Re: Microsoft Silverlight Coming to the Internet Tablet
 

There is nothing ironic about it. That is Microsoft's M.O.:
Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.
It is a model that has worked for them for years.

Linux is proving to be a hard nut for them to crack but I think they are trying hard to work the same recipe through software patents and prorietary formats ... both of these Nokia has publicly supported in the past and will continue to support via Silverlight. At least they are consistent too.

I personally think that users are better served by open protocols/formats and no patent encumberances on algorithms and business methods. Arguments that Silverlight is more open than Flash are along the same lines as OpenXML is more open than the old MSOffice format. It is a comparison between a maximum security and a regular prison. You'll still be imprisoned and you can still suffer from Stockholm Syndrome.

Re: Microsoft Silverlight Coming to the Internet Tablet
 

BBSOD (Baby Blue Screen of Death)?

Re: Microsoft Silverlight Coming to the Internet Tablet
 

I also stand by the "more choice is better camp".
I use AIX, Tru64 , linux etc on work but most of my home "desktop" env still runs windows (or is dual boot - except from my Mac G4 system ;)).
Why? It simply does the job quite well (and my windows desktops *are* as stable as my Linux system - sorry ) and I already have the licenses.
I'm not saying Mac or Linux or better or worse, they are different and that's the beauty of it.
Thankx (mainly) to the GNU/opensource movement there is nowerday's almost *always* a choise, and even in the case where it's not 100% what the "closed" counterpart offers, if that he "closed" counterpart pisses off enough users it won't take (to) long to have a full OSS replacment.
Fed up with vista but is Linux not "your thing" ? Join http://www.reactos.org/en/index.html and make it stable before XP is like NT3.51 now.

The day's a company like Microsoft really can "dictate" a market *completely* without a counter reaction are over imho. Wich of course does not mean they can't provoke a mess ;)

Re: Microsoft Silverlight Coming to the Internet Tablet
 

Nokia could have said no to this deal and all would have been well; except they didn't and now MS is seen as the 'enemy.' Wow...

Re: Microsoft Silverlight Coming to the Internet Tablet
 

ok, guys this is crazy to me, as far as i see it, right now this is just some healthy competition for flash, now MS isnt the kingpin in this arena. if ya think about it its not that bad, netscape dying wasnt a bad thing right? but i agree that MS is gonna be trying to take over, agressivly too, but for now, flash is the monopoly, and this is just some healthy competition. besides, for all MS monopolies, they fall, i think IE-Firefox, and more slowly Windows-everything else
so not a big deal, for now, cause unless they can take down gnu and public license, its a no-go for permenant monopoly

Re: Microsoft Silverlight Coming to the Internet Tablet
 

Netscape was a slow-*** p.o.s. IE was better than Netscape. MS got complacent with IE and then Firefox came and kicked their asses all over the web. If Silverlight on mobile devices works out, then to heck with Adobe.

You're right, there does seem to be some third party implementations of Flash. My mistake.

The comparision between flash and silverlight is actually probably not a good one. I think AIR is probably the closer analogue.

Re: Microsoft Silverlight Coming to the Internet Tablet
 

Now that I think about it some more, I doubt that MS can do what it has done in the past again. The OSS community seems to be much strong, thanks in no small part to companies like Google, who use it as a tool against Microsoft. MS is primarily a software company (although you can see signs of them trying to change this) competing against a new age of service companies like Google, Yahoo, IBM, etc. At the moment, it's in the best interests of the service companies to contribute code and money to the OSS community. It increases the values of their services which rely on OSS, and at the same time, cuts into markets where MS has dominated.
The fear that MS will somehow contaminate or kill linux, or OSS, is really misplaced. I think you'd see a huge reaction (particularly these days) before that could happen.

Re: Microsoft Silverlight Coming to the Internet Tablet
 

That's pure bias talking. I was being objective. Just because you feel that way doesn't mean everyone will.

The value is in having another option, and having Microsoft recognize the validity of the tablets as a viable platform. Regardless of one's personal views on Microsoft, this will be perceived by industry as adding value.

Whoa whoa whoa, Kitty-- slow down.

