Submitted by “The past 21 days have been some of the most intense hacking days that I have ever had and the same goes for my team that worked 12 to 16 hours per day every single day – including weekends – to implement Silverlight for Linux in record time. We call this effort Moonlight.”
It’s a really nice report.
I hope the team continues to make progress like this and reports talking about it. I’m sure lots of projects can benefit from shared experiences like this one.
I mean, where is MS’s Adobe PDF killer, whose name I can’t even remember? Unless I miss my guess, Silverlight is destined to go the same way. The days when Microsoft could silence opposition by simply whispering about a new product are long gone, and we’re all, including Microsoft and Windows users, better off for it.
It’s named XPS, or XML Paper Specification. Read more about it here:
http://blogs.msdn.com/xps/
PDF killer? Microsoft wanted to ship Windows with PDF support but the people at Adobe put a stop to it rather quickly. Blame Adobe, not Microsoft.
Twenex will even blame Microsoft for his bad upbringing buddy let aside PDF and XPS.
He is a well-known stallman baby
Twenex will even blame Microsoft for his bad upbringing
And you’d blame me for yours. Not that I had one.
You are a stallman baby:)
Yeah what objection could Adobe possibly have to the “embrace and extend” kings using their format ?
have you ever tried to export a PDF to another format and have it retain its formatting (other than a jpg) this is where the XPS format excels (no pun intended)besides the fact that right now the PDF format is everywhere so people go to download it and if unchecked they recieve Photoshop Starter and Google toolbar this is not right for the simple fact that the PDF format is controlled by Adobe and it is treated like a standard format around the world why should they have to add crapware to a viewer of a standard format 40 mb download to view a goverment document where as the XPS is around 2 mb (if MS would do this everyone would flip out)
XPS might well be better than PDF. But you know what? Plenty people think Linux/UNIX is better than Windows, (and have done for a long time), and which has the largest marketshare?
Oh, and please learn about full stops, or commas. Preferably both.
Plenty people think Linux/UNIX is better than Windows, (and have done for a long time), and which has the largest marketshare?
So, even more people think Windows is better.
Edited 2007-06-21 17:36
Where’s Windows’ largest mindshare? Among people who don’t know there are alternatives
Where’s Windows’ largest mindshare? Among people who don’t know there are alternatives
Yeah, right. People don’t know about.. Mac? Sure they don’t..
If people wanted to buy Mac, they’d (a) have to replace their hardware (b) have no choice but to buy from Apple.
Me Tarzan. No Choice Bad.
If people wanted to buy Mac, they’d (a) have to replace their hardware
Don’t you (Linux fanboys) say the same about Vista?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Document_Format
“PDF is an open standard and is now being prepared for submission as an ISO standard.”
http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/pressroom/pressreleases/200701/0129…
“Adobe will release the full PDF 1.7 specification as defined in the PDF Reference Manual available at http://www.adobe.com/devnet/pdf/pdf_reference.html to AIIM for the purpose of submission to ISO. The joint committee formed under AIIM will identify issues to be addressed, as well as proposed solutions, and will develop a draft document that will then be presented to a Joint Working Group of ISO for development and approval as an International Standard. “
“I mean, where is MS’s Adobe PDF killer, whose name I can’t even remember? “
Why in the world was a post consisting of self-admitted ignorance modded up to a 5?
Anyway, XPS (what you are trying to refer to) is great. (http://blogs.msdn.com/xps/ )
It has all of the capabilities of PDF and more (which is to be expected, since it came later), is XML-based, so it can be parsed by simply building semantic logic on top of an XML parser, and produces smaller file sizes than PDF (mainly because an XPS document is a zip file (containing XML, pictures, etc)).
Admittedly, the only XPS files that I’ve viewed are the session docs from the Mix07 site, but they’re very good, and the XPS Viewer EP app (which I use to view XPS files on XP) loads a hell of a lot faster than Adobe Reader. :p
No, it’s not going to “kill” PDF, but that’s because of PDF’s inertia, not because of any technical merits (just like your ilk says about Windows, right?).
