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?