Bonum Certa Men Certa

Novell/Microsoft Deceive About Moonlight, Generate Hype

Novell seems to be lying again...

Bad Silverlight



FOR background, see this very recent ISV lie. Novell's press releases contain lies and the latest example, which is dishonest at best, we shall cover one item at a time and allow readers draw their own conclusions.

Announcement



Novell's Moonlight is widely known as a second-class 'Silverlight' which enables Microsoft to turn GNU/Linux users into second-class citizens of the Web [1, 2, 3]. We have stressed this point so many times before [1, 2, 3].

Watch the headline of Novell's press release about Moonlight: Moonlight 1.0 Beta Makes Linux Users First Class Citizens For Digital Media (also here)

The Moonlight Project and Novell are proud to announce the 1.0 beta release of Moonlight, an implementation of Silverlight for Linux.


What does that mean (especially the headline)? Is it about digital media? How does that make "Linux Users" first-class citizens? It's a lie.

The blogging from Miguel de Icaza came around the same time. He also did a post about the non-Free component of Moonlight. To say that Moonlight is Free software is like saying that a wolf in sheep's clothing is a sheep. At the very heart of this complete piece of software there is proprietary and patent-encumbered code. The world does not need any of this. We already have Ogg and <video>, which are supported by one of the most popular Web browser.

No Thanks!



In addition to Ogg, there is also SVG, as pointed out in this comment about the announcement from Novell.

Today almost everybody have flash installed and browsers of tomorrow will run Javascript very fast. In combination with SVG support such browsers will be able to handle most of the things Silverlight can do. Around 25% of the users uses such a non Microsoft browser on their desktop. Then there are mobile phones where the browser diversity is even bigger.


But Microsoft does not support SVG (not properly anyway) and it was told off for it by the father of the Web. In other comments from LinuxToday, Novell is called "a Microsoft proxy."

There is a positive side of Microsoft's push to kill flash using Novell (a Microsoft proxy). And that positive side is that Adobe might be forced to open source flash. Wouldn't that be neat?


And the following comment says it all really.

The sad thing is that Miguel thinks we are collectively dense and naive enough to believe him and use this stuff. Too many years under the MS yoke have taught those of us with functioning memories otherwise. There are so many things wrong with this I don't really know where to begin but thats OK; those that have their eyes open don't need to be told and the ones that are going into this with blinders on are by definition not going to see anything new anyways. Miguel can do what he wants; he has almost zero credibility left (can be bought and bought cheaply) so for now its apt-get purge libmono*.


Here is the sole reaction from TuxMachines:

I have an uneasy feeling about installing anything that's been touched by Microsoft.


Novell boosters like "eet" are there to rebut. They scour the Web with their pro-Novell ideology.

Who Covered This Thing Anyway?



Some of those who covered the release of a beta are predictable because they frequently peddle Mono, Moonlight, SUSE and/or Novell. There were some 'standard' reports that are just based on the press release and passed around.

The Moonlight Project and Novell, an IT software, systems and technology company, announced on 2 December the released of Moonlight 1.0 Beta.


One author who covers a lot of Mono could of course not resist this opportunity.

The first beta release of Moonlight 1.0, an open source implementation of Microsoft's Silverlight framework, is now available for download from the project's official web site. This release is the first step towards bringing robust Silverlight compatibility to the Linux desktop.


The author who covers a lot of OpenSUSE also gave it a go.

Not long ago the Moonlight development team announced that the Linux Silverlight adaptation was drawing ever nearer to the 1.0 release. On December 1st, the Moonlight 1.0 beta version was released.


Softpedia covers a lot of Mono and this time was no exception.

As early as the the celebration of the second anniversary of the Microsoft and Novell partnership inked back in November 2006, the Redmond company announced the delivery of the first Beta of Moonlight. As an integral part of the Linux and Windows interoperability agreement, Novell took it upon itself to extend Silverlight to Linux and Unix. In Microsoft's quest to deliver a truly cross-browser, cross-platform and cross-device technology, Moonlight complements the Silverlight releases for Windows and Mac OS X.


