Silverlight on Linux? We're in, says Mono founder
The Mono open-source project will create a Linux version of Silverlight by the end of year, said Miguel de Icaza, a Novell vice president and head of Mono.
At the Mix '07 conference on Monday, Microsoft touted the ability to write Silverlight Web applications that run on Internet Explorer, Firefox and the Safari browser on Mac OS. Next up for Silverlight is an edition for mobile devices, including Windows Mobile.
Asked about plans for Linux, Microsoft executives have been non-committal, saying that it will depend on demand.
But de Icaza, who is attending Mix, was able to commit without hesitating.
The port will allow someone to use .Net languages to create Web applications that run on any Linux device or other platforms that Mono supports. Mono is an open-source implementation of portions of Microsoft's .Net Framework for building cross-platform applications.
Mono developers stand to benefit from the Dynamic Language Runtime, which Microsoft announced on Monday. The code for the Dynamic Language Runtime, which allows dynamic language programmers to create .Net applications, will be released under a license that allows commercial companies to redistribute and modify the code.
Martin LaMonica is a senior writer for CNET's Green Tech blog. He started at CNET News in 2002, covering IT and Web development. Before that, he was executive editor at IT publication InfoWorld. E-mail Martin. 
As an added benefit, this will help Microsoft in its attempts to create another de-facto standard in the market.
And not to end on this, it should also fuel Ballmer's FUD about Microsoft patents that many free/open-source projects allegedly infringe.
Way to go...
/sarcasm off
- What _I_ like is the idea of
- by ethana2 August 9, 2007 11:27 PM PDT
- Adobe's proprietary flash "standard" getting mowed over like a... I'll spare you the vivid images.
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- Umm...hate to burst your bunnle
- by KRowe_ January 30, 2008 11:06 PM PST
- Flash getting replaced by Silverlight is just one proprietary software replacing another. BTW, I wouldn't put flash out of the game yet either. Nearly every commercial website on the planet uses some kind of flash banner it will be a long time before A) Silverlight is actually BETTER than flash B) Flash devs learn Silverlight C) Flash is actually replaced by Silverlight on most sites (which may never happen; still way too early to tell).
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(7 Comments)But I'm glad to see another proprietary standard die. It's high time it did. We know it's given our poor devs over at gnash enough trouble.
Personally, as a professional web developer, I wouldn't even consider using something like Silverlight for any serious work until it gets somewhere near the market penetration as flash currently has. Don't forget, even today, there are still plenty of Win 9x machines out there which will not run Silverlight. Linux, BSS, Solaris, Unix all run flash already as well (not to mention PDAs, Cellphones, etc..) so until Silverlight is actually something that that ~8% of the market which doesn't use Windows or Mac. Microsoft likes to claim that Silverlight is cross-platform compatible but the truth is it is only compatible with Win XP, Vista and Mac running on a standard x86 or PPC (with plenty of power).
Heres a full list of what it works on:
<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Silverlight#Compatibility" target="_newWindow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Silverlight#Compatibility</a>
Even if everything goes as MS plans; I wouldn't expect to see it in common use for at least 3-5 more years.
But the WPF big brother to silver light is a whole different ball of wax. Since it is meant to be integrated into applications. For applications it isn't nearly as important that they be x-platform compatible. In fact, I can see WPF being the Windows equivalent to Karbon for KDE (which just happens to be one of the coolest things to come to a desktop GUI since the taskbar, IMHO). If Microsoft keeps it up they might just have a desktop as cool as KDE is now in 4-5 years. :)