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Mono Abandons Open Source Silverlight
mikejuk writes "The Mono project is about the only group of people actively talking up .NET and developing it, but in an interview Miguel de Icaza has admitted that Moonlight, the Mono version of Silverlight, isn't worth the effort any more. He said, 'Silverlight has not gained much adoption on the web, so it did not become the must-have technology that I thought [it] would have to become. And Microsoft added artificial restrictions to Silverlight that made it useless for desktop programming. These days we no longer believe that Silverlight is a suitable platform for write-once-run-anywhere technology, there are just too many limitations for it to be useful.'"
Now, if only Netflix would abandon it so that I don't have to boot into windows to watch movies...if it can be done for android, why not PC?
Bits of code, random ramblings: jakimfett.com
It just took a LOT of wasted time for him to believe it.
1) Create new technology
2) Market the hell out of it
3) Everyone gets hyped up, next big thing etc
4) Microsoft drops technology
5) repeat step 1
This has been their standard order of business for decades. Watch for the same thing to happen to "Metro" Microsoft's latest big thing..
Silverlight really is a well thought out technology. It does a great job of abstracting the presentation layer from the code, and is pleasant to program. The tools for developing in Silverlight are nice, too. Too bad that it is showing signs of fading away - I think it had a lot of potential.
My comments are my own, and do not represent the views of my employer, my spouse, my children, or my cats.
Am I a bad person to experience a Schadenfreude rush everytime Miguel, Facebook, Zynga or Groupon fails?
@de_machina
Hasn't silverlight been abandoned?
First release in '07 and according to the wikipedia article the staggering market penetration of 0.3% (thats zero point three, I didn't drop a leading 9 or something...)
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
I'm no fan of .NET, but I'm pretty sure the Mono developers aren't the only ones using it.
He is saying there is no future for Silverlight (the .NET based web plugin), not all of .NET. And that they won't put resouces into developing Moonlight (the open source version of Silverlight).
I know of two sites that use Silverlight, netflix and xfinity. They both use it just for the Microsoft DRM, afaik.
I cannot think of a single company that has adopted Mono. And even .Net is being deprecated by Microsoft in favour of the Tablet Formfactor Metro apps.
Time for Miguel and his employers to abandon Mono altogether and drop this whole pseudo-open source thing. Enough and more time and talent has been wasted on creating useless things.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
It isn't terribly surprising that Mono is abandoning Silverlight, since Microsoft seems to be doing much the same in favor of HTML 5.
The .NET Framework and tools in totality are a different story, though.
By the way, for those who haven't looked at it recently, MonoDevelop has come a -long- way. It's feature-comparable to Visual Studio, nowadays.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
This is just another sign of the industry converging to HTML5 as the primary display API. Flash is going away, now Silverlight is, too. Hopefully the companies will increase their efforts to allow users / developers to migrate existing applications to the new API.
If you want to watch many companies Ultra Violet distributors movies you're stuck with Silverlight, at the prompting of one I tried to get Moonlight going but there wasn't a 64 Bit version.
Of course Sony takes and overall screw Linux position even banning Linux browsers from logging into their website with cryptic error messages.
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Silverlight, and even Flash, are dying out.
Don't get me wrong - that is a good thing - but I want to be able to watch Netflix, Youtube Videos, etc. in my browser and that isn't going to happen unless there is some way for my browser to handle DRM'ed video streams.
So, either HTML5 needs to add support for DRM'ed video, or users will only be able to use these services via 'apps' and obscure platforms will be at a huge disadvantage (e.g. Netflix isn't writing an app for the Playbook because the platform isn't popular enough).
Personally, I think that the hate that is felt towards DRM should be redirected towards proprietary DRM so we can break down platform lock-in and give the obscure platforms a chance with the average consumer.
"we no longer believe that Silverlight is a suitable platform for write-once-run-anywhere technology, there are just too many limitations for it to be useful."
If only someone could have warned you, oh wait someone did, _everyone_ in the world who has paid any attention to Microsoft's behavior over the last 20 years.
Miguel has supported:
the Microsoft "partnership" with Novell (disaster for Novell in the community)
OOXML/docx (deliberately obfuscated format mess)
C# (has a constant vague patent cloud over it that he dismisses)
Moonlight/Silverlight (a patent-encumbered flash clone, in an era when flash is going away, now shown to be a bad idea)
I used to wonder if Miguel was a Microsoft plant, now I wonder if he just has a learning disability.
Silverlight just like Flash was only ever going to be temporary anyway. They were both technologies trying to do the same thing of abstracting the GUI to something that crosses OS versions, platforms, etc. Once Flash started giving way to HTML5, the writing was on the wall for Silverlight. Soon, I imagine, we will have native apps for things the need deeper/privileged access to the platform (phone, tablet, desktop, whatever) and web-style HTML rendering for everything else.
