MS says silverlight will support linux

[sdowney717]

Cross-platform and cross-browser support. This includes support for Mac, Windows and Linux in Firefox, Safari and Windows Internet Explorer.

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2008/oct08/10-13Silverlight2PR.mspx

Does silverlight give you a good or bad feeling.

[Dixon Bainbridge]

Does it matter?

MS have to comply, otherwise another lawsuit.

If it works, then yay. Whatever.

[Maheriano]

Why would you visit microsoft.com using Linux anyway?

[sdowney717]

well, I was wondering if on linux it wont work as well as it will on windows, as an attempt to keep people on MS platforms.

[sdowney717]

Why would you visit microsoft.com using Linux anyway?

I hear Netflix will use silverlight.

[Giant Speck]

This is good news, although I don't recall any website that I needed Silverlight to view it.

Now wouldn't it be nice if we could get Shockwave?

[ajcham]

Does it matter?

MS have to comply, otherwise another lawsuit.

I very much doubt that - for the same reason you couldn't file a suit to force Adobe to create a native Photoshop port, for example.

In all honesty, if they do this properly (and don't purposefully cripple the Linux version*) then MS should be applauded for a genuine attempt at cross-platform interoperability.

Now, whether Silverlight is any good or will be of much interest to Linux users is another discussion entirely and one I don't feel qualified to participate in.

*Sorry, but I do have to retain a little skepticism/cynicism.

[Dixon Bainbridge]

I very much doubt that - for the same reason you couldn't file a suit to force Adobe to create a native Photoshop port, for example.


Adobe dont have a near monopoly. So your analogy is flawed. MS have already been done for anti-competitive behaviour, their power and influence in shutting out competition has already been documented and dealt with - they know they cannot do it again in the future so blatantly. They have to tow the line now.

[-grubby]

This is great news! Thank you Microsoft!

EDIT: I could swear that link originally stated something about a developer's version for Linux.. I knew about Moonlight though..

[frankleeee]

This is good news, although I don't recall any website that I needed Silverlight to view it.

Now wouldn't it be nice if we could get Shockwave?

You can get shockwave, I have it-no wine, it is either part of the restricted extras or gstreamer ffmpeg in add remove. I think it is the ffmpeg. It is always in my plug-ins when I install all of the gstreamer from add remove and vlc.

[geoken]

I'm interested to find out if the eclipse based IDE will have any design features?

Maybe they could fund a XAML Inkscape plugin.

[bp1509]

d

[geoken]

This is good news, although I don't recall any website that I needed Silverlight to view it.

Now wouldn't it be nice if we could get Shockwave?

Shockwave is considered by most to be dead.

[ajcham]

Adobe dont have a near monopoly. So your analogy is flawed. MS have already been done for anti-competitive behaviour, their power and influence in shutting out competition has already been documented and dealt with - they know they cannot do it again in the future so blatantly. They have to tow the line now.

So why is no-one suing Microsoft to have WMP, IE or Office ported to Linux? What about .NET, Flight Simulator and Age of Empires?

FWIW, a number of the judgments against MS seemed excessive to me - such as having to unbundle certain apps. Just my 2¢.

[tbroderick]

Cross-platform and cross-browser support. This includes support for Mac, Windows and Linux in Firefox, Safari and Windows Internet Explorer.

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2008/oct08/10-13Silverlight2PR.mspx

Does silverlight give you a good or bad feeling.

When they say silverlight will support Linux, they mean via moonlight and mono.

[geoken]

I see more hope for JavaFX taking off than I do Silverlight.

I haven;t really been following it, but last I heard the plugin didn't have feature parity with silverlight (let alone Flash) and the full suite of development tools wouldn't be ready until 2010. And this came before the big round of Sun layoffs which could possibly see them re-focus on their core business (servers and workstations) while deeming things like JavaFX less important.

[Polygon]

this is very old news?

the linux version of silverlight already exists, its called moonlight.

http://mono-project.com/Moonlight

[Grant A.]

So why is no-one suing Microsoft to have WMP, IE or Office ported to Linux? What about .NET, Flight Simulator and Age of Empires?

Because those aren't new universal technologies. New technologies for universal things have to be ported.

[jrusso2]

this is very old news?

the linux version of silverlight already exists, its called moonlight.

http://mono-project.com/Moonlight

Tried it does not even seem to work.

[CholericKoala]

Hopefully it will be well supported in other platforms. Silverlight is an excellent alternative to flash. It has great quality coupled with great compression and easy programmability (imo).

