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MS Silverlight a Step Back For Linux Users
Posted by
kdawson
on Wed Apr 18, 2007 06:55 AM
from the no-media-for-penguins dept.
from the no-media-for-penguins dept.
mattb0611 writes "Just as it seemed that Linux users (especially 64-bit users) would finally be able to enjoy streaming content with a minimum of hassle, Microsoft's new Silverlight software promises to throw a monkey wrench in the works — as they have yet to suggest any sort of Linux platform support."
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Surprise, surprise! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Surprise, surprise! (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Surprise, surprise! (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Surprise, surprise! (Score:4, Insightful)
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Don't worry (Score:4, Funny)
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Aw, come on (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
This got me to thinking, though - they support Mac. Perhaps that could be leveraged into Linux support somehow? I mean, Macs have a BSD-like basis, and a neat set of well-documented Mac APIs on top of it (Cocoa, etc.). How hard would it be to take a Silverlight runtime and write a 'wrapper' (an emulation layer, perhaps like WINE but on a much smaller scale) to get it to work on Linux?
Something tells me the problems mig
Re:Aw, come on (Score:5, Informative)
Very, very hard. Forget the smaller scale than WINE - you're going to need large parts of the MacOS video infrastructure (CoreVideo, Quartz, likely QuickTime). If the mac client is not written in Cocoa, you'll need large parts of Carbon. (If it is in Cocoa, you could use GNUstep as a basis and avoid some work). You'ld be better off trying your luck with running the Windows version of Silverlight using WINE.
MacOS's BSD-like basis (and X11 support) means it is usually fairly simple to port Unix applications to MacOS (often just a recompile); the other direction is a lot more difficult.
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Re:Aw, come on (Score:4, Insightful)
As Compiz/Beryl now show, X (X11, of course) is quite capable of doing anything that Apple's GUI can do. Apple could have used X in MacOS 10 by adding/extending the 3D support, adding X extensions, and developing an Appley toolkit and window manager (they had to do that ANYWAY for their own propietary stuff). But if Apple HAD chosen to use X, then they would have made it FAR too easy for companies to port Apple MacOS software to Linux. Instead, they have an Xserver for the purpose of running non-native (read: all the GNU/BSD/Linux/Native Unix GUI) stuff in addition to their own apps.
Many people have to wake up and realize that Apple has very little altruism... they have no desire to have competition from Linux any more that Microsoft does. Apple is quite happy to take apps/technology/whatever from BSD, GNU, X, even Linux... but it unfortunately doesn't work the other way around.
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Re:Aw, come on (Score:5, Insightful)
1) IE for the mac
2) WMP for the mac
3) Degraded MS Office functionality in Office 12 (scripting support for the mac).
They did announce that there might be support for Linux. If there is it won't last.
Step 1: Create cross platform product
Step 2: Get everyone to use cross platform product
Step 3: Drop support for every product that doesn't run Windows
Step 4: Profit (get customers to switch back to Windows)
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Re:Aw, come on (Score:4, Insightful)
As it stands, they keep things proprietary and don't support any platforms other than their own, in an effort to force people to use their other products.
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Aw, come on (Score:5, Funny)
Shouldn't that be BOTH platforms: Vista and XP?
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News? (Score:3, Insightful)
Whatever - Flamebait Story (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Whatever - Flamebait Story (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Whatever - Flamebait Story (Score:5, Insightful)
If I were a media manager, considering the current penetration of Flash, I might think about targeting a platform with a 60% share in addition to Flash, 10% would be extremely unlikely. So, a new OSS rich media format wouldn't work not because of the player but because of the content producers.
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Re:Whatever - Flamebait Story (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds like using an existing monopoly to leverage your way into another market to me. Can't wait to see what the EU does with this one.
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Re:Whatever - Flamebait Story (Score:5, Interesting)
Seriously, there is none so deaf as he who will not hear.
What about all these fine standards made available by the W3C [w3.org] ? SMIL [w3.org] maybe ?
Wait, nobody uses it because MSIE, used by 80% of people, doesn't implement it. Who's at fault ?
From the Wikipedia [wikipedia.org], implementation have been made mainly for handheld and mobile devices... where MSIE doesn't rule.
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Well, there's gnash [gnu.org]
Unnecessary technology (Score:3, Insightful)
Huh? (Score:5, Interesting)
What did you expect? (Score:5, Insightful)
That is one of the main goals behind Silverlight, to take control of the active media web content delivery mechanisms, so that Microsoft can provide support only for "friendly" operating systems.
Do you really think that Microsoft would do anything to promote the Linux platform on the desktop?
Re:What did you expect? (Score:5, Insightful)
The Mac is Microsoft's antitrust insurance card. It only costs them ~5% lower market share to keep the government mostly off their backs. That's why MS bailed out Apple with a big cash transfusion and commitments for Mac versions of Office about 10 years ago.
Microsoft knows that with Apple's hardware lockin business model, there's little chance of their computer market share ever increasing by a significant amount, so this is a safe move for MS. Linux, OTOH, is a more dangerous unknown quantity. With an alien business model and dozens of companies involved with it, the ultimate impact on Microsoft's market share is unpredictable.
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Of course (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Of course (Score:5, Funny)
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Give Them A Break ... (Score:3, Funny)
It's safe to say they will announce Silverlight for Linux at the next Mars landing.
Re:Give Them A Break ... (Score:4, Funny)
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.NET (Score:5, Interesting)
This is actually better for Linux users than MS's traditional behavior.
The solution (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that many people will complain about this sort of tech, then use it anyway.
Re:The solution (Score:4, Insightful)
Amen. It's going to be a new DRM infested attempt to get a monopoly in the media distribution market anyway - why the heck are you people outraged that it probably won't come to your platform? I'd be happy if it came to as few as possible.
