No, Thanks
Uhm, no, thanks.
(Update: A few people have wondered if I did not install Silverlight merely because it is produced by Microsoft. This is not the case, as you can read in more detail in the discussions in the comments to this article. Thanks.)
Silverlight is one technology that I’m actually excited about. Not because of Microsoft, but because of Mono. Moonlight is a great Free alternative, and it seriously competes with Flash, which is not Free (Gnash just sucks).
Further, why not install Silverlight if you’re running a Mac. You know you’re using a proprietary operating system, right? Or does it not have anything to do with Freedom? I’m curious why you don’t want to install the plugin.
Interesting comment, thank you, Aaron.
Indeed it has something to do with open standards. I am not keen on installing Silverlight because I don’t think that we need yet another proprietary technology on the internet. I personally don’t think that the answer to Flash should be replacing it with Silverlight, or even Adobe AIR.
Thank you though for pointing out Moonlight, I hadn’t heard about it before.
Also, running a Mac is a different story. Supporting open source (and, like in my case, working on it) does not contradict with using a specific operating system.
At last, Silverlight Beta has a history of crashing Firefox — I am sure they have taken care of the bugs, but I just didn’t feel adventurous enough today to make a guinea pig of myself
I wonder whether they’ve considered that one reason why online viewership is so much lower than TV is because people have to install Silverlight. No doubt it wouldn’t make up the 300X difference, but it might double or quadruple the current number.
I agree that Silverlight Beta/OSX has a history of crashing Firefox and having a problematic installer – but FlashBlock from around 6 months ago also contributed to these problems as it blocked Silverlight content due to a FlashBlock bug.
Until SVG + SMIL + Video appears on “3 of the 4 main browsers”, we can’t complain too much about a company trying to give us what we all crave.
Sucks for you then, I’m enjoying high quality Olympic video on my Mac using Firefox without crashes.
Your reason of “having to do with opensource” sounds like anti-microsoft fud as I am sure you have flash installed and have multiple proprietary apps on your computer including your OS. In all honesty I don’t care, but you sound like a hard-core vegetarian who was just caught eating beef.
No one cares if you do or not, it’s all about the message you portray which in this case says a lot of negative things about you
Tom, relax. I am not sure you read my comment (number 2). It is easy to say something is “anti-Microsoft fud”, just because Microsoft is involved and somebody dares criticizing it.
As I am quite certain you haven’t understood, my concerns about Silverlight revolve around the fact that it tries, instead of working on open standards and extending the ones there are to give the world a “richer” web, it tries to replace one proprietary technology by the other. I doubt that that it is in the best interest of the user.
However, Aaron mentioned Silverlight’s “Moonlight” counterpart, followed by RichB pointing out that the open standards on the horizon aren’t mature enough to have made it into mainstream consumer products yet, which is why he thinks it is no wonder, even desirable, when a proprietary software attempts to fill this gap now. They are making very valid points here.
Long story short, while I understand you believe my initial blog post was arguably too short to provide a detailed message (something I think I have remedied in the comments following it), it may easily say a lot of negative things about you, if you diss people for not supporting your opinion without even having understood theirs.