There is nothing fundamentally wrong with a company simply wanting to dominate an industry. That's what Adobe is doing NOW with Flash. I'm very sure they want to-- and here you are tacitly defending their status quo.

Some of you are sure getting really heated by for now what is merely an announcement of support, and you're letting the sins of the past dictate the future. It ain't necessarily so. Microsoft has tried total world domination many times and failed on many fronts. Don't get so angry over the effort-- worry about the results, if your fears actually pan out. I don't think they will.

Oh, and I'm already on record as preferring SVG support... but again, this is just another option at this point. No one has killed the internet yet. :p

Re: Microsoft Silverlight Coming to the Internet Tablet
 

Cynicism does not extinguish irony. ;)

Re: Microsoft Silverlight Coming to the Internet Tablet
 

As for the complaints that Microsoft is planning to make the Silverlight implementations better on their own platforms as a tool for marketing: they can already do so with flash. As I said before, the Flash 9 implementation on Linux is bad compared to how it is on Windows and Macs.

On a tangent, double posting is all right here?

Re: Microsoft Silverlight Coming to the Internet Tablet
 

I don't generally make a habit of it.

Re: Microsoft Silverlight Coming to the Internet Tablet
 

Flash was once upon a time, a nice small footprint tool...until Adobe bought it. Now it's as much of a pig, or more so, then a simple thing like Adobe Reader. Personally I have blocked Flash for a number of years now. Just say no to the plug-in by disabling it until there is a real need for it on a site I wish to use.

From what I have seen of Silverlight, it's OK...for now. Still not a fan of this sort of forced hardware overhead. For years my single biggest complaint about MS AND Apple is they force hardware upgrades by adding the bloat. This is to keep the ChipCo's happy just read up on the recent revelations about the emails between MS folks about how they bent over for Intel but hosed HP.

Sure nice shiny new things are pretty...but let's see it run first then decide. On my PC I have run into a couple sites that use Silverlight and recall they actually seemed fine. It's only once the parasitic AdCo's start pushing content we cannot stop/block w/o either a hassle or 3rd party plug-ins, then it will be time to blow off Silverlight.

Re: Microsoft Silverlight Coming to the Internet Tablet
 

Don't misunderstand, I'm not defending or endorsing flash. Flash is just as bad as silverlight for bloat and proprietariness. The only redeeming factor with flash verses silverlight is that Adobe still has at least some motivation to continue supporting it on other platforms since they don't (yet) have their own OS.

Re: Microsoft Silverlight Coming to the Internet Tablet
 

well, theres always adblock...
well, as i see it, the two can coexist, easily, almost cartel kinda easy, but if it becomes a competition, the cybercat is more wrong i guess...
also i missed the own OS thing... confused?

its not as bad...
but when you can, just edit...
(double posting)

Re: Microsoft Silverlight Coming to the Internet Tablet
 

This is in reply to most of the post that thinks microsoft is out to get rid of competitors.

When did trying to get rid of the competition become a bad thing....
microsoft just happens to be good at it.
If anything adobe should looks at this and work harder at making Flash what people want to use and not this thing called Silverlight.

and for those of you who are saying to yourself but microsoft cheats at trying to get rid of the competition.
well I only have one answer to that
If you are not cheating you are not trying to win.

Re: Microsoft Silverlight Coming to the Internet Tablet
 

I'm guessing that you speak as someone with only desktop/GUI java experience. As an experienced server-side Java developer, I whole-heartedly agree that in 99% of cases Java sucks the big one for building GUI applications. The whole concept of cross-platform GUI was a ridiculous one. However, for servers and major deployments, it is very reliable, scalable and high performance. There's a good reason why most financial institutions use Java for all their systems.

c/c++ have their place, PHP and python have their place, as much as I hate to admit it even M$ .Not has its place. It really winds me up when people say "Java is sh1t" with only a very limited experience of its uses.

sorry. again.

Re: Microsoft Silverlight Coming to the Internet Tablet
 

beurk !!!!!

Re: Microsoft Silverlight Coming to the Internet Tablet
 

Java isn't proprietary - it's now open source. Even before then there was an open process for dealing with changes to the platform and mature re-implementations.

