Supporting a fully open GPLed Moonlight is a smart move
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| tracyanne Feb 12, 2009 5:02 PM EDT |
by Microsoft. They can be assured of server sales, as Rich media serving will drive them. Silver light development tools are already built into the Visual Studio Delevopment environment, and building high quality Silverlight applications and Rich interactive Media is no more difficult than building any other web application, and this Rich media applications talk and interactive with the main web application code with no difficulty than any othe web page. Adobe will need to do some pretty smart stuff to conbat this. The key here is fully integrated development environments and fully integrated systems (but that has always been the killer application on Windows - integration of the systems, not word or office, system integration - and yes it does have a downside, but for most people that isn't really something they worry about, after all how many people do you know who worry they might be involved in a car crash on the freeway). Quoting:Microsoft backed off putting Silverlight on Linux in 2007, opening the door to Moonlight. The company, though, has come around to the view that an open-source edition would help overall adoption of Silverlight and construction of media content for the player. They are absolutely correct. Development shops (using MS tools) that might have held back from developing Silverlight Rich Media applications, and instead chosen flash, because of concerns over whether they were able to create truly cross platform applications, don't have to worry anymore. They can be assured that the MS tools they have will do the job. This will drive sales, of both Servers, and Professional Desktops and Microsoft tool sets. Quoting:Adobe chief financial officer Mark Garrett reportedly dismissed Silvelight Wednesday, telling Wall Street types the player had "really fizzled out in the last six to nine months." He would be quite wrong. I know this because the company I currently work for are developing Rich media applications, based on Silverlight, for several of their largest clients (2 of whom are the largest (and regularly appear in the top 5 of a google seach) fitness education companies in the world. The trigger for going ahead with this was because of the guarantee, because of Moonlight, that Silverlight will be true cross platform, and developing Rich media in house, rather than contracting it out, is now possible. Quoting:What is for certain, though, is that apart from some profile-raising customers such as the NBC Olympics and Netflix, Silverlight adoption lags Flash by a considerable margin. This may be true right now, but as more Silverlight Rich media applications come on stream, and they most certainly will, that will change. |
| bigg Feb 12, 2009 5:50 PM EDT |
The message this sends to me is that it is useful for everyone, including Microsoft, to fight for market share among Linux users. Less than 1% of the market? Yeah, right. This wouldn't be happening for less than 1% of the market. Netbooks, mobile phones, the Wii, they all run Linux and they are out there in large numbers. "The company, though, has come around to the view that an open-source edition would help overall adoption of Silverlight and construction of media content for the player." That quote says it all. |
| azerthoth Feb 12, 2009 6:50 PM EDT |
TA, while I happen to agree with you, you have to know your going to catch flak from those who think interoperability and OS agnosticism are one way streets. You know the ones who would stop breathing if they heard the passing rumor third hand that MS was trying to patent air, just to spite MS. hey wait ... *psst* did anyone hear that MS is patenting air? It's true, I heard it from my mothers brothers uncle. |
| gus3 Feb 12, 2009 7:03 PM EDT |
Apple already got that ("AirPort"). |
| viator Feb 12, 2009 7:31 PM EDT |
Why not do a clean room implementation of moonlight without any ms cruft something we will all know is clear of ms fud and while we are at it write it so we dont need mono..... Im sure the community would support it beofre it does the trojan that is moonlight/mono id have no problem throwing $50-$100 at such a project... Oh and where is google adobe or anyone elses answer to silverlight for hd content?? |
| bhuot Feb 12, 2009 7:36 PM EDT |
And when Microsoft gets enough share, they will let the other platform versions of it wither and die as they add Windows only features. You should try OpenLaszlo if you want an open source solution that is not dependent on any one client. |
| Scott_Ruecker Feb 12, 2009 7:36 PM EDT |
