Microsoft Silverlight

Microsoft Silverlight
Developer(s) Microsoft Corporation
Initial release April 2007; 4 years ago (2007-April)
Stable release 5.0.61118.0[1]  (November 19, 2011; 2 months ago (2011-11-19)[2]) [±]
Preview release [±]
Operating system Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Windows Phone, and Symbian OS[3][4]
Platform Intel x86 32-bit, x86-64, ARM and S60
Type Application framework, run-time environment and multimedia framework
License Freeware
Website www.silverlight.net

Microsoft Silverlight is an application framework for writing and running rich Internet applications, with features and purposes similar to those of Adobe Flash. The run-time environment for Silverlight is available as a plug-in for web browsers running under Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. While early versions of Silverlight focused on streaming media, current versions support multimedia, graphics and animation, and give developers support for CLI languages and development tools. Silverlight is also one of the two application development platforms for Windows Phone.

Over the course of about 5 years Microsoft has released 5 versions: The first version was released in 2007; the latest version was released on 9 December 2011. It is compatible with multiple web browsers used on Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X operating systems. Mobile devices, starting with Windows Phone and Symbian (Series 60) phones, were expected to be supported in 2010.[5][6]

A free software implementation named Moonlight, developed by Novell in cooperation with Microsoft, is available to bring Silverlight versions 1 and 2 functionality to Linux, FreeBSD and other open source platforms - although some Linux distributions do not include it, citing redistribution and patent concerns.[7]

Contents

Overview

Silverlight provides a retained mode graphics system similar to Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), and integrates multimedia, graphics, animations and interactivity into a single runtime environment. In Silverlight applications, user interfaces are declared in Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML) and programmed using a subset of the .NET Framework. XAML can be used for marking up the vector graphics and animations. Silverlight can also be used to create Windows Sidebar gadgets for Windows Vista.[8]

Silverlight supports H.264 video, Advanced Audio Coding, Windows Media Video (WMV), Windows Media Audio (WMA) and MPEG Layer III (MP3) media content[9] across all supported browsers without requiring Windows Media Player, the Windows Media Player ActiveX control or Windows Media browser plug-ins. Because Windows Media Video 9 is an implementation of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) VC-1 standard, Silverlight also supports VC-1 video. According to the end user license agreement VC-1 and H.264 are only licensed for the "personal and non-commercial use of a consumer".[10] Silverlight, since version 3, supports the playback of H.264 video.[11] Silverlight makes it possible to dynamically load Extensible Markup Language (XML) content that can be manipulated through a Document Object Model (DOM) interface, a technique that is consistent with conventional Ajax techniques. Silverlight exposes a Downloader object which can be used to download content, like scripts, media assets or other data, as may be required by the application.[12] With version 2, the programming logic can be written in any .NET language, including some derivatives of common dynamic programming languages like IronRuby and IronPython.[13]

Adoption

According to statowl.com, Microsoft Silverlight has a penetration of 64.16% on May 2011. Usage on July 2010 was 53.54%, whereas Adobe Flash is installed on 95.26% of browsers, and Java support is available on 76.51% of browsers (May 2011); these statistics makes Adobe Flash the market leader in terms of penetration.[14] As of 26 August 2011 (2011 -08-26), 0.3% sites are using Silverlight,[15] whereas site usage of Adobe Flash is around 27%.[16] Usage of Java on sites during the same time period is around 4%.[17]

Supported platforms

Desktop computers

Silverlight requires an x86 processor with Streaming SIMD Extensions (SSE) support. Supported processors include the Intel Pentium III and up, and the AMD Athlon XP and up. Newer AMD Duron models are also supported.

The following table presents an availability and compatibility matrix of Silverlight versions for various operating systems and web browsers.

OS/browser Internet Explorer 6 SP1 or later Internet Explorer 7 Internet Explorer 8 or later Mozilla Firefox 3 or later SeaMonkey Safari Opera Google Chrome
Windows 7 N/A N/A 1, 2, 3, 4 1, 2, 3, 4 1, 2 1, 2; via NPAPI Unofficially[18][19] 2, 3, 4
Windows Server 2008 R2 N/A N/A 1, 2, 3, 4 No 1, 2 1, 2; via NPAPI Unofficially[18][19] 2, 3, 4
Windows Vista
Windows Server 2008		 N/A 1, 2, 3, 4 1, 2, 3, 4 1, 2, 3, 4 1, 2 1, 2; via NPAPI Unofficially[18][19] 2, 3, 4
Windows XP
Windows Server 2003
Windows Home Server		 1, 2, 3, 4 1, 2, 3, 4 1, 2, 3, 4 1, 2, 3, 4 2 Unofficially 1, 2; via NPAPI Unofficially[18][19] 2, 3, 4
Windows 2000 (KB891861 required) 2, 3, 4 N/A N/A Unofficially[20] No 2; via NPAPI Planned[18] N/A
Mac OS 10.4/10.5 PowerPC N/A N/A N/A 1 N/A 1 Planned [18] N/A
Mac OS 10.4/10.5 Intel N/A N/A N/A 1, 2, 3, 4 N/A 1, 2, 3, 4 Planned [18] 3, 4 Unofficially