BTW, Adobe used legal threats (EU-based, of course) to make Microsoft strip XPS support out of Office 2007 (these were the same threats they used to make them strip PDF support out of Office 2007), so that users must download a plugin to add XPS/PDF support to Office 2007. Adobe also used the same threats to make Microsoft remove XPS from Vista, except for the printer spooler backend (though OEMs can install the full XPS on their own). So you ask, “where is it?”, well maybe that’s your answer as to why *you* can’t find it (not that you’re really interested finding it or learning about it in the first place).
http://news.com.com/Office%2C+Vista+changed+in+wake+of+Adobe+th…
http://blogs.msdn.com/andy_simonds/archive/2006/06/02/XPSAdobe.aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/brian_jones/archive/2006/06/02/613702.aspx
Reading the above posts, I see that this is yet another thread that you completely derailed, twenex. Congratulations.
Edited 2007-06-21 19:43
Adobe imho had every right to complain about that, since if MS was to include XPS but exclude PDF they would essentially be attempting to strong-arm users into using XPS. Still, though, the fact that it’s their fault PDF was removed from Office in the first place just smacks of arrogance and short-sightedness. I wonder what the discussions with MS were like that led them down that path.
Edited 2007-06-21 19:55
Get your facts correct MOochman. MS wanted to add ability to write PDF documents in Office but Adobe stopped them from doing that.
MS was never for excluding PDF.
I mean, where is MS’s Adobe PDF killer, whose name I can’t even remember? Unless I miss my guess, Silverlight is destined to go the same way.
Who cares? Just like Mono, Moonlight isn’t dependent on Microsoft. The Mono code and the Moonlight code is all open and if MS dies then they can both continue on. Silverlight isn’t very popular at the moment and with the cross platform nature of Mono Moonlight could become more used and more popular than Silverlight. Stranger things have happened.
Who cares? Just like Mono, Moonlight isn’t dependent on Microsoft. The Mono code and the Moonlight code is all open and if MS dies then they can both continue on. Silverlight isn’t very popular at the moment and with the cross platform nature of Mono Moonlight could become more used and more popular than Silverlight. Stranger things have happened.
If there’s one thing in Linux that might violate MS patents (and notice I say if and might), it’s Mono.
EDIT: Given Java et al., I seriously doubt any .NET/Mono related patents are valid. But when I think about it, that’s probably why they went after Novell first. As long as they managed to suck in Xandros, Novell and those other companies, it probably doesn’t matter which order they did it in. They probably just went after Novell first because they want to stake their future on .Net.
Edited 2007-06-22 09:03
If there’s one thing in Linux that might violate MS patents (and notice I say if and might), it’s Mono.
Mono doesn’t violate MS patents. First of all C# is a standard. Second the implementation of Mono/.NET is obviously a copy of Java, the Mono team would have more to worry about from SUN than MS, and now that Java is GPL I doubt we ever will hear from SUN on this issue. Third Mono uses its own drawing functions, widgets, and so on. Mono is basically a reimplementation of a standard programming language with its own VM and libraries.
The Linux kernel has more of a chance to be patent infringing than anything else considering it is one of many POSIX operating systems.
…
POSIX is a standard, also.
The Linux kernel hasn’t any chance of infringing MICROSOFT’s patents through Linux’s close resemblance to a POSIX-compliant system.
What is more, many parties with UNIX products have pledged patents in defence of Linux:
http://www.patent-commons.org/
So, in fact, Windows is considerably more likely to be in trouble (in the event of a countersuit) over POSIX/UNIX patents than Linux is.
I’m looking forward to being able to watch streaming movies from netflix on Ubuntu when Moonlight ships. Netflix isn’t the only one signed up to use that platform either (mostly for video distribution – that’ll be Silverlight’s primary market it seems). I don’t see this going anywhere except onto my Ubuntu desktop.
These guys are crazy… De Icaza *LIVES* on his computer
Microsoft goes and creates a piece of closed-source technology (a pretty neat one at that)… but then invites/challenges the Mono project to create an open source version? Why not just MsPL Silverlight from the outset?
Additionally, regarding the coding they’ve just done: I would not want to be part of that team. The mental exhaustion is probably pretty extreme now…
They did, at least in part: The DLR is licensed under the MsPL. The Mono project is using the DLR unchanged. The rest would have had to be reimplemented anyway since it is unlikely that it is written in a cross-platform manner.
