To use his own words, Miguel de Icaza has just gone to hang out at Microsoft. Yes, that's how close Novell's executives are to Microsoft. But that's totally besides the point that he's actively assisting adoption of Microsoft Silverlight, which is a huge threat to the openness of the World Wide Web and also to viability of Free software desktops (unlike Flash).
“As the FOSS world probably knows by now, Moonlight is a semi-cooked catch-up work.”Just over a week ago we showed how Microsoft was ruining good football and also the Olympic games. We wrongly thought it was a matter of paying 'Microsoft tax'. This had happened just before it was confirmed that Moonlight may indeed be a poison pill. It's part of a broader issue introduced by Novell.
On the face of it, however, it's no longer just a legal matter but perhaps also one of feasibility because the Summer Olympics will require the very bleeding edge of Microsoft Silverlight. As the FOSS world probably knows by now, Moonlight is a semi-cooked catch-up work. Microsoft wouldn't port Silverlight to GNU/Linux.
NBC's player is based on the latest beta version of Silverlight, which the Democratic National Convention will also use to distribute video in August. Silverlight 2.0 is due out in the fall.
--Ron Hovsepian, Novell CEO
Comments
Heller
2008-06-20 20:54:27
http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/4209/msdealoz2.jpg
John Wilson
2008-06-21 14:27:14
Other national broadcasters including the Chinese themselves (the host broadcaster in IOC terms) are either doing Flash or some other technology.
Granted this doesn't make Silverlight 2.0 requirements for the United States (and Holland) any less palatable. Nor does it guarantee any kind of success given that it's a dot zero release and Microsoft doesn't do them well at all.
It will be interesting to see how many YouTube like Flash videos show up converted from Silverlight during the Summer Olympics. :-)
ttfn
John
fig
2008-08-12 12:03:23
Hello McFLy! the world of broadcasting has this thing about rights to broadcast, in each country one broadcaster has the rights to the games. that's life in the real world.
"which is a huge threat to the openness of the World Wide Web and also to viability of Free software desktops (unlike Flash)."
and Flash is OK ? owned by a huge corp. closed source. have you ever tried to debug ActionScript in a complex Flash app ? what about the cost of the tools to develop Flash?
Roy Schestowitz
2008-08-12 12:07:57
Adobe does not hate GNU/Linux. It ports Flash (and AIR) to GNU/Linux Adobe will not attack GNU/Linux using software patents.
For information about this, see:
http://boycottnovell.com/2008/05/27/mono-and-rand-for-gnome/ http://boycottnovell.com/2008/01/23/silverlight-not-for-linux/