Heise covers a lot of SUSE (for obvious reasons) and with SUSE come Novell and Mono, so a hideous headline containing "Silverlight for Linux" got published.

The beta version of Moonlight 1.0 is now available to download as a Firefox plug-in. The application, is the Linux version of Microsoft's rival to Flash, Silverlight. It makes it possible to play files such as WMV files under Linux. Novell has been granted access to Microsoft specifications and to multimedia codecs and test tools for the project. It was originally announced at the second anniversary of its interoperability agreement with Microsoft.


Sean Michael Kerner was a bit of a surprise among the pack, but he at least called it "Linux clone of", unlike those who wrongly call it "Silverlight for Linux."

Linux users are getting closer to full Microsoft Silverlight functionality to view rich media applications on the Web. The Novell-sponsored Moonlight project today released its first beta of its Linux implementation of Microsoft's Silverlight media framework.


It's rather mystifying that Michael Larabel covered this (only through a quick pointer though) because I've explained to him the problems associated with Novell.

For those unfamiliar with Moonlight, it's a Mono-powered open-source implementation of Microsoft's Silverlight...


And oh noes! Et tu, Alastair?

Microsoft and the Wintel press will treat Moonlight like the Second Coming when it's released (as final) to promote Silverlight, XAML, Windows DRM and Microsoft codecs. How does a beta of copycat technology receive so much coverage and hype?

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Linus Torvalds Blasts Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) for Attempting to 'Protect' Linux
Like it 'protects' women
New Record for GNU/Linux in Australia (at Microsoft's Expense)
Windows is at an all-time low, GNU/Linux... all-time high
Fighting Over Whose Pockets Are Deeper (or Who Borrows More Money)
When processes favour those who are more wealthy (or more willing to go into infinite debt or steal money of other people) those processes match the attributes of lawfare rather than law
Starting a Book With a Flawed Premise or Weak Hypothesis
To me, Schneier is a sort of "RMS of sec"
Microsoft's Mass Layoffs (30,000+ in 2025) Not About "AI", Just Business Failure
"AI" is replacing... the old excuses for mass layoffs
EPO People Power - Part XVI - Berenguer Does Not Speak German, So What Did He Tell German Police That Busted Him?
based in Germany and does not speak the language
Challenges for EPO Insiders to Try to Tackle in 2026
Nothing will get solved as long as the circus that runs this show tries to keep the circus going
 
