I just visited a site which required Microsoft's Silverlight plugin (Ryanair's route checker).
Given that I was running Firefox 3 on Ubuntu I wasn't expecting much but I clicked the "install silverlight" link anyway, and was redirected first to Microsoft and then on to the open-source Mono project and Moonlight.
I knew that Moonlight existed, but I wasn't expecting that kind of endorsement from Microsoft. If this is the kind of thing that the deal between Novell (who sponsored/developed Moonlight) and Microsoft leads to then maybe my thoughts on that process have shifted a little.
Hi,
On 13/08/2009, Mark Rogers mark@quarella.co.uk wrote:
Given that I was running Firefox 3 on Ubuntu I wasn't expecting much but I clicked the "install silverlight" link anyway, and was redirected first to Microsoft and then on to the open-source Mono project and Moonlight.
I knew that Moonlight existed, but I wasn't expecting that kind of endorsement from Microsoft. If this is the kind of thing that the deal between Novell (who sponsored/developed Moonlight) and Microsoft leads to then maybe my thoughts on that process have shifted a little.
Doesn't surprise me at all.
From Slashdot sources over the years, the founder of Mono seems to
have been painted by some Slashdot readers as a Microsoft shill. Whether this is true or not, I have no idea (Slashdot commentators could have been trolling).
Besides, it's in Microsoft's best interest to move people away from Adobe Flash (which I understand to be the target competitor of Moonlight/Silverlight). If Microsoft can make it easier for Linux users to move to Silverlight, then that's one step closer to Microsoft's goal.
Srdjan
Srdjan Todorovic wrote:
Besides, it's in Microsoft's best interest to move people away from Adobe Flash (which I understand to be the target competitor of Moonlight/Silverlight). If Microsoft can make it easier for Linux users to move to Silverlight, then that's one step closer to Microsoft's goal.
Unfortunately last time I tried Moonlight it didn't work with some silverlight sites, I think it was the ITV Catchup site that was still insisting that I didn't have silverlight installed.
Other silverlight sites were buggy and or slow (and I am talking worse than flash here) Overall the experience was somewhat worse than with flash.
The "other platform" support provided in Moonlight just seems to be lip service. Based on my experiences so far I can't imagine it will ever be a feature complete, properly debugged version for version equivalent of the windows build so why take it seriously ?
If Microsoft were then they would have built a platform independent open source Silverlight and had synchronous releases across all platforms rather than helping Novell re-implement what they have done in a separate project.
Wayne Stallwood wrote:
Srdjan Todorovic wrote:
Besides, it's in Microsoft's best interest to move people away from Adobe Flash
The "other platform" support provided in Moonlight just seems to be lip service. Based on my experiences so far I can't imagine it will ever be a feature complete, properly debugged version for version equivalent of the windows build so why take it seriously ?
That depends on how you look at what happens when I load a page that doesn't work using FF on Linux. I see three choices:
(a) I assume Silverlight is crap (b) I assume Linux is crap (c) I assume the website is crap
Now given that I'm a Linux user, it's not likely to be (b), but until recently Microsoft seem to have counted on this. (Whether or not it's (a) or (c) will largely depend on how often it happens on different sites.)
What is interesting for me is that Microsoft no longer discount Linux as being irrelevant; they know that for Silverlight to compete with Flash then it needs to be cross-platform, and that means accepting that other platforms exist. Now this has happened before (eg IE/Office for the Mac) and has been dropped once the technology has been well enough adopted to let cross-platform support go, which is why I'd rather have it developed by a third party and open-source. But it really isn't so long ago that MS would have helped me towards the assumption that (b) above was true, by having a download page for Silverlight that made it clear that I needed a "compatible version of Windows" - and even a "compatible version of IE" - in order to proceed.
If Microsoft were then they would have built a platform independent open source Silverlight and had synchronous releases across all platforms rather than helping Novell re-implement what they have done in a separate project.
Even if MS were serious now, that would not guarantee them being serious in a few years time, so having an open-source option is much preferable. I don't doubt that MS would much rather not *need to* have a Linux version floating around, but that they accept that this is now necessary shows how far we have come.
The next step for Adobe would be to open-source Flash; I don't see what they gain from having a closed-source but free-as-in-beer application unless there are patent issues (eg codecs). Websites aren't the exclusive luxury of PC's any more, and they need to "work" on mobile browsers across a variety of platforms. For anyone to maintain a technology that works across all platforms that way, rather than open-source them, seems crazy to me.
Mark Rogers wrote:
What is interesting for me is that Microsoft no longer discount Linux as being irrelevant; they know that for Silverlight to compete with Flash then it needs to be cross-platform,
It's not about competing with Flash because there is no direct revenue to be gained from that, it's another way to make the web experience slightly more complete on a Windows Machine over the competition. Hence why "proper" Silverlight is currently only available on MS platforms (and OSX) and the OSS Moonlight for other platforms is feature incomplete. They do know that in order to displace flash they need to offer "something" for Linux but this doesn't really display any level of acceptance I can see in a positive light.
