Editors • About the Site • Comes vs. Microsoft • Using This Web Site • Site Archives • Credibility Index • OOXML • OpenDocument • Patents • Novell • News Digest • Site News • RSS

08.23.10

Is Silverlight Unofficially Dead Now?

Posted in Microsoft, Mono, Novell at 2:03 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Bad Silverlight

Summary: A commenter in mini-MSFT says that his/her “team got a direct message not to use the [Silverlight] technology.” Dynamic languages are also dying at Microsoft due to lack of interest from the public.

ONCE in a couple of weeks we count the occurrences of the term “Silverlight” in the news. It’s getting hard to find anything and Moonlight too is virtually gone by now. Silverlight was mentioned in just one news headline (comparison to Adobe Trash 10.1) in the past two weeks, so it slid into obscurity despite massive PR campaigns, sometimes from Novell. A few days ago someone called Alex told us in IRC: “hey, was reading minimsft’s latest blog’s comments, and stumbled onto this: ‘Anonymous said… Anyone know what the story is with silverlight? My team got a direct message not to use the technology. Received the same message in Windows Live. HTML 5 is P1.’”

For those who don’t know, mini-MSFT is where anonymous Microsoft employees typically comment. So, is Microsoft calling Silverlight off yet, maybe because of HTML5?

Last week and earlier this month we showed that Microsoft is also burying its dynamic languages [1, 2]. Here is more news coverage about it:

Microsoft’s decision to pay the salaries of several Ruby hackers was akin to a lawyer dating the bassist from a cool local band. Thus, it’s sad, but not surprising, to hear about the breakup: With the departure of Jimmy Schementi, Microsoft’s Ruby team is now down to one part-time developer.

These must be depressing times for Microsoft employees who work on projects like Silverlight and the attempts to “embrace and extend” Free/Open Source frameworks. █

Share this post: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Reddit
  • co.mments
  • DZone
  • email
  • Google Bookmarks
  • LinkedIn
  • NewsVine
  • Print
  • Technorati
  • TwitThis
  • Facebook

If you liked this post, consider subscribing to the RSS feed or join us now at the IRC channels.

Pages that cross-reference this one

6 Comments

  1. Danielh said,

    August 23, 2010 at 2:25 am

    Gravatar

    I wonder if the Moonlight people will understand just how wasted their efforts on Mono has been? Surely you would think someone could come up with something better than .Net and Silverlight in the community?

    Now its just endless hours wasted in mimicing something that never took off, never became any good and resulted in endless debates and fights.

    Dr. Roy Schestowitz Reply:
    August 23rd, 2010 at 2:44 am

    It also confirms that Mono has a lot to do with replicating Microsoft (Moonlight, .NET, etc.) and not with enabling other P/Ls in the VM.

  2. Mikko said,

    August 23, 2010 at 11:15 am

    Gravatar

    some Swedish websites use silverlight for maps and video

    Dr. Roy Schestowitz Reply:
    August 23rd, 2010 at 11:17 am

    I know about Ryanair and some Italian TV channel.

    Mikko Reply:
    August 23rd, 2010 at 11:37 am

    Södertälje Municipality
    OKQ8
    Film2home

    Dr. Roy Schestowitz Reply:
    August 23rd, 2010 at 3:16 pm

    Thanks, Mikko. Maybe we’ll start a Wiki page soon.

What Else is New

  1. Video: LinuxWorld 1999, Torvalds and Stallman

    LinuxWorld 1999, Torvalds and Stallman

  2. GNU World Order is a Personal Sacrifice, LinuxWorld Just Business

    As the Linux Foundation shows, Linux is just business (and proprietary software) as usual, software patents included, whereas it’s GNU that continues the Free Software Movement’s battles

  3. Links 20/2/2020: Oracle Solaris 11.4 SRU18, Mesa 20, VirtualBox 6.1.4

    Links for the day

  4. Open Source Did Not Win, It Was Assimilated to and by Proprietary Software

    Don’t fall for the whole “Open Source has won!” spiel; You know we’ve lost the battle (and were in effect gradually conquered) at OSI and elsewhere when those who speak for the OSI are Michael Cheng (Facebook), Max Sills (Google), and Chris Aniszczyk (Linux Foundation); they say “Open Source Under Attack” (FOSDEM talk) but their employers are the ones attacking and they downplay openwashing

  5. Former Microsoft Employees Don't Like Talking About Past and Present Microsoft Back Doors (Designed for Spy Agencies)

    In a typical Microsoftian fashion, once they cannot defend the illusion/delusion that Microsoft values security the 'Softers' run away and block any further debate

  6. Techrights Warns Against Impending Extradition Efforts (Passage of Julian Assange to His Death in the United States)

    Imprisonment of journalists who are effective at exposing crimes (of the powerful, not petty crimes) must never be condoned