Agreed, the ITOS support is effectively a footnote - I believe they want to do it; but until we see more information (possibly including Novell as technology provider) it could be one of those "let's do a tie up for these platforms, oh; and we've got this little thing over here too" things, which gets quietly forgotten later on.

Cheers,

Andrew

Re: Microsoft Silverlight Coming to the Internet Tablet
 

Ahh, irony:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace...and_extinguish

Re: Microsoft Silverlight Coming to the Internet Tablet
 

Actually, my first Personal Computer (PC is not a synonym for MS) was an Amiga 2000, in 1988. A very personal, useful computer, which I didn't give up until 2000, when I switched to x86 running RedHat 4.3. I also had a Digital Alpha workstation running RedHat.

Re: Microsoft Silverlight Coming to the Internet Tablet
 

What!?
What rock are you living under?

OSS has been driving UI innovation for years. OSS is waaaaay out in front in the Eye candy and feature department.

Re: Microsoft Silverlight Coming to the Internet Tablet
 

I gave my mom a Red Hat box years ago and she still uses it. It's P233 and still running, maintenence free all these years. She's on her third monitor. She has no problem using Linux. She doesn't even know it's linux.

Re: Microsoft Silverlight Coming to the Internet Tablet
 

Silverlight is very similar to Flash. AIR is completely different in that it runs outside of a browser and potentially offline.

If people think that Flash is a bloated pig, then what makes them think that Silverlight would be any better? It's a bigger install and performance is very similar. I can understand that it would be nice, one day, to have Flash, Silverlight and JavaFX on the IT so we can access all the rich content out there, but are the ITs up to it right now?

Personally, I hope Silverlight doesn't become widely adopted as it's the most closed of the 3 platforms and therefore it wouldn't take much for them to kill/slow development of it on non-Windows platforms (and history suggests that's a distinct possibility).

Re: Microsoft Silverlight Coming to the Internet Tablet
 

I have NO intention of running Silverlight or Moonlight on my tablet.

Re: Microsoft Silverlight Coming to the Internet Tablet
 

its just another thing to turn off until needed...

Re: Microsoft Silverlight Coming to the Internet Tablet
 

Someone left a blog comment that compared Silverlight to "accepting an unmarked package."

This amused me.

At least we know that the Internet Tablet has the attention of other companies.

Re: Microsoft Silverlight Coming to the Internet Tablet
 

And THAT was my key point. Maybe it got lost in all the noise. :D

Re: Microsoft Silverlight Coming to the Internet Tablet
 

Umm ok.. what like prettier xterm? Please name examples... as i am pragmatic but am not pursuaded by your argument that i must somehow been living under a rock...

Re: Microsoft Silverlight Coming to the Internet Tablet
 

Fedora 7/8? Ubuntu Feisty/Gutsy? Kubuntu? Suse 10? Not to mention the recent release of KDE4.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=kde+4+screenshots

Re: Microsoft Silverlight Coming to the Internet Tablet
 

Hi Rockman,

If we're taking that path, majority terminal emulators for Linux look much better than cmd.exe and powershell. Judging by your comment, you haven't scoped it out much. In eye candy, the major desktop environments all have nice, configurable compositing effects.

As far as features and configuration goes, that's what makes the Linux learning curve high. You can tweak and tune and make your WM/DE of choice look exactly the way you want it without any hacks. Us nerds love configurations, and both Microsoft and Apple fail to provide a standard way to do it on their platforms for an illusion of simplicity.

I could go on since you gave such a broad statement, but I won't waste my time.

Re: Microsoft Silverlight Coming to the Internet Tablet
 

Will it be an add-on, or installed in the base OS?

If it's installed in the base OS, will there be a control panel to disable it?

If it's an add-on, I'll be happy (because I can simply choose to not add it, or to remove it at some point).

If it's not an add-on, but it has a control panel (or something similar) where I can completely disable it, then I'll be happy with that.

If neither of those is true, I wont be happy about it. Choice is best. Expanding our choices of apps by having it available is good. Retaining our choice to not have it at all, and not worry that it impacts us on some hidden level, is also good.