Quoting:The message this sends to me is that it is useful for everyone, including Microsoft, to fight for market share among Linux users. Less than 1% of the market? Yeah, right. This wouldn't be happening for less than 1% of the market. Bingo Azer!! I have never never NEVER bought that line of bull. If we only have 1% of the market then why do this? 1% is ignorable at worst. But Linux and FOSS in general are most certainly not. "We" are a lot more than 1%, how much more I do not know, but its not 1%. I guarantee it. |
| hkwint Feb 12, 2009 8:00 PM EDT |
Quoting:Why not do a clean room implementation of moonlight without any ms cruft something we will all know is clear of ms fud and while we are at it write it so we dont need mono For us end users that'd be nice. However, it consolidates the Silverlight-platform, therefore creating a platform lock-in even amongst Linux users. Now, a lot of Linux-users value their freedom and would rather not be dependent on a Microsoft (or Adobe for that part) platform. One simple reason is because any reverse engineered version will always lag behind the versions of Microsoft (or Adobe); and therefore Silverlight-support on Windows will always be better. That would be the reason that people continue to use Windows, and that's the only reason Microsoft did its best for Linux: To create a platform-lockin. This is done so developers only develop for that platform and don't have time and don't take the effort to learn another platform, and because that platform only works well on Windows eventually everyone still needs Windows. I'm afraid a reverse-engineered version only helps Microsoft here and makes all of us more platform-dependent, just like MONO did. Appart from it, if Flash or Silverlight use any kind of encryption, cleanroom reverse engineering is at least against US law DMC and it might be against some European laws to (EUCD), I'm not sure for other parts of the world. So it would be nice, but it would consolidate Microsoft's market share of both Windows and its platforms. By the way, Moonlight can never be fully GPL'ed because if it contains the Windows codec-packs, those can _never_ be 'fully GPL'ed' because Microsoft doesn't have copyright on them and doesn't own the patents on these codecs. Providing licenses on those codecs for free for Linux-users sure is a sign how they (and especially: Some other big companies) are afraid of open standards, and only by creating a platform lockin parallel to the vendor lockin of Windows they are able to make sure people will stay dependent on those patent-minefield codecs. |
| dinotrac Feb 12, 2009 8:10 PM EDT |
>Why not do a clean room implementation To what extent is Moonlight NOT a clean room implementation? Mono, on which it depends, is a clean-room re-implentation of .Net. Has Microsoft contributed any code to Moonlight, or merely provided specs and test suites? If it's just specs and test suites (and, perhaps some consultation and guidance), then Moonlight IS a clean room implementation. |
| viator Feb 12, 2009 8:14 PM EDT |
hkwin... what would you suggest as an alternative that developers ,consumer,and corps will use Im not a developer just an enduser and i always look to open source. And have supported projects with basic feedback forum administration basic graphic design and as much monetary support that i can give. That being said what i would like to do is find a project that would thwart this m$ lock in attempt but i havent found "the one" |
| azerthoth Feb 12, 2009 8:20 PM EDT |
um Scott, you quoted bigg and bingo'd me, from the tone of your comment it sounds a bit like you were agreeing with bigg too. Personally I'm wondering how many people who I would usually expect to post to a thread like this wont. I'll take that as a clear sign that they wont even take the chance of a MS patent on air, and are currently quietly turning blue or have already passed out. |
| Sander_Marechal Feb 12, 2009 8:22 PM EDT |
Quoting:Why not do a clean room implementation of moonlight without any ms cruft something we will all know is clear of ms fud and while we are at it write it so we dont need mono..... That already exists. It's called DotGNU. |
| Scott_Ruecker Feb 12, 2009 8:30 PM EDT |
Sorry Az, Sorry Bigg. got a little exited I guess..;-) |
| tracyanne Feb 12, 2009 8:51 PM EDT |
Quoting:Why not do a clean room implementation of moonlight .. It already exists, it's called Moonlight, and Mono. |
| KernelShepard Feb 12, 2009 9:02 PM EDT |
Quoting:By the way, Moonlight can never be fully GPL'ed because if it contains the Windows codec-packs, those can _never_ be 'fully GPL'ed' because Microsoft doesn't have copyright on them and doesn't own the patents on these codecs. Actually, Moonlight *can* be fully GPL'd because it doesn't link with the Microsoft codecs, it simply dynamically loads them if they are there afaict. It also allows the user to download the MS codecs if he/she chooses, but can also use FFmpeg codecs (but I think this option requires you to compile yourself). However, just an FYI, Moonlight isn't GPL, it's LGPL according to the LICENSE file. |
| tracyanne Feb 12, 2009 9:17 PM EDT |
