Moonlight 1.0 Beta w/ Microsoft Media Pack

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Moonlight 1.0 Beta w/ Microsoft Media Pack

Miguel de Icaza has today announced the release of Moonlight 1.0 Beta 1. This test release brings in Microsoft Media Pack for playing back video and audio files that is a direct decedent of the decoders found in Silverlight 2.0. For those unfamiliar with Moonlight, it's a Mono-powered open-source implementation of Microsoft's Silverlight, which in turn is a web-browser plug-in that competes with Adobe Flash...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=Njg5Mw

[Vadi]

Grr grrr wrah ah &^_!

There, I'm first, hah.

[Zhick]

I've yet to stumble upon a website that uses silverlight... luckily.
Flash is already bad enough.

[EmbraceUnity]

Netflix's streaming video is the only notable site I can think of. Considering Netflix's new tivo competitor runs on linux, I am assuming Silverlight will probably be ditched. Unless they are using this moonlight thing.

[Louise]

Moonlight is a joint project between Novell and Microsoft and was announced last September.

If MS supports Moonlight, why doesn't MS then just release the source for Silverlight? Why invent the wheel twice?

dilbert.com requires Silverlight, but dilbert.com/fast doesn't due to massive emails to Scott Adams =)

[Danniello]

Already in planning for release in September of 2009 is Moonlight 2.0. Moonlight 2.0 will be compatible with Silverlight 2.0 (Microsoft's current stable version)

What a generosity - almost one year after release of Silverlight 2...
Perhaps in this time there will be Silverlight 3 or something...

And why different name? Maybe Moonlight is compatible with Silverlight like Mono with .NET (e.g. not in 100%)

Adobe Flash for Linux have the same name like version for MacOS or Windows, and it is (I think) fully compatible...

[FunkyRider]

So basically Linux platform will ALWAYS having yesterday's meal while Windows is having todays.

What a great idea for Microsoft to control the Linux users! After this whole SilverLight thing gained ground, the people who can uses the latest technology will ALWAYS be Windows users.

M$: You Linux users do have support from us! The support of yesterday's meal. Now go !&#^$% yourself and be quiet about our strategy: we are not monopoly! BUT, if you want today's food, I suggest you use WINDOWS!!!!

[RealNC]

Novell/M$ deal anyone?

[Jimmy]

Originally Posted by FunkyRider

So basically Linux platform will ALWAYS having yesterday's meal while Windows is having todays.

Fast food isn't a meal. At least not one you should eat regularly. [insert comments about fat and bloat]

There's lots to eat out there and Linux offers many fresh, healthy, home cooked meals.

[Popo]

Yeah... Microsoft has not promised nor is it giving any official support to this project. It is simply the Gnome/Mono folks - primarily head Gnome dude Miguel de Icaza - writing a Linux app to the public specification. Yes, M$ did ask Miguel if he would like to write the app, which he and his team did in relatively short time (according to his blog).

So I don't think we should be ragging on Moonlight for reasons that don't exist. Microsoft is not holding the project back to forcibly make it a second class citizen as some here seem to be saying.

Rather we have real and good reasons to turn our noses at this steaming pile:
1. Microsoft claims to be friendly and supportive of non-MS operating systems, like GNU/Linux. Yet they do not have an official, written in-house Silverlight app for GNU/Linux. That shows they are liars. So do not support their crApp on any platform.

2. Miguel is misguided in his efforts to support Microsoft. In fact that is the problem - he and the Gnome team essentially are supporting Microsoft, instead of supporting GNU/Linux. It is like an abuse victim enabling the abuser. Mono is an effort to support M$'s monopolizing coding platform. This only enables the Monopoli$t to embrace and extend their monopoly. Ditto for moonlight. Ditto for the Gnome DE - a workalike/lookalike clone of M$'s XP DE. (As an aside - ask yourself why Gnome's Nautilas behaves just like XP's Windows Explorer to the point of cloning the model of making a file manager the DE's shell. If either app dies then you lose your whole DE session. Except that Windows recovers from a failure much better than Nautilas. How ridiculous.)

As you might guess I am not a fan of Gnome nor of anything that comes out of the Ximian group. A poor copy of a poor design executed poorly.

Gnome - Just say gNo.

Cheers.