Update: the “won” in the title is just me playing with the Linus quote at the beginning of the article. This post is meant as just informational, as stated in “I am not going to comment on good and bad implications in it” below.
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If Microsoft ever does applications for Linux it means I’ve won.
Has Linus finally won, is Microsoft distributing software for Linux ? That’s what is claimed by Miguel de Icaza in a blog post:
Today Microsoft offers the media codecs for Linux on x86 and Linux x86-64 platforms. We are looking for your feedback to find out for which other platforms we should ship binary codecs.
– Miguel de Icaza – Moonlight’s Media Stack
While I am not going to comment on good and bad implications in it, I’ll just point out the following things:
- The claim talks about binaries. That is: no source code.
- They ask which other architecture ship the binary for, thus are available to make Microsoft software available on non Intel architectures.
- Some possibly scaring things emerge from a quick net lookup (btw: article wrote in 2003 ?!?)
What do you all think about this ?
I haven’t be able to find a download page for the player codecs. Any help ?
Found the codecs:
- i386: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=133186
- x86_64: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=133816
See the LICENSE file contained in last MoonLight’s revision for licensing info.
Hello,
The codecs are automatically downloaded when you go to a page that requires the Microsoft Media Pack.
First install Moonlight either from http://www.go-mono.com/moonlight, or from source code, and then go to a page like silverlight.net/fox
Miguel.
I think your conclusion is flawed. First, a codec is not an application. I really doubt that Linus meant simply “code produced at Microsoft” when he said applications. Second, if Microsoft ever “loses” it is increasingly apparent that it will not be to Linux. The increase in web based applications makes the browser (and related media plugins) the most threatening “platform” to Windows. If you think that Microsoft distributing browser plugins which run on Linux means that Linux has won then I think you’ve lost sight of the target.
Hi Miguel. Are such codec binaries dependent or indipendent from mono ? (Do they require mono to work?)
Is there any download URL for just the codec ?
Is Microsoft itself the author, or does it outsourced the work to Novell ?
@Beerfan, thanks for pointing out. I wasn’t meaning to come to any conclusion, the post i just meant to be informational. The “won” is just a play with the Torvalds quote.
[...] Forenza: Has Torvalds finally won? The father of Linux once said that he’d have won if Microsoft ever makes an app for Linux. [...]