  7. Team UPC: Many Mouths and No Ears

    The mental condition of Team UPC gets more worrisome by the week

  8. Team UPC Insults Judges Because the UPC is Dead and UPC Lobbyists Have Nothing Left to Lose

    More judge-shaming tactics are in the mix; Team UPC seems to feel like there's nothing left to lose as the UPC is already dead (hope itself is next to die)

  9. IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, February 19, 2020

    IRC logs for Wednesday, February 19, 2020

  10. China Bashing is Grounded in Fear (That They Can Simply Do Better Than the West)

    The atmosphere of hate towards China — fuelled partly by a white supremacist in the White House — is unhelpful and insulting; dignity and understanding is the way to go

  11. IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, February 18, 2020

    IRC logs for Tuesday, February 18, 2020

  12. FFII Press Release: Germany Can No Longer Ratify the Unitary Patent Due to Brexit and the Established AETR Case-law, says FFII

    Germany cannot ratify the current Unitary Patent due to Brexit and the established AETR case-law. The ratification of the UPC (Unified Patent Court) by Germany would constitute a violation of the AETR case-law, which was used during the EPLA negotiations in 2006 to consider a deal with non-EU countries, such as Switzerland.

  13. DRM (Proprietary Software) Already Makes Mozilla Firefox Broken, Unreliable, Undependable (Dependent on Binary Blobs)

    More people are beginning to realise that Mozilla resorted to self-harming DRM and self-inflicted damage that impacts Firefox; can Mozilla (re)join the anti-DRM coalitions?

  14. EPO and Other Patent Updates Over RSS

    Site syndication (over RSS feeds or XML/Atom) is vastly better than what became popular in recent years (censored, centralised, discriminatory "Social Control Media"); here are some feeds of interest

  15. When It Comes to a Unitary Patent System, Bad (or Intentionally Dishonest) Legal Advice Has Become the Norm

    The Unified Patent Court and Unitary Patent (UPC and UP, respectively) reinforce the old saying about lawyers being liars, doing anything to attract clients (to take their money); the UPC is basically dead, but fiction, falsehoods and outrageous fantasies still find their way into Web sites of law firms

  16. Links 19/2/2020: KDE Plasma 5.18.1, GNOME 3.36 Beta 2 and WordPress 5.4 Beta 2

    Links for the day

  17. Is Linux Foundation a Microsoft Branch Now?

    The so-called ‘Linux’ Foundation (LF) nowadays helps Microsoft cement its monopoly — the very opposite of what ages ago it said the LF would do

  18. Are Songs Property? And Maths Also Property? Artificial Monopolies Are Not Property...

    Patent maximalists continue to face stronger arguments from their sceptics, who rightly allege that words are being intentionally misused and numbers fabricated so as to distort underlying facts

  19. Battistelli Blocked Techrights at EPO (Banned for More Than 5 Years), So CEIPI Won't Respect Access to Information Either

    The use of censorship to confront people who talk about (not even expose) corruption isn't novel; but the adoption of this approach in Europe (not just places like Russia and China) is definitely noteworthy

  20. IRC Proceedings: Monday, February 17, 2020

    IRC logs for Monday, February 17, 2020

  21. Links 18/2/2020: Linux 5.6 RC2, Wine 5.2, GNU Social Contract and Sparky 2020.02 Special Editions

    Links for the day

  22. IRC Proceedings: Sunday, February 16, 2020

    IRC logs for Sunday, February 16, 2020

  23. Links 16/2/2020: MX Linux 19.1 and MyPaint 2.0

    Links for the day

  24. IRC Proceedings: Saturday, February 15, 2020

    IRC logs for Saturday, February 15, 2020

  25. Guest Article: Au Revoir, GNU/Linux

    "Funny how OSI just ended up being another vehicle for their takeover of the computing world..."

  26. Former Microsoft Employee: ZDNet is Owned by Microsoft (and Others) in Some Senses

    A noteworthy message we've received from someone who knows Microsoft from the inside

  27. Links 15/2/2020: Blender 2.82, Qt 5.15 Alpha and NetBSD 9.0 Released

    Links for the day

  28. Microsoft Views 'Open Source' as a Zero-Cost Heist Opportunity (Making Proprietary Software/Spyware Using Other People's Free Labour)

    Making GPL-licensed (copyleft) software and hosting it outside Microsoft’s jaws is the best way to counter the abusive monopolist, which still says it “loves” what it is actually attacking

  29. Did Microsoft 'Buy' ZDNet?

    A look at what ZDNet tells its readers (screenshot from this morning) and a rare look at how its writers are censored/suppressed

  30. Anatomy of a Crime and Protection From Prosecution

    It’s hard to forget what António Campinos hides for his friend

RSS 64x64RSS Feed: subscribe to the RSS feed for regular updates

Home iconSite Wiki: You can improve this site by helping the extension of the site's content

Home iconSite Home: Background about the site and some key features in the front page

Chat iconIRC Channel: Come and chat with us in real time

Recent Posts