(and, frankly, as much as I hate MS, I am undecided about whether or not I'd use it)

Re: Microsoft Silverlight Coming to the Internet Tablet
 

I don't see why it would need to attach to the underlying OS. It should just act as a browser plugin (possible with install of a lite VM to run .Net code).

Re: Microsoft Silverlight Coming to the Internet Tablet
 

First of all, the right term here is "bundled", not "attached" (which implies to me that you think I was suggesting it might be a kernel module or something; I made no such implication).

The same general thing could be said of several things that are included in the base OS install.

The bluetooth setup wizard. The browser. The email client. The IM client. The calculator. etc.

None of that needs to be "attached to the OS". But they are bundled with it.


A browser plugin could easily fall into the category of "add-on" or "installed with the base OS", either one. "Browser plugin" is an implementation issue, "add-on vs base install" is a code distribution issue. Entirely orthogonal to each other.

Also, I was under the impression that there was more to silverlight than web apps... like Java, not everything is part of the browser, you can have full blown applications as well. Isn't that also true with silverlight? If so, then I doubt a full silverlight implementation would _just_ be a browser plugin.

Re: Microsoft Silverlight Coming to the Internet Tablet
 

Plz from now on make your own points without reference to subsections of paragraphs (taken out of context) of comments i make... and i will pay you the same courtesy.

Re: Microsoft Silverlight Coming to the Internet Tablet
 

Sorry, I misunderstood you. I do understand the difference between bundled applications and OS components.
Silverlight 2.0 implements the same version of the CLR as .NET 3.0. The included libraries are a small subset of the .Net Bass Class Library. AFAIK, the CLR is fairly lightweight and small.

Re: Microsoft Silverlight Coming to the Internet Tablet
 

So, what I was thinking of, as a framework that would support something comparable to Java Applictions (and not just Java Applets) is bigger than Silverlight? And Silverlight is more comparable to "just" Java Applet support, and/or Flash*?


(* there are some stand-alone flash players, but they're really just a "here, run this applet in something other than your browser", from what I understand ...)

Re: Microsoft Silverlight Coming to the Internet Tablet
 

Looks like we're in two camps. One group feels it is a welcome addition to have, even if there's a (proven?) risk of being associated with Redmond, and another group who feels we don't need the big bad wolf.

There's something to be said for having this obscure device (face it - it's still obscure) with an incredibly intelligent and active support community. It's like we have our little secret and we only want to share with those we know would appreciate it. On the other hand, do we sacrifice the potential of success to stave off the risk of annihilation? Take a look at how most successful companies became big. They took risks.

I'm with TexRat. Let's take the risk. It'll improve market penetration of the ITs. Maybe as a result we won't have to pay $470 for the next version...

Re: Microsoft Silverlight Coming to the Internet Tablet
 

I would be inclined to agree, except that particular company has a longstanding tradition of taking things over and closing out development to all but those who wish to pay for an SDK.

So, the trade-off is: smaller user-base with open source software and free SDK, or larger user base, possibly lower per-unit costs, and commercial software with no or prohibitively expensive SDK.

It seems to me, there's already plenty of PDA and small electronic organizers on the market with closed source applications in software or firmware. I'll take my open source SDK and applications on my linux-based internet tablet, thank you very much.

MS can continue mucking about in the desktop/server market, and leave us alone.

Re: Microsoft Silverlight Coming to the Internet Tablet
 

I fear the day that ITT would become like the average Iphone forum. If you have ever visited one you know what I mean.

Re: Microsoft Silverlight Coming to the Internet Tablet
 

there was a lot of discussion on the OESF (mainly zaurus, some simpad, some archos) forum about starting a section for Asus EEE. People wanted it because the normal eee forums were chock full of people asking the same dumb questions. People wouldn't buy a piano or guitar without expecting to have to learn how to use them and even taking some tuition, but they can buy an enormously complex computer and expect it to be easy.

this forum is excellent for friendly people and lack of junk. the OESF forum is also very good. in both cases it's the communities who've made the devices achieve so much! I probably wouldn't have bought an N800 without this resource to draw on, I lurked for months before taking the plunge.

/me climbs off his high horse.