Open-source Silverlight project drops early third code The open-source project shadowing Silverlight has come a step closer to mirroring the latest edition of Microsoft's challenger to Flash. Moonlight leader Miguel de Icaza said a preview of Moonlight 3.0 has been delivered for early testing. Features include early work on UI virtualization to handle large sets of data, and a …
Is is just me, or is "closed" MS playing at being more "open" than "'open' but really closed" Google these days?
It's not MS who have adopted patent encumbered video formats the FOSS world can't touch, or tried to merge in incompatible kernel code.
What the hell are they putting in the water over there?
Erm, I'm not a legal bod - doesn't this sentence make the covenant not worth the pixels it's projected upon?:
"Microsoft reserves the right to update (including discontinue) the foregoing covenant"
So at any point in the future they can remove the covenant and sue the pants off you? Or have I got it wrong?
Changes or discontinuity can't apply retrospectively. They can make a Silverlight v5 and change the rules for that. They can even withdraw the covenant and prevent future new distributions but they can't retrospectively change the agreement and sue anybody who is distributing stuff created under the old version of it. They need to be able to change the agreement to do things like including third party distributions, or I guess, to comply with the terms of the next law suit against them.
Practically they want Silverlight as widely used as possible because its the only chance they have of competing with Flash. This gets distribution to Linux without them having to 'dirty their hands' doing actual Linux development. (They can't bee seen to support it directly. There is a version for OSX but I guess they don't consider that to be much competition.) They expect get profit here from selling Visual Studio and Office Online more widely.
Everything MS develops is shit.
Why would anyone want to make an Open Source version?
Can someone please point me at a resource that uses Silverlight? I'm dying to find out what benefits it can possibly bring (other than a few new security games that, sooner or later, I'll be forced to play)
Why doesn't MS just develop its own open-source Silverlight for Linux and Mac? Somehow, relying on a gentleman's agreement between MS and Novell for your access to this technology seems risky. Or heck, why doesn't MS just develop its own closed-source Silverlight for all the common platforms, the way Adobe does with Flash?
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
