft also attempted to kill the standards approved "PDF" Portable Document File format originally developed by Adobe and freely available on all major platforms and many minor ones too.

We are now experiencing a Browser Plugin war being relentlessly waged by Microsoft against Adobe. Does Microsoft really deserve your support to help it kill Adobe? If not then why do you have Silverlight or "Moonlight" installed on your computer?

Re:Dirty Tricks History repeating here

[Anonymous Coward]

> then why do you have Silverlight or "Moonlight" installed on your computer?

The same reasons everybody does:

To play netflix videos.

To watch olympics coverage.

Within a few years, to watch the majority of the web's video content.

Re:Dirty Tricks History repeating here

[im_thatoneguy]

Your rant is rediculous.

If I'm ABC and I want to reach as many viewers as humanely possible and Microsoft drops Firefox, Chrome, Safari and OSX support then suddenly I'm presented with two options: Flash (which you claim works 100% of everywhere) or Silverlight. Which do I pick? Flash of course. There is one less Silverlight customer.

Flash and Silverlight offer an experience which is impossible through OSS. So while open standards has been dicking around for the better part of a decade with HTML4. Flash and Silverlight have offered a superior experience for the customer. This isn't a case of Microsoft and Adobe creating a competing standard. This is a case of Microsoft and Adobe offering something which doesn't exist.

Now I'm sure in 10 years there'll be an open source clone. And we'll all be hearing about how "Silverlight 12 is totally incompatible and how it's ruining the world." But until there is an open alternative to Flash or Silverlight you're just bitching that Microsoft and Adobe are actually creating useful and innovative products.

And for the record Silverlight 1 and large parts of 2 work on linux. Also Silverlight is developed for OSX by Microsoft.

Re:Dirty Tricks History repeating here

[Helldesk Hound]

> And for the record Silverlight 1 and large parts
> of 2 work on linux.

Do you sincerely believe that Microsoft Silverlight will be available and reliably supported on the Unix and Linux platforms _by Microsoft_ in the long term?

Why would that support be any different from the (lack of) support currently offered by Microsoft for Internet Explorer and for Microsoft's alternative to PDF on Linux and Unix?

Re:I still use Windows XP.

[trick-knee]

he didn't say it was fast, or that it never crashed.

parent is not flamebait.

[dirtyhippie]

parent is not flamebait - its insightful.

This should read....

[Anonymous Coward]

No longer do Crackers need to build desktop WPF Trojans based loosely on corresponding Silverlight RIAs, as Silverlight 3 adds the ability to install Silverlight Trojans on the desktop, update them in place, detect Net connectivity state changes, and store data remotely and securely on a server in Russia. Moreover, solid Expression Blend 3 and Visual Studio 2010 betas provide Crackers with much improved tools to create Silverlight RIA Trojans.

Flash/Flex APIs vs Silverlight/.Net

[mwkohout]

As a Java developer who has over the last couple of years taken a tour of the different RIA frameworks, I find Silverlight fantastic.

Flash, if you're a designer is awesome. But personally, as a developer, I found the environment pretty basic compared to server side java. Flex Builder is kind of crappy(at least as of 6 months ago), lacking many features even free Eclipse-based tools provide (such as meaningful refactoring). And the programming api outside the gui toolkit is only skin deep. And, which really makes me sad, no eval() in the runtime.

Meanwhile, with .Net/Silverlight, you've got oodles of libs, a pretty decent IDE, tons of great books, and REALLY NEAT projects like the DLR(which is a way to get eval() in this environment, and a whole lot more). Plus, eventually, you'll be able to run full SL apps on your phone with windows mobile 6 + Symbian. For this working developer whose resources are constrained by time and money, this sounds like a real coup.

Love Microsoft or hate it, Moonlight/Silverlight is something devs should be excited about.

I also hope Adobe learns from it for future versions of Flex/Flash, continuing to drive innovation.