Microsoft has provided advice and support to the developers of Mono. What more do you want, for them to write it themselves?
“Microsoft has provided advice and support to the developers of Mono. What more do you want, for them to write it themselves?”
Well, yes, especially when they claim (as on the silverlight website) that it is cross-platform, which quiet clearly it isn’t.
It’s designed to be cross platform. It still needs to be ported and tested on another platform. And they picked the one they wanted: Mac OS X and Firefox.
Part of their issue is that they don’t want Microsoft devs reading any GPL code because they are afraid that it could taint MSFT source. Given that, they needed a third-party to do the linux port in the absence of enough benefit to their business to be worth “burning” a few developers who will then never be able to work on anything they want to remain closed.
Reading GPL code doesn’t “taint” anything. Anoyon, anyone at all, is given the freedom by the GPL license to study the source code.
The only restriction on GPL source code is that you may not re-distribute it other than under the GPL.
Therefore, if Microsoft coders want to study GPL source code, they can, and if they want to implement its functionality in Microsoft products, they can … as long as they do not copy it literally.
All Microsoft has to do is read the source code, understand it, and then write their own work-alike code.
The GPL is a copyright license, not a patent license. The GPL license puts no restrictions at all on copying of the ideas embedded in the code, the only restrictions are on the literal source code itself.
Making the switch to Linux for me is getting easier with efforts like this hardware drivers used to be the stopping point to trying to switch then after that was the ability to play media I already had (wmv,asf,wma) now that that is taken care of I can actually use it for more than a week without losing my way of digital life (media I like, websites and so forth) adding the ability to use Siverlight is a great thing in my eyes because I know after its released I can go to NBC or Fox or any other area and be able to watch full episodes (not that they are right now besides Fox) in other words I don’t want to be limited by what I can watch on the internet just because of the OS I choose.
Now if Silverlight takes off and becomes widely used on the web, every Linux distribution under the sun will be shipped with Mono and Moonlight. The idea of having Microsoft-controlled .NET and Silverlight technologies as part of the de facto standard software on Linux distributions doesn’t make me jump for joy. Microsoft control these specs, and what about the patents? I suppose it’s okay for Miguel though, since he works for Novell.
No FUD please, read about Moonlight here:
http://squeedlyspooch.com/blog/archives/002091.html
You don’t need Mono to use Moonlight.
Oh, okay. Not FUD, I just misunderstood the article. There was a giant Mono logo on it, and there was a lot to read, so it’s easy to miss things that way.
Still aint happy about how they’re bigging up the MS-controlled technologies, though.
What I dislike about it is that Microsoft have to re-invent every sinle perfectly good standard. Why doesn’t Silverlight use PDF & SVG, these are recognised standards? No, they have to invent even more bloated, over complicated, XML-type formats to encumber everybody and keep themselves at the front of compatibility.
Why doesn’t Silverlight use PDF & SVG, these are recognised standards?
Let’s try to answer that…
Well Silverlight is a “flash-alternative” so PDF is irrelevant (also it’s not an open standard).
SVG is already another flash alternative, which currently it did not succeed in gaining much mind-share, so that is also irrelevant.
To compare Silverlight with flash (on standards):
– SL is using standard containers (ZIP)
– Sl is using standards based language to define GUI/distribution (XML/XAML) (actually it provides a general canvas model)
– SL allows using JavaScript*, Python, Ruby or C# to generate interactive applications.
– Finally it allows videos distributed in VC1 format (unfortunately it’s also standardized)
I do not think Microsoft is to blame here. If Adobe allowed them to distribute PDF or Flash based solutions they would. This is similar to Java/J++ case, where Sun disallowed Microsoft’s distribution of Java, then they had to build .Net as an alternative.
* Javascript can be done with Flash, too
Edited 2007-06-21 20:51
You make it sound like Microsoft didn’t make their own Java implementation deliberately incompatible with Sun’s own and thus subvert it.
As far I know Microsoft wanted to migrate to J++ on Windows, and the actual “conflict” was mainly in two areas:
– They distributed a better GUI library along with AWT (Swing was not released yet)
– They allowed easy integration of COM objects without going through JNI
The first part can be negotiable, but I don’t think Microsoft could’ve given up the second.
