Silverlight has an open implementation which Microsoft has assisted with. I'm not sure how far behind the official releases it lags, but it has an open implemen

Silverlight has an open implementation which Microsoft has assisted with. I'm not sure how far behind the official releases it lags, but it has an open implementation. For some things, using RIA frameworks eases development massively and lets you do stuff which would take ages to do in plain HTML/JS. Google themselves said Google Wave took around 2 years to make. Do you think it would have taken that much time using non-HTML technology? I'm not saying sticking to plain HTML/JS isn't admirable, but sometimes it's just not very practical. Also in this case it isn't required, so your potential scenario about being "stuck" with it doesn't really apply.in any meaningful way. In fact they have done just as you said, but given people the option to use a plugin to make things better. It degrades by default, which is helluva lot better than most sites out there. I don't see you cursing Flash in the same way as you do Silverlight in. What makes Adobe Flash any better?