Rest assured that at some point full Silverlight availability will be used to leverage market share of either MS platforms or IE itself, this is the only point of it's existence otherwise what does all this effort net Microsoft ?
and that means accepting that other platforms exist. Now this has happened before (eg IE/Office for the Mac) and has been dropped once the technology has been well enough adopted to let cross-platform support go
Office for Mac is still going, 2008 was released, 2010 has been announced (now finally with a real Outlook client rather than entourage) IE was dropped if I remember correctly in response to an agreement between MS and Apple that MS would release Mac versions of IE for as long as Apple didn't produce a competing product. Safari appeared and was made available to Windows machines so no more IE.
, which is why I'd rather have it developed by a third party and open-source. But it really isn't so long ago that MS would have helped me towards the assumption that (b) above was true, by having a download page for Silverlight that made it clear that I needed a "compatible version of Windows" - and even a "compatible version of IE" - in order to proceed.
In my opinion this isn't an example of positive acceptance, it is merely phase 2 because ignoring us didn't work. It's a rehash of "this stuff will only work properly on IE/Windows" with a thin varnish of "But look how open we are to interoperability this time, it's not our fault OSS can't keep up"
Moonlight is currently at Silverlight 1.0, Moonlight 2.0 (compatible with Silverlight 2.0) is in pre-release. Silverlight 3.0 was released in July and not currently even on Moonlight's roadmap. So already the OSS version lags the Silverlight spec by 2 releases. Therefore some things will only work properly on genuine Silverlight (several of the things I tried on the MS showcase included) Hence my comment about lip service only. For the full experience you need to be running Windows or intel OSX, I am not sure what Apple did to deserve official releases but I am guessing there was a monopoly clause in there somewhere. Therefore (b) still exists and now it can be spun to be OSS's fault.
Even if MS were serious now, that would not guarantee them being serious in a few years time, so having an open-source option is much preferable. I don't doubt that MS would much rather not *need to* have a Linux version floating around, but that they accept that this is now necessary shows how far we have come.
I think we need both a official black box build of Silverlight that is at the current spec and a community re-implementation (Moonlight) or as I said if MS were serious about cross platform support with no traps then Silverlight itself would have been open. The latter will never happen because of the reasons stated above.
Wayne Stallwood wrote:
It's not about competing with Flash because there is no direct revenue to be gained from that, it's another way to make the web experience slightly more complete on a Windows Machine over the competition.
I figured it was more about "control" over content than the viewing platform, but you may be right.
Hence why "proper" Silverlight is currently only available on MS platforms (and OSX) and the OSS Moonlight for other platforms is feature incomplete. They do know that in order to displace flash they need to offer "something" for Linux but this doesn't really display any level of acceptance I can see in a positive light.
Having full cross-platform support on Flash vs partial "it might work, it might not" on others isn't something I see selling well to developers, though. If we were only talking about Windows vs Linux I'd worry, but Flash is well supported on many non-Windows platforms (phones, etc). Again if Windows Mobile were the dominant mobile phone platform I'd worry, but it isn't by any stretch.
I haven't used Silverlight much at all, to be fair, nor have I come across it very often (the RyanAir route map being the first time I noticed it). It didn't seem to do anything very "special" as I write this I just thought "maybe that's down to me using Moonlight", so I just tried the same thing on my Windows PC, which being Firefox + Windows 2000 isn't supported at all! It did get me this page though:
http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/get-started/install/default.aspx?reason... .. which shows what is/isn't supported; hardly a complete picture right now!
Rest assured that at some point full Silverlight availability will be used to leverage market share of either MS platforms or IE itself, this is the only point of it's existence otherwise what does all this effort net Microsoft ?
With TV stations and Youtube (etc) streaming video through Flash, I think it's control over content that matters to MS, but equally it could be just that Adobe doing "well"[1] at something doesn't sit well with MS; they're not a big fan of PDFs either I think?
[1] I'm no fan of Flash personally, and usually have it disabled or enabled selectively through FlashBlock.
Office for Mac is still going, 2008 was released, 2010 has been announced (now finally with a real Outlook client rather than entourage)
Ah OK, fair enough. I thought I remembered it going, but I don't touch the Mac.
IE was dropped if I remember correctly in response to an agreement between MS and Apple that MS would release Mac versions of IE for as long as Apple didn't produce a competing product. Safari appeared and was made available to Windows machines so no more IE.
Now you say that, I do recall there being an agreement along those lines.
In my opinion this isn't an example of positive acceptance, it is merely phase 2 because ignoring us didn't work. It's a rehash of "this stuff will only work properly on IE/Windows" with a thin varnish of "But look how open we are to interoperability this time, it's not our fault OSS can't keep up"
I can see them trying that, but realistically Linux/FOSS is no longer small enough to be brushed aside that way. (FOSS is more pervasive than just Linux, of-course; Firefox is relevant here, and I'm sure Flash works fine on Opera, Chrome (Windows, but will do on Linux when released), etc.
There doesn't seem to be a compelling reason to use Silverlight at the moment, and I can't see one that doesn't include wide mu;lti-platform support.