My lead developer wanted to adopt Silverlight a couple years back for a key application we were developing. I am sure he had strong technical reasons, but getting tied to a highly proprietary Microsoft technology just smelled bad. .NET is one thing, Silverlight scared the hell out of me. I pulled out one of my rarely used veto cards and I'm glad I did.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
"The Mono project is about the only group of people actively talking up .NET" -- You made this up, right? tiobe.com shows C++ at 9.8% and C# at 6.8%.
Silverlight (and XNA, and Windows Phone 7, etc) basically refer to overlapping collections of .NET libraries (often referred to as profiles) which different environments support. The set of libraries that Xamarin provides for Android development is a superset of the libraries available in Silverlight 4. However the intent isn't for you to write Silverlight applications that happen to run on Android. The idea is to write all your common code using the .NET Base Class Libraries (BCL; which are included in the ECMA standard), and then write your interface using (wrappers) around the native libraries for Android (or iOS or WP7 or Silverlight or WPF or ASP), for each platform you release on.
Really, Mono is a group of people talking up .Net? I thought it was maybe a group of scones or a group of mudpies. After all, don't scones and mudpies talk, too? Oh, they don't? Then maybe Mono is a group of people. Thanks for clarifying that. I learn something everyday on ./
"Microsoft added artificial restrictions to Silverlight"
Uhm, what do we say now... let's try: We told you so!
How many endless debates in forums back in the day when Mono development started, all in vain.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
I get this funny little feeling that "Ultraviolet" will come to occupy the same in history footnote as as "DIVX"(the phone-home video player attempt by Circuit City, not the codec), "Flexplay", and "DVD-D"...
I can't think of any ways that the 'consortium' behind it could make it any more of a user nightmare; but they seem to be doing their best.
Do you say that about the StarOffice/OpenOffice/LibreOffice developers to make sure their products support Microsoft Office files.
How about those hard working people in the WINE project.
Heck those guys who make DOS BOX.
I for one would like much more positive community support from the Open Source community toward Mono. De-Windows .NET would open the door towards more cross platform applications.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Slitherlight slitthers away into the depths of hades. Perfect.
Sadly there will be some media streams (mostly in the US) who won't get the message and still try to force it down our throats.
The funniest part about that Talk page is that "JimTheFrog" is, according to his user page:
So basically, that entire talk page is about the lead of that DRM-centric disaster defending what is fundamentally a customer-hostile technology. I'd call him a shill but he's probably tasked with "maintaining the message" on places like Wikipedia to make UltraViolet seem less fundamentally shitty than it is. And his dickish attitude towards Linux seems unsurprising, given that he
That's why the Nook Tablet came with a locked bootloader, whereas the original Nook Color spawned a large ROM'mer community. Netflix required it in order to let them use their app. I think I'd rather deal with DRM for paid downloads than have my whole device locked down.
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
only "plugged-in" with Internet Explorer
It sort-of-works in Chrome and Firefox as well. It just crashes constantly when you're using it (based on my office's internal webapp).
LibreOffice is just file formats.
screw WINE and DOS BOX, virtual machines run windows for those who want it, with a far superior compatibiliity.
IT already has. Most people that buy a BLuRay disc that try to use the "UltraViolet Digital Copy" get pissed as it's already expired most of the time.
I get questions a LOT about it, I point the people at Handbrake and AnyDVDHD so they can make their own that will work on all devices and never expire.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
WINE has performance far superior to any VM without requiring a license, and DosBox, uhh, IS a virtual machine.
From Miguel: "These days we no longer believe that Silverlight is a suitable platform for write-once-run-anywhere technology, there are just too many limitations for it to be useful"
Who was he trying to kid (besides himself) ? .NET was never designed to be "write once, run anywhere" and never will be (since Mono will never implement all the libraries of the Microsoft implementation). If you want "write once, run anywhere" then just stick to Java, which is designed for this purpose - and yes, it means it can't use every feature of every platform, eg. Windows, but at least your software will run. everywhere (which gives you a better return-on-investment since you can sell to Windows *and* Linux *and* Mac, etc).
