RSSNovell and Microsoft sanction Silverlight work-alike for Linux
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published November 19, 2008, 3:16 PM
In the next stage of what has turned out to be a more successful project than even its creators envisioned, the public beta of Moonlight -- a runtime library for Linux supporting sites that expect Silverlight -- is expected within days.
Microsoft and Novell made their joint announcement this morning in acknowledging the two-year anniversary of their historic, and still talked-about, partnership agreement. It effectively confirms the timeline put forth by Moonlight's parent organization, the open source Mono Project, which is also responsible for building open source versions of the .NET Framework runtime for Linux, Mac OS X, and yes, for Windows as well.
Moonlight should effectively make Web sites and services geared for Silverlight 1.0 run effectively in Linux. Developer Miguel de Icaza, who leads the Mono Project, first announced the November availability of the Moonlight beta at PDC 2008 in Los Angeles last month. At that time, he revealed the extent of Microsoft's and Novell's control over the project by essentially telling one attendee that the Moonlight beta was practically ready to go already, but that it would be up to the two corporations jointly -- not to him or his partners -- to decide when the beta launches. At that time, he had not been given a precise date.
Meanwhile, work on a Moonlight version that's compatible with the current Silverlight 2.0 is already under way. A beta of that project might even have been available sooner, de Icaza said, if not once again for Microsoft.
"We basically had to suspend work on [Moonlight] 2.0 when...it's complicated...when we got the codecs from Microsoft and we had to port them," he explained. For now, he expects publicly available code for the 2.0 version by the time of Microsoft's MIX 2009 conference in Las Vegas, which is currently scheduled for March 18.
In the meantime, however, de Icaza said, "At least you can watch Channel 9 and play poker and kill moose."
Kill moose? Indeed, that's part of a testbed for Moonlight's ability to run Microsoft apps developed for Silverlight. It's a game running on Microsoft's gaming development research site Popfly, called "Sarah Palin Moose Hunt." De Icaza borrowed the would-be Vice President's image to demonstrate how effectively Moonlight not only displays graphics, but handles keyboard responses in real-time, which is vitally necessary for gaming. (And killing moose.)
Interesting, this article contains two links (endorsements in Google's eyes). One to a Microsoft Conference, one to a Microsoft research site. But no link goes to the Moonlight project, this article is all about.
What does this tell us? Is this by accident?
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|Interesting, this article contains two links (endorsements in Google's eyes). One to a Microsoft Conference, one to a Microsoft research site. But no link goes to the Moonlight project, this article is all about.
What does this tell us? Is this by accident?
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|Interesting, this article contains two links (endorsements in Google's eyes). One to a Microsoft Conference, one to a Microsoft research site. But no link goes to the Moonlight project, this article is all about.
What does this tell us? Is this by accident?
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|If Silverlight seeks to become an industry standard, it has to embrace all of the major platforms.
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|This is a really cool thing..the era of proprietary web standards needs to die, forever. My only real question is, where's the game where Obama kills our country? Oh, wait, thats not a game.
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|i thought it was already dead, maybe that's when the big 3 in detroit vanish
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|Reaganomics killed your country. 28 years of it. With all that the republicans have adversely done to their country, for decades, and these idiots still blame the democrats. And they say that politics isn't like religion... [rollseyes]
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|The troll displays his ignorance yet again.
Nitwit, the CONGRESS controls all spending and the economy, NOT the President! And the Democrats controlled Congress during ALL of Reagan's tenure until 1994 - where the Republicans then faced a Democratic veto and the power of the Democratic filibuster.
Remember the era when folks lamented "gridlock"?
Get a clue. Your emotional rants are fascinating in spite of their complete display of idiocy.
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|Chapter 11 bankruptcy will allow them to jettison the legacy ball and chain costs imposed by the entitled union mentality that a simple loan will not solve.
Remove those costs and perhaps they will get their heads out of their @sses and produce the vehicles their engineering prowess is actually capable of - provided someone assumes some real leadership and vision.
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|2008 - 28 != 1994
2008 - 28 = 1980
I know nothing about what he's talking about, but I can count.
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|"produce the vehicles their engineering prowess is actually capable of"
Nope, they are not. Hey Foxy, get a European car if you want to use it for anything else than burning gasoline.
(oh I am so excited what his response may be !!!)
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|"perhaps they will get their heads out of their @sses and prduce the vehicles their engineering prowess is actually capable of."
So quoting the entire statement in context is just TOO difficult for you, isn't it? Ah, but then that would ruin your misquote, wouldn't it?
Funny, the Corvette Z1 and the new Cadillac sedan with the Z1's engine kicks the same class Euro cars' posterior - and for less money.
But then under the skin, just about all of the systems are similar Bosch. I love the Porsche GT3/4, but your pickups (oh yeah, what pickups?) suck - but you did have the Volkswagen "Thing", LOL!; and still Japan produces a much better car with MUCH better quality control and gas mileage, as well as performance if that is what you want, and a MUCH lower total cost of ownership.
But gee, the Rabbit was great - and almost put Volkswagon under. Of course, we could get a Jaguar and have a friend follow behind picking up the parts as they fall off - which fortunately isn't much of a problem as they spend much of their life on blocks. Until Ford bought them...
Sorry, but a car is simply a commodity means of transportation, not an overpriced projection that defines who I am. I will put the money I save into an asset rather than into a rapidly depreciating liability!
But I do sorta miss France and the tractor blockades of EuroDisney and the frogs' quaint habit of driving on the sidewalks in Paris!
LOL!
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|Those who build entire websites full of SL and FLASH are just nuts. Besides, Microsoft is wasting its time and money porting any of this to Linux. Novell's name is as low as Microsoft's at this point.
Incredibly, Adobe's Flash Player 10 is now a full native participant on 64-bit Linux distributions, and along with 64-bit Java, playing flash games and running sites like Hulu.
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|It's a difficult call. Adobe has more market penetration (although it shouldn't bother anyone to dl 4MB for the SL install) but the SL programming model is far superior. We are not talking about dancing monkeys but development of RIAs...
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