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Why would MS support Linux? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's an honest question: Why would Microsoft release software to enhance Linux?
Linux users do not pay for software; that's the nature of the beast. I've been running Linux full-time since the early 1.x versions, and I've never purchased a single piece of software for it. So I don't see what the incentive is for Microsoft to support Linux.
Much as I love Linux and free software, it is self-defeating and unrealistic to demand that Microsoft (and other companies) support Linux. Perhaps the much-vaunted free software community should produce its own solutions that are better then the closed-source competition? Instead of complaining about what other people do, take responsibility for your own needs and write the software you want.
Isn't free software up to the challenge?
Re:Why would MS support Linux? (Score:4, Insightful)
Please, tell me how much the Flash plug-in for Internet Explorer costs. I forget.
I don't see what the incentive is for Microsoft to support Linux.
Another view is that they should support their paying customers who develop Silverlight content for their websites who may not give a hoot about Microsoft v. Linux and simply want the people viewing the sites they create to see all of their content no matter the OS platform they are using.
Of course, this could backfire on Microsoft too -- without all of the pertinent platforms supported, I won't migrate from Creative Studio to Microsoft products because I am not going to go to my customers and say that my preferred development platform is going to reduce their potential viewers.
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Re:Why would MS support Linux? (Score:4, Interesting)
Hmm... I don't know. Five months ago they signed a deal with Novell in the interest of enhancing interoperability between Linux and Windows [microsoft.com]. Remember that?
Are you telling me that was all a sham???
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
We've done it already. By *we* I mean not only Free/Open Software Community but entire community that got together and works for better STANDARDS (like vendors, commitees and so on).
There are alternatives such as XUL (Firefox/Mozilla does it), SVG (Fx, Opera do it). For streaming media we have Ogg Theora and upcoming tag for HTML (Opera does it). All is here.
Problem with these alternatives it is not that they are technically worse or smth. - they are open (means litt
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
What software for Linux can you buy?
I would buy Quicken for Linux tomorrow, I would buy TaxCut or TurboTax next year. My wife would buy Photoshop elements tomorrow she is already pretty good with GIMP but GIMP can not do everything that Elements can. And I bought XPlane which does have a Linux version included.
I don't buy much Windows software ether. I a few games but I would buy them for Linux in a heartbeat if I could.
I don't mind paying for software for Linux IF I
Sure it's cross platform compatable (Score:4, Funny)
It supports both XP and Vista!
Catch up (Score:4, Insightful)
Unfortunately, I expect patents are a major barrier to the community developing its own standards independently of those with an interest in restricting technologies. Perhaps the best hope is the public sector, e.g. the BBC's Dirac codec.
In other news.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Isn't it obvious? (Score:4, Insightful)
We've dealt with getting propriety stuff working in Linux, we can do it again.
Excuse me (Score:4, Interesting)
Anyway, It's not just 64 bit platform users who are benefitting, the open source flash efforts are now working on PPC [slashdot.org] which makes a nice change. My old powerbook is now much more useful for web browsing than before.
"DOS ain't done 'til Lotus won't run!" (Score:5, Insightful)
For inexplicable reasons, people persistantly think of MSFT as a benevolent technically-oriented company which is profitable because it serves the market and gives people what they want.
It is not and has never been. MSFT is a commercial marketing enterprise with considerable talents both as marketers and in contractual/legal arrangements. Their technical talents are very meagre. Most software they have bought from others or essentially contracted (even if inhouse).
They are also an adjudged monopolist (only the remedies were thrown out on appeal, _not_ the findings!) who have been entirely predatory "red-in-tooth-and-claw" and unfairly successful.
Attention Flashblock author (Score:3, Funny)
In the end it's a business decision (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps the Novell deal will give Microsoft an incentive to support Linux.
Overreacting. (Score:3, Interesting)
Sure there will be some sites that use whatever MS has and it'll be annoying but most users will have whatever google video and youtube use and thus most sites will use whatever google uses. I can't see google picking MS's streaming format so it will probably work out fine in the end. In fact such a move will only show that MS no longer has the ability to force things on the market in such a way.
Anything that isn't MPEG-4 is a step backward (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with Silverlight is if it only plays on a personal computer it is already obsolete. Even if it played on Windows, Mac and Linux personal computers, still no good. There are too many phones and iPods and various other devices that have the ability to play audio and video (not to mention TV's), and these devices all have H.264/AAC decoders in them. There is no room for multiple codecs and no general purpose CPU to decode them. These are DVD players which are data-storage agnostic.
People say why doesn't AppleTV let you watch YouTube in addition to streaming movie trailers from Apple.com? Because the AppleTV decodes H.264 video in its GPU and YouTube is not H.264. The CPU in the AppleTV is under clocked to stay cool, it would have to run all the time to decode YouTube and it would have to be 2-3x the speed also. YouTube is not iPod-ready, not handheld-ready, not living room -ready by any stretch. It's very PC-oriented.
If MS can't sell WMA then how can they sell Silverlight? It is foolish. Even if every iPod user didn't already have QuickTime on their Mac or PC it would be a really hard sell to content creators to be bothered with multimedia content that is personal computer only. There are two billion phones that all need to be replaced in the next two years and the iPhone is kicking off the true handheld Web by reading actual Web pages plus MPEG-4 audio video. It is way too late for you if you are talking about what format audio and video is going to be stored and streamed in. It is also way too late for MS to get a fair chance with content creators when their greatest contribution so far has been to fuck with QuickTime at every chance they get.
Re:Firefox support----?Huh? (Score:4, Insightful)
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