How many of the posters here have developed software solutions that actually sell, that help make money? Being for open standards is great but if you want to put food on the table and gas in the car then you need to get paid. In a business environment it makes sense to choose the dominant platform and the development tools that are optimized for it. These happen to be MS Windows and Visual Studio. For a rich GUI application you can choose WPF for desktops and Silverlight for mobile. There is still Adobe Flash out there but its size and the Apple effect on smartphones/tablets have all but made it irrelevant on mobile. De Icaza and the gang opened up the iOS and Android platforms to .NET devs, which decreased the MS dominance to some extent. If you are an exclusive Java/C/C++ fan then you can just ignore the 8% .NET developers but that number is not so far from the 9.8% C++ developers. And BTW, I have developed and published Web apps (HTML5/CSS/JavaScript) for mobile and then I decided to stop wasting my own time.
IIRC, The Netflix CEO is still on the board of Microsoft. Though I am surprised it works on Android - too big to ignore, perhaps? Or just until the Motorola patent attacks bore fruit...
I missed that so far - you deserve many informative mod-ups!
No wonder he compared Linux to Mozilla 1.0 (which I liked back in the day BTW)
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As a developer that started learning Silverlight and later abandoning it (mostly for technical reasons in that Silverlight forces you to use an ascyronous model leading to racing conditions and UI insanity).
In any case I got out early enough that I didn't get burned by MS Silverlight Gingerbread House. I do still feel a bit like Hansel and Gretel.
The worst part about the UltraViolet fiasco - it could actually work.
Finally a DRM technology that (is supposed to be) platform agnostic, works on (ahem -non-rooted) portables as easily as it does PC's (and theoretically digital renderers). It's convenient (as long as the instructions are clarified), can be downloaded (to arbitrarily few devices) or streamed.
Take out the stuff in parenthesis and it's a tech that could actually work for both the content providers and customers.
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Quote: you are explicitly allowed to create compatible versions of the JVM
That's what Google got sued for. And although the court decided that Google's implementation didn't infringe a number of patents, many more patents were originally claimed in the suit, and could be re-awakened. What's more, the jury found Google guilty of copyright infringement for re-implementing the java APIs. We await the judge's decision on whether the API is legally protected by copyright. So compatible implementations are definitely not allowed, and actively litigated against using both copyright and patent claims.
In a month from now: 'Mono Abandons Mono'
Mono is a compatibility layer. Nothing more. Like Wine. .net windows-only applications.
NO projects should use it as a base.
It should be used only to run
And Microsoft added artificial restrictions to Silverlight that made it useless for desktop programming.
Everyone tried to tell you this, that Microsoft would stab you in the back, Miguel, but you wouldn't listen.
--
BMO
It makes perfect sense to abandon Moonlight.
Because Microsoft is abandoning Silverlight.
Now if Moonlight improves, when Silverlight is abandoned, maybe Moonlight will be the best way to run your legacy Silverlight applications.
And if you don't want to pay Microsoft?
Is that why they were in court two weeks ago? Nothing says certainty like vendors and customers suing each other at the district court level. You've heard of the Appellate process, right?
Microsoft has consistently supported the Mono community as it has expanded to match new .Net framework and C# features. And as for Mono integration, most projects compile with minimal modification. The move towards MVVM via XAML (WPF & Silverlight) in the .Net world (a decided competitive advantage, btw) means that Mono needs to either clone WPF (what they should have done in the first place) or come up with the a new UI kit that supports the sort of binding envisioned by MVVM, perhaps via a combination of HTML5 and knockout.js (Both embraced by MS, btw).
"Java or C# (but I still prefer Java, it will be around long after Microsoft have abandoned .NET)." .Net. There is no way you can 'abandon' .Net and still have a C#, since so many capabilities in C# are only possible via to the framework's IL memory and type management infrastructure. (Which Mono has copied flawlessly).
You obviously have a fundamental misunderstanding of C#'s relationship to
And the claim that Java will survive C# seems pretty evidence free. Java's popularity has been dropping in several language surveys, (as dubious as those metrics are) and the "compelling" case for keeping Java consists of proprietary Unix and mainframe platforms whose future is decidedly uncertain. Compare that with Linux and Windows on commodity priced, massively multi-core hardware. 2 years ago, the only 64 core machine you could buy was an Ultrasparc T2. Today, you can buy a 64 core 4 way Opteron for a fraction of the cost. Anecdotally, I see a lot of RFP's for replacing "legacy" Java applications with .Net that seem way too young to be characterized as 'Legacy'. 'Legacy' must be the new term for "After careful consideration I've come to the conclusion that your system sucks."
I absolutely hate flash so much, I wrote a song about it:
Ding Dong! Flash is dead. Which old Flash? The Wicked Flash!
Ding Dong! The Wicked Flash is dead.
I told you so years ago, you fucking sellout. Eat crow, pendejo.
Its website advertises support for C# 3.
.Net has plenty of potential to become a good cross-platform system. It's too bad Microsoft shows no interest in having it achieve that goal.