Currently there are thousands of software companies building windows (COM) components in various languages. Many firms just cannot leave that functionality easily.
Back then, if Sun had allowed the COM bridge to be standardized they would’ve lost the control of Java on the desktop, yet Java would become the “de facto” programming language on Windows.
Now Java is not a significant player on the desktop anyways, and .Net is rapidly becoming the “de facto” platform on Windows.
A compromise would bring some benefits, Sun just did not chose that way.
Edited 2007-06-21 21:25
Benefits to whom? That in no way contradicts what I said in a single sentence. You’d have a Java that isn’t Java, how would that have benefited Sun, or anyone other than Microsoft?
[ Sorry, this has became quite off topic ]
Basically it was Java language running on Java virtual machine using core Java libraries (usuming they’re complete), along with a few extra componemts.
So it would be Java that’s not Java, just because Sun isn’t controlling it anymore. Interesting…
Well, if Sun gave up a little bit control, the benefit would be to the Java language (on the desktop) — No C# would exist and Java would be the primary langauge for development on Windows (and Visual Studio). Additonally many other software firms that built component would switch to it as well.
Edited 2007-06-21 22:10
The point of Java is to write software once and run anywhere there is a virtual machine. What Microsoft did by adding their own crap on top of java is negate its purpose. How are people supposed to run com objects in Linux, or Mac OS X unless MS decided to grace those OSes? It’s the same thing they are doing with there openxml format, sure they say it’s open but there is no guarantee that you can open the software on anything else but an MS product. That is not an open format, or standard and that is not compliance with what Sun intended Java to be.
Benefits to whom?
Benefits to every ISV and custom software developer that needs to support Windows and interact with other Windows programs through COM. This probably amounts to ~80% of all custom software (number pulled out of my ass).
When you consider that COM is used everywhere in Windows, especially for scripting (VBScript, Windows Scripting Host, etc., which both Python, Perl support) and allows for scripting all of Microsoft Office, Windows itself (Scripting.FileSystemObject, WMI, etc.), and a whole host of other applications…
COM is the only way to go. Forcing everyone who wants to use COM to go through JNI is a good way to keep people from using COM, and thus a good way to prevent any form of platform integration.
Perhaps you’re fine with this (it’s no longer cross platform! the agony!), but I assure you that for company-internal custom software development this support is required! (Unless you want to re-write everything, which was the Java mantra…)
Can you spell “lock-in”?
COM was fine when it was constrained to an inter-process communication on just one machine. When it grew into DCOM and .NET it became just another proprietary Microsoft communication protocol.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Component_Object_Model#Related_technol…
When you put the words “proprietary” and “communication protocol” together, especially when you put them in the same context as “monopoly”, you are in effect spelling “anti-trust”, “lock-in”, “single vendor” and “lawsuit”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-trust
If Microsoft want this to be a inter-machine communication protocol, then they should open it up, and make it strictly non-proprietary. Then, once again, it would no longer be a “monopoly maintenance” technology, and it would become perfectly fine.
Edited 2007-06-22 12:55
You are rewriting history and making it up as you go. That simple.
Or do you think that Microsoft paid SUN a few billion bucks just to be nice. Give it a break. Microsoft’s PR machine is getting desperate.
“PDF is irrelevant (also it’s not an open standard)”
The majority of the PDF specs (PDF/A, PDF/X) are open already, the final pieces are on their way through that process to ISO (PDF/E, PDF/UA and PDF). i.e., you’re wrong.
Your answer on SVG is self-serving to Microsoft – they’ve ignored the format on their platform. Not much to say there, everyone else is at the SVG party though.
“Sl is using standards based language to define GUI/distribution (XML/XAML)”
Please show me the organisation and vendors that approved XAML as an open standard. Oh wait, you meant standard-as-used-by-ms? nvm
Flash is an awful burden on the web, and Silverlight wont be any better.
Let’s try to answer that…
http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/pressroom/pressreleases/200701/0129…
PDF is an open standard.
Let’s try to answer that…
Au contraire, SVG is a necessary component for complaince to W3C standards.
