Microsoft's Silverlight

[forrestcupp]

Well, folks. We're probably going to be screwed again. We finally get Flash 9 working properly in Linux, and now Microsoft is coming out with their cross browser, cross platform alternative to Flash that is supposed to be way better. It's called Silverlight.

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/...yid=single8142

Guess what platform they don't list in their cross platform list. You guessed it. Linux. So now all of these web developers will start using this, and we may not be able to access their web pages. Hopefully the Flash pages that I already use will stick to Flash.

[troymcdavis]

Is there an open alternative to flash in the works? It seems like that would have been high on the list of priorities for the open source community for some time now. How would one go about even starting that?

[Adamant1988]

Is there an open alternative to flash in the works? It seems like that would have been high on the list of priorities for the open source community for some time now. How would one go about even starting that?

The gnash project is attempting to create a free/open implementation of flash.

[gaspar]

" Microsoft yesterday unveiled its plans to provide competition to Adobe’s internet media plug-in platform Flash(...)"
Yeah, good luck...

[SonicSteve]

quote from the article
" Silverlight uses Windows Media Video (WMV), Microsoft’s version of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) video standard, aiming to provide compatibility with the vast quantity of media content already on the internet.

Microsoft also plans to provide digital rights management support for developers using Silverlight"

Two things here
1. what a surprise microsoft pushing their own codecs (wmv)
2. they will provide DRM support to it also. (O happy day!!)

Wow makes me want to jump right in!

[Jonne]

Maybe 'some' web developers will use it, but there's no way the majority will start using it. The people that are interested in what Flash does, will keep using Flash (why would they learn a different tool, and pay for yet another IDE if flash just works fine?).

The only way MS is going to be able to displace Flash is by buying Adobe and killing it off.

[Adamant1988]

I think the majority of web developers will probably shy away from this. This has happened before to Microsoft where they try to introduce a competing standard and the fear of complete dominance from Redmond kept that from happening. Sites owned or affiliated with Microsoft may very well use this, but I see it dying off.

[koshatnik]

Luckily, Europe won't tolerate closed anti-competitive standards from Microsoft anymore, so Redmond are on a collision course with the EU over this sometime in the future.

[NESFreak]

Luckily, Europe won't tolerate closed anti-competitive standards from Microsoft anymore, so Redmond are on a collision course with the EU over this sometime in the future.

When did microsoft started to really listen to neelie?

The worst thing would probably be that this piece of software will soon be available to 'everyone'. There appears to be this thing called 'windows update'. (Few months ago my dad came complaining to me. Some big blue E just appeared on his desktop. (had previously hidden the icon for him, so he would be forced to use firefox.) ("since you installed the foxthing only on or two viruses (read spy/adware) are detected instead of the usual 30")

On the other side, i think it's a good thing some rival came up to fight the evil adobe with it's inhuman prices. To bad microsoft probably won't support linux. And by the time the governments have forced microsoft to do so and microsoft has actually made a stable linux release, I'll be probably telling my grandson how it was when cars couldn't fly.

NESFreak

[forrestcupp]

I think the majority of web developers will probably shy away from this. This has happened before to Microsoft where they try to introduce a competing standard and the fear of complete dominance from Redmond kept that from happening. Sites owned or affiliated with Microsoft may very well use this, but I see it dying off.

Yeah, like their format that was supposed to compete with pdf (another Adobe product). That hasn't really dominated the world, has it? But if Silverlight offers something better than Flash, people may go for it. They claim to offer immediate viewing of DVD-quality movies.