"We worked with Microsoft to make sure that Moonlight was available to everyone on Linux and BSD."
Why doesn't Microsoft just open source Silverlight? Much as I applaud the energy and work of the Moonlight developers, I personally would have a lot of difficulty with donating my time to do a multi-billion-dollar corporation's job.
Do you feel the same way about MySQL, Java, or Eclipse, for example? Why is it so bad that a group of developers are motivated to port a commercial product? And why is the reaction "MS should do this" instead of "Thanks MS for helping out".
I just don't get the animosity around Mono and Moonlight. Those guys have balls, and they're doing great work to bring a set of technologies and tools to Linux. Why is this in any way bad? And please leave the IP poisoning arguments at the door--those have been thoroughly addressed and that horse has been beaten to a bloody pulp.
It's just strange that MS uses its resources, both directly and indirectly, to help Mono/Moonlight when it just could opensource (parts of) .NET/Silverlight.
Patents or some other intellectual property rights might be an issue. Opensourcing a product of that scale can be very complicated. Java comes to mind, for example. It took Sun about two years from the initial announcement to a completely opensource release of JDK.
I was just expressing my personal opinion. I have nothing against them porting whatever they like. I just don't understand the motivation myself.
Just think, what if the same effort that went into copying Silverlight had been put into creating a true open source alternative to Flash and Silverlight?
not sure why this got downvoted? by dealt with, i meant: can i watch netflix on linux yet and have the drm issues been legally+properly dealt with to ensure viewers can enjoy the experience and copyright owners feel protected?
Why doesn't Microsoft just open source Silverlight? Much as I applaud the energy and work of the Moonlight developers, I personally would have a lot of difficulty with donating my time to do a multi-billion-dollar corporation's job.