Let's not be too quick to bash a technology with great potential for the computer world. Just because it isn't open source and is owned by an evil empire, it doesn't mean that it won't ultimately benefit the open source and free community. Look on the bright side :)

[phrostbyte]

Shockwave is considered by most to be dead.

It is still around, although rarely. I needed it for something I did over the Summer. Fortunately it does run in Wine, so at least it's not a hopeless situation. :P

[Polygon]

Tried it does not even seem to work.

its most likely still very new. Did you see if its in the ubuntu repos at all?

[Changturkey]

Let's not be too quick to bash a technology with great potential for the computer world. Just because it isn't open source and is owned by an evil empire, it doesn't mean that it won't ultimately benefit the open source and free community. Look on the bright side :)

Are you being sarcastic?

[billgoldberg]

Cross-platform and cross-browser support. This includes support for Mac, Windows and Linux in Firefox, Safari and Windows Internet Explorer.

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2008/oct08/10-13Silverlight2PR.mspx

Does silverlight give you a good or bad feeling.

How can this give you a bad feeling?

If you don't like it, don't use it. If you like it, use it.

MS finally ports their stuff to linux, that's good and I think the linux version (moonlight) is open source (could be wrong).

[bruce89]

Yet another pointless wrapper around Web videos if you ask me (which you didn't directly).

I wait for HTML 5 and Dirac.

[Polygon]

Yet another pointless wrapper around Web videos if you ask me (which you didn't directly).

I wait for HTML 5 and Dirac.

silverlight is not just for videos.

[bruce89]

silverlight is not just for videos.

I don't care for banner adverts either.

[billgoldberg]

I don't care for banner adverts either.

It's not exactly like flash, lol.

[Dr. C]

The support for GNU / Linux is via moonlight and at this time there is only Sliverlight 1.x support and no Silverlight 2.0 support for GNU / Linux so the press release is not entirely accurate.

If you click on "Install Silverlight"on the Microsoft site it detects GNU / Linux and redirects to the Novell site where on can install moonlight as a Firefox plugin.

[bruce89]

The support for GNU / Linux is via moonlight and at this time there is only Sliverlight 1.x support and no Silverlight 2.0 support for GNU / Linux so the press release is not entirely accurate.

Therein lies the main problem with Moonlight and Mono. Once Moonlight supports Silverlight 2.0, MS will have released 3.0.

[CholericKoala]

Are you being sarcastic?

No, why wouldn't we encourage technology innovation? If you can do useful, cool things with it, then I would encourage people to try it out. So far, it has done some impressive things. I look forward to seeing what the future holds. If it turns out to flop, just add it to the pile of other things that didnt work, and move on.

[yabbadabbadont]

No, why wouldn't we encourage technology innovation? If you can do useful, cool things with it, then I would encourage people to try it out. So far, it has done some impressive things. I look forward to seeing what the future holds. If it turns out to flop, just add it to the pile of other things that didnt work, and move on.

This is the internet. Reasonable suggestions are not allowed... ;)

[CholericKoala]

This is the internet. Reasonable suggestions are not allowed... ;)

That's true, flash is used on youtube.

[alternatealias]

Therein lies the main problem with Moonlight and Mono. Once Moonlight supports Silverlight 2.0, MS will have released 3.0.

Most Silverlight apps won't instantly be using Silverlight 3.0 when it is released, however, so Moonlight will have time to catch up.

Silverlight 2.0 is somewhat of a special case because the whole point of Silverlight was managed development with .NET (1.0 didn't support .NET, just javascript).

So it's not as big a deal as your trying to make it out to be.

[jrusso2]

its most likely still very new. Did you see if its in the ubuntu repos at all?

It was on the novell page a plugin for Firefox. I installed it and went to the microsoft page to test it and nothing.

[jrusso2]

How can this give you a bad feeling?

If you don't like it, don't use it. If you like it, use it.

MS finally ports their stuff to linux, that's good and I think the linux version (moonlight) is open source (could be wrong).

Yea MS is not porting it to Linux. Miguel de Icaza is as an open source mono project so it is not working as well as Windows.

[directhex]

Therein lies the main problem with Moonlight and Mono. Once Moonlight supports Silverlight 2.0, MS will have released 3.0.

I don't think moving from 2 to 3 will be as difficult as moving from 1 to 2

I could ask Miguel this evening if someone reminds me

[bp1509]

d