Links 28/12/2025: "Mass Quitting Apple" and "Generative AI Industry is Fraudulent, Immoral and Dangerous"
Links for the day
Links 28/12/2025: Fascination, Holidays, and Mormonism
Links for the day
Microsoft's Weapon Against the Reality of XBox (the Console) Dying Seems to be LLM Slop
XBox is dead/dying
Raffles for the Immaterial: Unauthorised Bingo for Red Hat "Vouchers"
This is IBM and some slop images
Andy Farnell on Standing Up Against Technological Oppression
some portions from it
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, December 27, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, December 27, 2025
Once Again, GAFAM Deletes All Your Data, Only Corrects This After Millions of People Lead an Uproar Online ("Richard Stallman Warned Us About This")
No lessons learned, eh?
You Know Your Critics Are Jealous and Have Inferiority Complex When...
One day we'll write about all this in great depth
"But Corruption is Everywhere"
"We'll always have Polio..."
Days Without Slop About "Linux"
It's time to move on
Links 27/12/2025: Canada Post Strike Called Off, Debate About Europeans "Working Over Christmas"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 27/12/2025: Household Appliances and Flight Fright
Links for the day
Links 27/12/2025: US Cracking Down on Whistleblowers, Expanding Bombardment Campaigns Worldwide
Links for the day
Resuming EPO Coverage Today, Can António Campinos 'Survive' Cocainegate?
We said we'd continue in the weekend
Links 27/12/2025: More Attacks on Media (Meduza Co-founder Sentenced to Prison in Absentia), "What Owning Music Means To Me"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 27/12/2025: geminiprotocol.net Downtime and Capsular Gemlog Manager
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, December 26, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, December 26, 2025
Tossing Embarrassing News Under the Christmastime Bus
This isn't just some coincidence; those are conscious choices
Victim-Blaming in Debian
Verhelst previously did blame-shifting when Debian suicide clusters happened
IBM Cuts in Japan, Red Hat is Attached to a Sinking Ship
IBM, which controls Red Hat, is a rapidly shrinking company
Manchester United Dumped Microsoft Because Qualcomm Sort of Did
The Windows PCs were an utter failure
Free Software Foundation (FSF) Supported by Unconventional Digital Bartering Communities
But no strings attached
Geminispace: 5,000 Capsules in 2026
There are 4.8k now
Gemini Links 26/12/2025: Careful What You Eat and "My Secret Santa"
Links for the day
The Indigenous Community Versus Corporate AstroTurt and 'Cancel Culture'
Good people will recognise exactly what's happening here and respond to it tactfully
Richard Stallman: Epstein is a Serial Rapist. Bill Epsteingate: Epstein is a Friend.
Supporting the FSF (or Richard Stallman) is supporting those who asserted Epstein had serially raped women
The Paradox of GAFAM: Saying You Protect Women, Appointing Abusers of Women to Run the Company
older articles
Censored by FreeBSD Core Team Secretary, Reinstated After Talking About it in Public
FreeBSD misfiring a CoC?
Links 26/12/2025: Chatbot Toys Terrorising Children, US Undeclared "War on Terror" Unilaterally Extends to Nigeria During Holidays
Links for the day
Links 26/12/2025: French Postal Services Under Russian Attack, U.S. Cheetos Accuse People Who Obstruct Information Warfare by Russia of "Censorship"
Links for the day
Debian's Daniel Kahn Gillmor is Wrong, Signal is No "Gold Standard" (It's Also Promoted by Proponents of Back Doors)
I'm not too sure why Debian or the ACLU would wish to associate with this
Next Year Will be the Year of Quantum, Just Like 2020, 2015, 2010, 2005 and So On
"Quantum" is the future
The Silent Power of Coercion Over Speech
The important thing is optics
Kazakhstan Doesn't Need GAFAM Datacentres (Spy Hubs)
Suffice to say, as far as we can gather nothing came out from the empty (false) promises of GAFAM's "data centers in Kazakhstan"
So Simple That You Can Touch and Feel It
In light of recent experiences
Christmas Music Project: Back to When Music Was Music
now Canonical (or Ubuntu) says we should make available tens of gigabytes of disk space
Internet Relay Chat (IRC) Under Attack by Cross-Network Spam Floods
So far we've been spared (our network has not been targeted at all) [...] Let's hope the spam won't discourage the hundreds of thousands of people worldwide who still use IRC
An "AI-Infused" Windows
Microsoft Windows isn't becoming a worthless pile of garbage by accident
Microsoft Laid Off Over 30,000 People This Year, Coders Are "Too Expensive"
Go get some popcorn. Microsoft "slopware" is about to get real!
Critics Have Long Said Microsoft Produces "Slopware", Microsoft Wants to Prove Them Right
Slop instead of code is a step in the right direction?
The Top 8 Innovations of IBM in 2025
What innovations will come out from IBM in 2026?
And as the Year Turns...
The significance of new years isn't based on geology or astronomy or anything like that
Appliances Versus Computers
Replacing a computer inside an object of some kind or inside an appliance (which nowadays includes "modern" cars) isn't simple and isn't cheap
A Dark Side of Europe
They try hard to silence people who speak about these issues
Why People Love Techrights (and Also Loved "Boycott Novell")
I will continue to publish for many decades to come
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, December 25, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, December 25, 2025
Browsing Techrights With a GUI and 10 Megabytes of RAM Per Tab
Some people say it's not possible in 2025, maybe in part because they depend on very bloated software
A Tribute to Richard Stallman
It's about knowledge and sharing
Links 26/12/2025: Impermanence, Salt and Thermometer, Freetube
Links for the day