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Microsoft is supporting the development of Moonlight (an open-source implementation). The only part that Microsoft won't license is DRM. It can't be compared F

Microsoft is supporting the development of Moonlight (an open-source implementation). The only part that Microsoft won't license is DRM. It can't be compared Flash - Adobe has shown NO interest in helping open-source implementations.

evo_9 16y ago
Irregardless of MS's support of Moonlight, I question the entire effort. Wouldn't those talented programmer be put to better use on something with a higher chance of actually being used? I actually really dig mono and in my mind those resources would serve the community better focused on Mono, MonoDevelop, MonoTouch and MonoDroid. I just don't see wide-scale adoption of Silverlight/Moonlight whether it's available on *nix or not, with or with MS's blessing.
- pufuwozu 16y ago
  Moonlight isn't useless. There was a goal (a while back) of getting Moonlight embedded in Firefox (on all platforms). The goal hasn't come true but think about that. A general purpose VM embedded right in the browser! I have no doubt that Moonlight would be used if it was embedded within the browser. CIL is an open-specification, we already have many compilers that target it. We could run C#, Scala, Java, Python, Ruby, Haskell, etc on the client side. But all we're stuck with is a JavaScript VM to use.
  - evo_9 16y ago
    I think the fact that this thread has only the two of us interested sums of the interest in Silverlight/Moonlight in the hacker community. ;) I guess I wonder why I would want to write C#, Scala, etc on the clientside? Javascript is an already established cross-browser standard that I'd say any good developer is already familiar with; certainly jQuery strengthens the case for JS and also is bringing more people into the fold. And with Node.js - which clearly has a lot of interest in the HN community (node.js stories always get upvoted as well they should) - it seems that things are moving in the opposite direction from what moonlight/ms is trying to accomplish with this particular tech. For all those reasons it just seems like a fools errand to me.

evo_9 16y ago

Irregardless of MS's support of Moonlight, I question the entire effort. Wouldn't those talented programmer be put to better use on something with a higher chance of actually being used? I actually really dig mono and in my mind those resources would serve the community better focused on Mono, MonoDevelop, MonoTouch and MonoDroid. I just don't see wide-scale adoption of Silverlight/Moonlight whether it's available on *nix or not, with or with MS's blessing.

pufuwozu 16y ago
Moonlight isn't useless. There was a goal (a while back) of getting Moonlight embedded in Firefox (on all platforms). The goal hasn't come true but think about that. A general purpose VM embedded right in the browser! I have no doubt that Moonlight would be used if it was embedded within the browser. CIL is an open-specification, we already have many compilers that target it. We could run C#, Scala, Java, Python, Ruby, Haskell, etc on the client side. But all we're stuck with is a JavaScript VM to use.
- evo_9 16y ago
  I think the fact that this thread has only the two of us interested sums of the interest in Silverlight/Moonlight in the hacker community. ;) I guess I wonder why I would want to write C#, Scala, etc on the clientside? Javascript is an already established cross-browser standard that I'd say any good developer is already familiar with; certainly jQuery strengthens the case for JS and also is bringing more people into the fold. And with Node.js - which clearly has a lot of interest in the HN community (node.js stories always get upvoted as well they should) - it seems that things are moving in the opposite direction from what moonlight/ms is trying to accomplish with this particular tech. For all those reasons it just seems like a fools errand to me.