In fact, there is a long list of standard ways of doing things that Microsoft “spits the dummy” about.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W3C_standards#Standards
SVG is just one of them. SMIL and XForms are another two where it would be good if Microsoft went with the standard, rather than trying to do their own incompatible thing and try to use the web to lock content to Microsoft platforms and to lock people in to using Microsoft platforms.
Here is a good clue as to why this is important (for users) that Microsoft does not get away with trying to usurp web standards for its own ends:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Device_Independence
OMG Miguel is going to kill linux!
Sorry but a thread on anything mono related isn’t complete without it
NICE JOB GUYS! Heck of a job in a short period of time!
I do not agree with the Mono Project, its vision or its approach (I do not agree with building Microsoft technology on Linux), but the report just shows the “geniality” that Miguel and his team irradiate.
Nukes were also created by geniuses.
“Geniality” means more along the lines of ‘charisma’ and ‘niceness’, not ‘genius-ness’ (which isn’t even a word).
Besides, comparing Mono to a nuclear bomb is just not right. ^^;
Thanks a lot for your lesson!
You are right, I meant “genius-ness”
Anyway, I could not edit my comment.
i really dont care for mono or moonlight but what im wondering here is how long did it take microsoft to write the code for silverlight compared to 21 days for moonlight? :p
“i really dont care for mono or moonlight but what im wondering here is how long did it take microsoft to write the code for silverlight compared to 21 days for moonlight? :p”
Stupid OSS/mac noobs, sheesh, maybe it took them longer because they had to make the spec instead of just copying someone else’s work, gee maybe, ya think?
“I compile mah kernel I must know everything!”
And how much do I have to pay to get “protection”?
Browser: Opera/8.01 (J2ME/MIDP; Opera Mini/3.1.8295/1690; en; U; ssr)
With javafx you can do the same things like sh*tlight
and it is true crossplatform
http://musicpinboard.com/musicpinboard.jnlp
http://blogs.sun.com/chrisoliver/
I think people need to realise that although there are ‘legal risks’ as some like to call it, its not going to play out given that Microsoft’s main drive will be selling tools and services.
This (along with Office) are the two areas where Microsoft actually does produce really good software – and although Novell might work on mono, and provide 100% compatibility for pure .net applications, the underlying fact will still remain that those development tools are going to be overwhelmingly on the Windows platform.
Visual studio is second to none in development – and given how complex development of applications are, a good IDE is worth it’s weight in gold, its unfortunate that Linux doesn’t have one that is as pleasent to use as VS IDE. Same goes for Silverlight, Novell might offer compatibility, but the development will be overwhelmingly done on Windows platforms – so Microsoft won’t lose out.
Also, take into account another thing; Virtual Machines are complex beasts, even if Novell were to create 100% compatibility, performance will always be an issue. Right now their virtual machine is very conservative at best with its memory management/garbage collector – compared to .NET, it is very immature. It will take alot of time to get it up to enterprise standard, and even then, that doesn’t take into account the amount of money Microsoft can through at improving their own VM.
So I think the rep who said it years ago was right, they don’t need to litigate, they’ll just ‘out code’ the competition – and they’re right, Microsoft will always end up having the superior implementation, they know the technology, they know the platform, they have thousands upon thousands of the best minds working on this technology. They’ll always, as a result, have that edge over the competition.
Firstly, some information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_Studio
“Microsoft Visual Studio is Microsoft’s flagship software development product for computer programmers. It centers on an integrated development environment which lets programmers create standalone applications, web sites, web applications, and web services that run on any platforms supported by Microsoft’s .NET Framework (for all versions after 6). Supported platforms include Microsoft Windows servers and workstations, PocketPC, Smartphones, and World Wide Web browsers.”
Claim by kaiwai:
I’m sorry, but if Visual Studio produces output which is usable only on Microsoft platforms, then it is utterly useless rubbish. Not worth tuppence.
Edited 2007-06-22 03:28
I’m sorry, but if Visual Studio produces output which is usable only on Microsoft platforms, then it is utterly useless rubbish.
Which is curious, because I use Visual Studio to compile my kernels. Shock and horror, I’m not the only one. It works from kernels as small as Minux to as large as Linux.
Have you ever used it? If not, give it a shot; it’s free, and you’ve probably used something quite like it, as most of its features are eventually copied into the other IDEs available.