Quoting:Moonlight can never be fully GPL'ed because if it contains the Windows codec-packs... No it doesn't. They are not included in Moonlight. They are optional extensions. You can if you choose link to the Free implementations of those codecs. |
| tracyanne Feb 12, 2009 9:22 PM EDT |
Quoting:However, just an FYI, Moonlight isn't GPL, it's LGPL according to the LICENSE file. And the difference between GPL and LGPL is? |
| gus3 Feb 12, 2009 9:46 PM EDT |
It's easier to tack on other, proprietary (or at least non-GPL) code. |
| tracyanne Feb 12, 2009 10:03 PM EDT |
Quoting:t's easier to tack on other, proprietary (or at least non-GPL) code. No. The LGPLed code can be used as a component in Proprietary applications with out the requirement to release the proprietary source code. |
| tracyanne Feb 12, 2009 10:05 PM EDT |
@biggQuoting:The message this sends to me is that it is useful for everyone, including Microsoft, to fight for market share among Linux users. There is that too. |
| KernelShepard Feb 13, 2009 10:18 AM EDT |
I'm guessing they released as LGPL since that's what the rest of Gtk, etc are released under. |
| hkwint Feb 13, 2009 3:54 PM EDT |
Quoting:that being said what i would like to do is find a project that would thwart this m$ lock in attempt but i havent found "the one" The lack of an alternative is born also because of - surprise - the existing network effects and platform lockin. Everybody wants Flash and Silverlight, so therefore using/developing Moonlight/Gnash is probably the logical thing to do. However, it requires far less efforts to write something from scratch than to reverse-engineer something and let another team write something limited by the docs of the reverse engineers. Basically, there's no good alternative I'm afraid. I'm complaining with empty hands; nothing to give. People don't listen to those with empty hands, that's for sure, and I can't blame them because they're right. What makes me sad however is to see lots of efforts are spend to consolidate the MS / Adobe platform lockin, because for the end users who are wanting a free platform that time could have been spent better. So, coming back to the question: Quoting:what would you suggest as an alternative that developers, consumer,and corps will use Probably, at this moment there isn't an alternative they can use, they'd have to develop an alternative. I'm painfully aware this is rather utpopian and may not bee that realistic. However, quite the same problem was true for streaming media formats: The BBC couldn't choose an alternative, and therefore decided to develop their own, which became Dirac. In our country, the NOS (You could say: Dutch BBC, except for that it's not) uses Silverlight. It would be a good thing if they - together with other public broadcasting companies could make a free alternative. At this moment, it doesn't bring you an alternative solution however, so it's nothing that brings you any further at this moment, for which I'm sorry. It's only an idealistic view of how the world should be, and reaching that is at this moment done via political ways: Telling aunt Neelie that the Dutch public broadcasting company is helping to consolidate a MS-platform lockin (not much see can do about it, but just making sure she knows), telling Dutch politicians about how NOS is contributing to this, and so on. |
| KernelShepard Feb 13, 2009 9:08 PM EDT |
@hkwint: I disagree with your assumption that designing a whole new system is less work than reverse engineering software. The amount of resources (research, time, and money) required to design and then implement a new technology is by far more than what is needed to reverse engineer existing software in order to create a competing product - even if the original product isn't documented very well. Obviously, the better documented it is, the easier it is to reverse engineer - and both .NET and Silverlight are fairly decently documented from what I can tell. And then, of course, you have the problem of marketing your brand new solution as something people would want over what was already available on the market. This is the problem Microsoft is facing now with Silverlight adoption against Flash. Unlike Microsoft, the FLOSS community does not have the finances to support either undertaking. Miguel et all seem to be having a degree of success in getting Microsoft to release some of their Silverlight code as Free Software (yes, MS-PL is a Free Software license). I hope Miguel keeps pushing and we continue to see Microsoft release more and more under the MS-PL (or other FOSS licenses) and possibly get Silverlight completely open. Luckily, even if Miguel fails, we are very likely to see Adobe buckle under the pressure and fully open their player. |
| tracyanne Feb 14, 2009 1:20 AM EDT |
yes adobe opening the flash player would be a great result. |
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