An upcoming Opera support was promised since 3 May 2007, when David Storey, the Chief Web Opener at Opera, revealed a Microsoft poster for MIX conference that had shown Opera integration as a part of Silverlight 1.1.[18] However, As of December 2011, Silverlight still does not officially support Opera. Silverlight 1.0 could be made to work Opera via a hack.[19] Starting from Silverlight 2, hacks were no longer required.[21]

On Linux and FreeBSD, the functionality is available via Moonlight.[22][23] Moonlight is available for the major Linux distributions, with support for Firefox, Konqueror, and Opera browsers, provided it was obtained through Novell.[24] Miguel de Icaza has expressed an interest in working with developers from other operating systems (BSD, Solaris) and other browsers (Konqueror, WebKit and Opera) to ensure that Moonlight works fine on their systems.[25] Availability of Moonlight version 1.0 for FreeBSD was announced in March 2009,[26] but has been since been reported actually not to work.[27]

Mobile devices

Silverlight is the primary development environment for Windows Phone and is based on Silverlight 4. For previous versions of Windows Mobile, the first Community Technology Preview (CTP) for Windows Mobile 6 was expected in the second quarter of 2008, but it still not officially announced. Microsoft has stopped focusing on bringing Silverlight to Windows Mobile 6.x.[28] Nokia has announced plans to make Silverlight for Mobile available for S60 on Symbian OS, as well as for Series 40 devices and Nokia internet tablets.[29][30] Silverlight for Mobile supports Silverlight 2 content and .NET languages.[5] Silverlight for Windows Phone 7.5 is based on Silverlight 4.[31]

Development tools

Silverlight applications can be written in any .NET programming language. As such, any development tools which can be used with .NET languages can work with Silverlight, provided they can target the Silverlight CoreCLR for hosting the application, instead of the .NET Framework CLR. Microsoft has positioned Microsoft Expression Blend as a companion tool to Visual Studio for the design of Silverlight User Interface applications. Visual Studio can be used to develop and debug Silverlight applications. To create Silverlight projects and let the compiler target CoreCLR, Visual Studio requires the Silverlight Tools for Visual Studio.[32]

A Silverlight control is a ZIP format file with extension .XAP containing a list of one or more .NET managed assemblies (.DLL files) along with the AppManifest.XAML file containing this list along with the entry point (class and assembly). It can be hosted in any HTML file using an object tag, for example: <object data="data:application/x-silverlight-2," type="application/x-silverlight-2" width="100%" height="100%"><param name="source" value="MySilverLightControl.xap"/></object>

A Silverlight project contains the Silverlight.js and CreateSilverlight.js files which initializes the Silverlight plug-in for use in HTML pages, a XAML file for the UI, and code-behind files for the application code. Silverlight applications are debugged in a manner similar to ASP.NET applications. Visual Studio's CLR Remote Cross Platform Debugging feature can be used to debug Silverlight applications running on a different platform as well.[33]

In conjunction with the release of Silverlight 2, Eclipse was added as a development tool option.[34]

Licensing

An April 2007 PC World report suggested that Microsoft intended to release certain parts of Silverlight source code as open source software,[35] but a week later Sam Ramji, director of platform technology strategy at Microsoft, contradicted the rumors by confirming that the company had no plans to open Silverlight.[36] Some controls that ship with Silverlight are available under the Microsoft Public License as a part of a separate project known as the Silverlight Toolkit.[37]

Silverlight's proprietary nature is a concern to competition since it may harm the open nature of the World Wide Web. Advocates of free software are also concerned Silverlight could be another example of Microsoft's embrace, extend and extinguish strategy.[38] Both Microsoft Silverlight and Adobe Flash are proprietary.[39] Flash's file formats are publicly documented standards,[40][41] as are Silverlight's.[42][43] However, the communication between a Flash player and a server is done by the proprietary protocol RTMP. Both Flash and Silverlight use patent-encumbered audio and video codecs.

Mono Moonlight implementation

Main article: Moonlight (runtime)

The Mono team is currently developing Moonlight, a free and open-source implementation of both the Silverlight 1 and 2 runtimes.[44]

The project is officially supported by Microsoft who,[22] under an agreement with Novell, has made additional specifications, access to the Silverlight Base Class Library APIs, binary codecs and test cases available to the Mono team,[23] none of which are available to other members of the public.[45]

The "covenant" under which Novell has been granted this exclusive access also specifies conditions that are incompatible with the licensing that covers most other free and open source software. As examples, it specifically requires that the software must have been "obtained directly from Novell or through an Intermediate Recipient" and that it must be "not licensed under GPLv3 or a Similar License".[24] Some free software proponents have criticized the covenant.[46]

Silverlight has received criticism for not living up to its cross-platform operating system compatibility promises, especially on Linux systems compared to its extensive support on Apple and Microsoft desktops for Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Chrome. Even though Microsoft is officially collaborating on the Moonlight project, Bruce Chizen, who was CEO of Adobe Systems at the time, which sells the competing proprietary Flash platform, questioned "the commitment of Microsoft to keep the Silverlight platform compatible with other OS besides Windows".[47] His concerns are based on "examples from history" where, he argues, Microsoft has launched products with promises of ongoing cross-platform compatibility that no longer apply, for example Internet Explorer for UNIX and Windows Media Player for Mac.