The difference with the other projects you mention is that they have already accepted that MS has no interest in them succeeding, and they have found ways to operate successfully under those conditions. I'm not sure that's possible with .Net. An ecosystem needs developers, and how many cross-platforn developers want to use a system controlled by a company that does not value cross-platform support. For the most part, developers targeting .Net won't bother making sure their code works on Mono, and developers wanting real cross-platform support will look elsewhere. This leaves Mono in a very tough position.
Note that none of this implies I agree with hduff. I'm ignoring his comment an carrying on a meaningful conversation instead.
Games can be written 99% in OpenGL ES, and just the user controls will vary from platform to platform.
The part that needs to be rewritten are GUI panels, widgets, layout, etc. Since all these platforms have significantly different interaction models (not just appearance) then any attempt to use the same interface will result in very poor user experience. Furthermore, if you really do have an application that is just GUI forms, then it must not be a very complex, and shouldn't take long to redo.
am not even a fraction educated and knowledgeable as Miguel de Icaza. But I will have more peaceful death. does this man need to check his brains with some new ultrashining mind analysis machine or use common sense.
A few weeks ago I started to manage the new VOD platform. It's local, working only in my country, so its name is not relevant here. Project was started by a movie distribution company, seeking diversification and alternative to their DVD sales business, without the technical competence. They hired programming company, deeply Microsoft-related (partnership and so on). As you can expect, the platform was based on .NET/Windows Server, using IIS Smooth Streaming with PlayReady DRM, and Silverlight player. Then the problems with interoperability have started, as CEO quickly discovered, this solution has not worked on his iPad or iPhone, nor the Mac OS X playback was free from errors (most people in the company are appleheads, after all its movie business).
I come to the company as the manager with technological expertise (working a few years as the hosting guy/web developer, mostly in open source technologies), to oversee the work done by these external programmers. Our business strategy was to rely on presence on many different platforms, but now we're locked in. Luckily we were able to come on Samsung SmartTV platform, but only due to PlayReady implementation on these devices. We find a developers to prepare for us iOS app (Apple devices are PlayReady certified) and Sony PS3 app (also PlayReady certified). The advisors declared that there is no chance in moving our platform to Android and Linux, because THERE ARE NO DRM SYSTEMS AVAILABLE for these platforms.
The problem is that we have partners building their own settop boxes with Android on board, who want to use our VOD service as the source of premium video content for their users. The Android app would be great, but we cannot stream movies from our catalogue without DRM protection. I know that DRM sux, and is easy to circumvent, but you know, its a requirement put there by major movie producers - we cannot ignore that.
With these restrictions, we're looking for technological solution to bring our VOD content to the Android, and if it could be possible, to desktop Linux (at least Ubuntu). I've found Google DRM system: http://www.widevine.com/drm.html. Does anyone here has expertise in working with it? Can we use IIS to stream content encoded with this Widewine DRM? Please give your advice, maybe the Flash-based solution would be better, at least AdobeAIR still works on Android?
> have one computer
> don't want to spend 10+updates minutes to boot windows to play portal
WINE is the only option.
xinit -- :1
wine whatever.exe
ctrl-alt-f9 to go back to the other programs, flip back to portal with ctrl-alt-f10
Correction: ".Net HAD plenty of potential to become a good cross-platform system." .Net has been around since 2000 and it's still nowhere near cross platform. Even within differing versions of Windows itself. The only good cross-platform solution is still Java.
When most people hear about Silverlight they think, oh it's that thing that Netflix uses, it's a video thing right? .NET libraries that you can use in a WPF application, although some work a bit differently.
At my job I develop Silverlight applications for internal use and let me tell you, you can do nearly anything in Silverlight that you can do in a desktop application. There is a wide range of libraries available for it and you can tap into most of the same
It's really a shame to see the current adoption rate of Silverlight because it is actually quite a nice platform which has at least as much potential as flash, far more than what is currently supported in HTML5, and it's fairly easy to program in as well.
> These days we no longer believe that Silverlight is a
.NET either.
> suitable platform for write-once-run-anywhere technology
It took you HOW long to figure this out? It wasn't extremely obvious to you, for example, when you saw the original Silverlight announcement from Microsoft?
Better late than never I guess. At this rate it'll be 2105 before they finally realize there's absolutely no point in emulating
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
How do you intend to De-Windows .NET when it is owned and controlled by Microsoft who have every reason (and prior form of doing so) to stop at nothing to ensure that any other version will never be quite compatible.
Many of the failures of recent Microsoft technologies are because the truth does finally sink in eventually.
It seems it already works. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/deceagebecbceejblnlcjooeohmmeldh/details