Novell shocked to be undermined. Everyone else points and laughs.

So, the news is out that Microsoft is bringing real Silverlight to Moblin. This is not Moonlight, this is the real-deal Silverlight 3 in a joint effort with Intel for Atom-based platforms.

A very interesting development.

Carving out a niche

The only “chance for survival” that Mono/Moonlight has is to grow in a niche where:

  1. Enough developers want to use .NET/Silverlight that the project is viable, but
  2. Microsoft doesn’t think there are enough developers to support

It is painfully clear that as the former increases, the latter decreases. Yet, this is where Novell and the Mono/Moonlight project has staked its claim.

Which .NET developers are going to develop for Moblin using Moonlight, now that the real-deal Hollyfield Silverlight has made the scene? I’ll give you a hint, unless the email address ends in @novell.com – zero.

And You Can Have It All … My Kingdom of Dirt

Here’s a pro-tip for Novell: the very instant Microsoft decides they may profit by releasing .NET for the iPhone, MonoTouch is dead in the water.

That Microsoft has not done so yet, only shows that they do not think it profitible. Which means you are betting on making money with a knock-off, where the original thinks it’s not worth it to bring in genuine goods. Yet.

Is .NET on Moblin far behind?

The Register nails the question:

If it’s that easy to port Microsoft Silverlight to Linux, why does the Moonlight project exist at all?

It reinforces the point that if Microsoft determines it is worth-while to bring .NET/Silverlight to a space that is currently Mono/Moonlight it will do so.

One of the favorite arguments of Mono apologists has been since Moonlight is basically only Mono+XML it was just as “safe” as Mono itself.

So, what I’m now wondering, is that if that is true – and I’m sure no Mono apologist has ever done anything but speak the truth – does Microsoft delivering Silverlight on Moblin means it could just as easily roll out .NET for Moblin if it so desired? Does the existence of Silverlight for Moblin mean that .NET for Moblin must exist?

Not Exactly the Royal “We”

I love this quote from the Silverlight blog announcing the move:

We see this is a clear extension of our current efforts with Novell where we are building an open source implementation of Silverlight called “Moonlight” that is targeted at the broad range of Linux–based PCs.

Note Microsoft claims “we” (meaning Novell and Microsoft) are building Moonlight. Microsoft says Moonlight is a Microsoft project.

I whole-heartedly agree that it is a “clear extension” of Microsoft’s current efforts. That is phase 2, after all.

This article was cross-posted at mono-nono.com.