We Linux users know what Windows can (and can’t) do. For a Windows user to say Linux sleeps with the fishes means that s/he hasn’t tried it. Most of Windows 7′s “innovations” have been part of Linux desktop UI for years.

Clearly, MS just want to try to head off the convergence around around SVG (we’re developing shit-hot UIs with SVG and Canvas right now), currently supported out-of-the-box by all major browsers (not counting IE in that, of course) and Adobe’s Flash.

This is a control issue, pure and simple. There are certainly good ideas within Silverlight (with the amount of resources poured into it, I’d hope so!), but if Microsoft was anything other than a predatory monopoly trying to screw its users/developers, why wouldn’t it contribute to the existing market leaders? Like IE 7+, Silverlight is another unnecessary “Me too!” technology that succeed based purely on inertia – they’re otherwise unworthy of hype – its handful of innovations could be put into something *truly* cross platform and open standards based, that all developers could get behind.

I think it’s hard for MS to justify trying to introduce any Windows-only tech these days – anything they’ve introduced is an unacceptable compromise of everyone’s freedom, and their bet-hedging that Windows will not longer be the dominant platform in a few years time. Given the huge percentage of desktop development that’s explicitly cross-platform these days (yes, targeting Linux, too), MS’s future domination of the desktop isn’t something my business would bet on.

Let’s face it: Client side Linux sleeps w/ fishes. It’s not like you have got a ton of Linux desktop users out there warranting the effort to develop a SilverLight for Linux.

Silverlight is solving real problems for many of us. SVG? Are you kidding me? We’re talking about sophisticated apps with better-than-desktop UI capabilities, not cute little vector graphics. Why don’t you actually investigate it and see what it can do before you judge it? I don’t understand why many open-source advocates (an I am one) are so willing to throw the baby out with the bath water.

Silverlight is cross-platform. That means there are going to be a log of Windows-specific features that you just won’t have access to. Even the COM support won’t necessarily help, as it requires the COM components to already be on the machine and registered.

A perfect example of this is the Visual Studio and Expression Studio products. Silverlight just isn’t designed to support such large, invasive applications. We also aren’t seeing features like file associations, let alone jump lists.

That said, I suspect that many applications are going to fall into the gray zone between WPF and Silverlight.

Dave

Perhaps you can suggest something that I have clearly missed about it’s appeal?

Dave (@lightweight)