“I’m sorry, but if Visual Studio produces output which is usable only on Microsoft platforms, then it is utterly useless rubbish. Not worth tuppence.”
This really shows how little you know about Visual Studio. It’s not actually VS that produces this so called “rubbish”…VS hooks into the .Net compilers, and they generate the assemblies. You can swap out the compilers with other ones available for VS (such as Mono), which will happily compile code for whatever platform they are capable of targeting.
And given that the vast majority of software is developed for Windows – what is your point? Millions of developers don’t seem to have an issue with Visual Studio.
“Claim by kaiwai: Visual studio is second to none in development ”
Most likely true for most developers creating *Windows* programs.
“I’m sorry, but if Visual Studio produces output which is usable only on Microsoft platforms, then it is utterly useless rubbish. Not worth tuppence.”
I’m sure everyone who makes a living using it disagrees.
And because Intel has thousands of engineers working on their compiler, and because it is focused on *their* chips, ICC will always be better and always be ahead of gcc.
but what if I am compiling for AMD, or ARM, or Mips ?
what does this have to do what mono vs. Net ?
Your argumentation fails to persuade because you are making a false comparison. Miguel does not think that mono is a better implementation of .Net than .Net is for the Windows platform. Mono does much much more than .Net does-it runs on Linux, Windows, MacOSX, *BSD, Solaris- it runs on a half-dozen different CPU’s, it supports multiple GUI’s, it offers a complete POSIX library.
And you argue as if the fact that Microsoft has incredible amounts of money and incredible numbers of developers that it *therefore* automatically will always be better, more mature, more tested, more optimized etc. This is pure nonsense. Miguel and co. probably wrote more lines of code in those 2 weeks than 200 Microsoft developers write in 1 year. How many times can Microsoft woo the public with grand promises and *completely* FAIL to deliver on said promises before people who argue like you quit bringing up the same poor arguments. If money and size was an expression of quality then their would be no independent film makers, no alternative music scene, no non-profit theater troops, no handwork/craftsmanship, no Free software etc.
Microsoft has had to implement incredibly cumbersome management systems to coordinate the incredible numbers of developers. These management systems are horribly inefficient. Between an individual developer and the code he/she writes and their code being pushed into a final product there are so many layers of management, so many procedures, so many people weighing in with the right to revoke the code, that so much work is wasted, that the wheel is so often re-invented, that so little code is shared, and so many mistakes repeated so often -welcome to the real world.
Undoubtedly Microsoft excels at certain things, some of their products *are* of exceptional quality, some things like their documentation tend to be of a very high quality-due to hundreds if not thousands of paid technical writers. But for every truly great Microsoft product there a dozen total flops, for every version that really rocks you have a half-dozen versions that are duds. And as always is the case with proprietary software-you don’t see the incredible amounts of shoddy code produced, except when massive mistakes are made, which are par course, and they end up in the final public release of the product.
It is amazing how people are so blinded by what they don’t see-as if the fact that you don’t see all the mistakes being made explains the apparent perfection of what you do see…..
I think you misunderstand both Microsoft and Intel here. The incredibly important, but self-contained, pieces of code such as important Windows Subsystems and optimize backends, or GCs and code optimizers, are written by rather small teams of extremely talented and seasoned developers. There is little process bloat for the most skilled developers because they are trusted and often the processes are there to make the higher-level developers write code that conforms more to the low-level devs’ practices.
Process and management bloat exists. And it shows itself in things like UI, which naturally takes a lot more people to create than GCs, JITs, or VMs. This is why apple produces better and more striking UIs than Microsoft… they have fewer people. And this is why a small team of Novell engineers can do something like Silverlight, which is far more self-contained since it is really just a rendering library and an adaptation of a VM.
Oh, and Microsoft took several years to make Silverlight (it used to be called WPF/E). Miguel and team are quite talented, but also they had the advantage of having a working design to go from (the Silverlight team probably had to do some experimentation). They also had advice from people who had already been there (Microsoft engineers). Just goes to show: code is a lot easier than design.
>I’m sorry, but if Visual Studio produces output which is
>usable only on Microsoft platforms, then it is utterly
>useless rubbish.
And you believe everything on wikipedia?