Moonlight is currently at Silverlight 1.0, Moonlight 2.0 (compatible with Silverlight 2.0) is in pre-release. Silverlight 3.0 was released in July and not currently even on Moonlight's roadmap. So already the OSS version lags the Silverlight spec by 2 releases. Therefore some things will only work properly on genuine Silverlight (several of the things I tried on the MS showcase included) Hence my comment about lip service only. For the full experience you need to be running Windows or intel OSX, I am not sure what Apple did to deserve official releases but I am guessing there was a monopoly clause in there somewhere. Therefore (b) still exists and now it can be spun to be OSS's fault.
I'd expect the apps on MS showcase to fail - even to be specifically tweaked to break Moonlight. But are there many real-world Silverlight apps out there that fail in Moonlight? I have no idea, I've only ever found one app at all!
I think we need both a official black box build of Silverlight that is at the current spec and a community re-implementation (Moonlight) or as I said if MS were serious about cross platform support with no traps then Silverlight itself would have been open. The latter will never happen because of the reasons stated above.
I agree Silverlight won't be opened, but that's more because MS just doesn't work that way. they'd have got far further with it (commercially as much as anything else) if they'd open sourced it to start with - that would *really* have wrong-footed Adobe. That's how Google would have played it, but MS is too set in its ways for that.
If Silverlight becomes too great a threat, Adobe will doubtless open-source it. Imagine that - if the licence was suitable it could be built-in to browsers like Firefox and that would have to be an effective way to compete with MS!
Mark Rogers wrote:
With TV stations and Youtube (etc) streaming video through Flash, I think it's control over content that matters to MS, but equally it could be just that Adobe doing "well"[1] at something doesn't sit well with MS; they're not a big fan of PDFs either I think?
MS don't like PDF's because (horrible adobe implementations aside) it is a true multi-platform and open standard, therefore it does nothing to keep people on their platform.
I remain to be convinced that MS want to control content for it's own sake, at the heart they are still a software giant not a media one so their key interest is leveraging content delivery to make their software the most attractive option.
I'd expect the apps on MS showcase to fail - even to be specifically tweaked to break Moonlight. But are there many real-world Silverlight apps out there that fail in Moonlight? I have no idea, I've only ever found one app at all!
These aren't necessarily apps built by MS though..just featured ones on their site that are supposed to demonstrate the capabilities (ok so therefore probably at the cutting edge of silverlight's capabilities)
I agree Silverlight won't be opened, but that's more because MS just doesn't work that way. they'd have got far further with it (commercially as much as anything else) if they'd open sourced it to start with - that would *really* have wrong-footed Adobe. That's how Google would have played it, but MS is too set in its ways for that.
Exactly and hence why I think there are other reasons for not doing so, open the client runtime and any future competitive advantage of it working better on their platform has gone. Why endorse an independent project to support it unless you want it to have different capabilities in the "official" version ? MS are I believe playing a balancing game of getting cross platform support working just well enough to get it in use whilst not giving away the capability of making the experience better on their platforms.
If Silverlight becomes too great a threat, Adobe will doubtless open-source it. Imagine that - if the licence was suitable it could be built-in to browsers like Firefox and that would have to be an effective way to compete with MS!
Yeh Adobe are looking at flash from a very different perspective to MS and Silverlight. Adobe want to leverage flash to sell the developer tools which means they could (codec and 3rd party licensing issues aside) open the client runtime and yes I agree doing this in a way that allowed flash to be built in to OSS platforms would seem like a way to go.
I can only assume that the reason they haven't is because of the issues mentioned or just general brain-deadness. Interestingly there were supposedly some significant technical hurdles in getting 64bit flash libraries built (at least that was always the excuse for them not being available in the past) so I wonder what state the flash runtime is in..perhaps the reason it isn't open is because they don't want us to see the state of the code and form opinions about their other products :)
Wayne Stallwood wrote:
Why endorse an independent project to support it unless you want it to have different capabilities in the "official" version ? MS are I believe playing a balancing game of getting cross platform support working just well enough to get it in use whilst not giving away the capability of making the experience better on their platforms.
Actually, creating their own Linux plugins would have been better for them in this regard; they can ensure they're always "below par" and blame the platform. MS have never been the best software developers on the planet, they always do "just enough". There is a real chance that over time the Moonlight version will perform better than Silverlight, and that's not something MS can now control. Sure Silverlight will always have more features, as the feature set is something MS still have control over, but stability, speed, etc are all areas that Moonlight can potentially do better at.
In the short term, of-course, there's so little Silverlight content that there can't be many developers getting an itch worth scratching. If/when Silverlight becomes mainstream, though...
I can only assume that the reason they haven't is because of the issues mentioned or just general brain-deadness. Interestingly there were supposedly some significant technical hurdles in getting 64bit flash libraries built (at least that was always the excuse for them not being available in the past) so I wonder what state the flash runtime is in..perhaps the reason it isn't open is because they don't want us to see the state of the code and form opinions about their other products :)
This crossed my mind.
But then you have to start looking towards gnash - MS are supporting a FOSS implementation of their plugin, so that ought to encourage Adobe to actually offer some support (and even development effort) to gnash rather than making it difficult for them.
-
Mark Rogers -
Srdjan Todorovic -
Wayne Stallwood