Relationship to existing web standards

California and several other U.S. states also have asked a District Judge to extend most of Microsoft's antitrust case settlement for another five years,[48] citing "a number of concerns, including the fear that Microsoft could use the next version of Windows to 'tilt the playing field' toward Silverlight, its new Adobe Flash competitor," says a Seattle Post-Intelligencer article. The final judgment on the motion extended the settlement two years, to November 2009, but for reasons unrelated to Silverlight.[49] In Windows 7 the Silverlight web browser plug-in is not installed automatically, but is a downloadable optional update through Windows Update.[50]

Microsoft has been criticized for not using the Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) standard for Silverlight, which, according to Ryan Paul, editor of Open Ended, Ars Technica's open source software journal, is consistent with Microsoft's way of ignoring open standards in other products, as well.[51] However, according to David Betz, a .NET specialist and Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP), while it "seems to some to be a valid criticism and a good point to some of the web standards world, it is absolutely groundless and carries no weight." Microsoft would have had to alter the SVG specification in order to integrate it with .NET. Consequently, he thinks the "choice by Microsoft to use XAML over SVG, served to retain the SVG standard by not adding proprietary technology [to SVG]".[52].

History

Main article: Microsoft Silverlight History

References

  1. ^ "Get Microsoft Silverlight". Microsoft Silverlight home. Microsoft Corporation. http://www.microsoft.com/getsilverlight/Get-Started/Install/Default.aspx. Retrieved 9 December 2011. 
  2. ^ Date is extracted from the package digital certificate.
  3. ^ "Frequently Asked Questions § System requirements". Microsoft Silverlight product page. Microsoft Corporation. http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/faq/#sys-req. Retrieved 4 November 2010. 
  4. ^ Perez, Sarah (22 March 2010). "Silverlight for Symbian Plugin Now Available". Cool Stuff – A Channel 9 Blog. Microsoft Corporation. http://on10.net/blogs/sarahintampa/Silverlight-for-Symbian-Plugin-Now-Available/. Retrieved 4 November 2010. 
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  6. ^ Nickinson, Phil. "Silverlight Mobile rumored for WinMo 7". wpcentral. Mobile Nations. http://www.wpcentral.com/silverlight-mobile-rumored-winmo-7. Retrieved 19 March 2009. 
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  45. ^ Miguel de Icaza (3 March 2008). "Pre-Mix 08: Moonlight Updates". http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2008/Mar-03.html. Retrieved 8 March 2008. 
  46. ^ Jones, Pamela (28 May 2008). "Shining Some Light on Microsoft's Moonlight Covenant". Groklaw. http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080528133529454. Retrieved 25 August 2008. "Moonlight is safe from threat only if you get it from Novell AND DO NOT PASS IT ON, as there are no protections for downstream recipients...Unless those downstream recipients get it from an 'Intermediate Recipient' defined to only include authorized resellers...It's like walking into a store and saying "I'm only going to pay half of the amount I owe and I hereby disclaim my duty to pay full price." You can try that, but the law supersedes whatever intent or desire you've expressed. At minimum, this shows how clearly they DO NOT want to coexist with GPL'd code." 
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  51. ^ Paul, Ryan. "Microsoft's Flash-killer Silverlight steals the show at MIX07". http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070501-microsofts-flash-killer-steals-the-show-at-mix07.html. Retrieved 6 May 2007. "[Microsoft's] perpetual unwillingness (or perhaps inability) to build on existing standards is deeply detrimental to users and developers. Internet Explorer 7 is still the only major web browser that has no native support for SVG. By neglecting to use the SVG standard in Silverlight and XAML in favor of a limited and incompatible facsimile, Microsoft has once again needlessly ignored what could have been an opportunity to empower developers and help Internet Explorer catch up with browsers that are more functional and standards-compliant." 
  52. ^ Betz, David. "Silverlight's Adoption as Public De-Facto Standard". http://www.netfxharmonics.com/2007/06/Silverlights-Adoption-as-Public-De-Facto-Standard.aspx. Retrieved 20 June 2007. "Silverlight can be viewed as a web extension of the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), a .NET 3.0 technology and not simply as a new web technology. As such, it makes sense that Silverlight uses XAML, not SVG. If Silverlight were based on SVG, then there would be a chasm between Silverlight and the .NET Framework, but as it stands Silverlight's use of XAML makes it part of the .NET family. In fact, it’s important to note that elements in XAML usually represent objects in the .NET Framework; this would simply not be possible in SVG." 
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