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MS Silverlight To Stream Obama Inauguration Events
Posted by
kdawson
on Sat Jan 17, 2009 04:30 PM
from the open-to-most dept.
from the open-to-most dept.
Ilgaz writes in to let us know that we will have to install MS Silverlight 2 to watch the US President's inauguration online. Everyone running Mac PPC, Linux, and FreeBSD has been left out, as there are no working Silverlight 2-capable alternatives on these systems. Here is Microsoft's press release announcing the selection of Silverlight yesterday. Streaming of various events around the inauguration begins today at the Presidential Inaugural Committee site, which touts its "inclusive and accessible" coverage.
Related Stories
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News: Watch the Obama Inauguration With Moonlight 197 comments
bigmonachus writes "Miguel de Icaza has posted on his blog that linux users will be able to watch the Obama inauguration using Moonlight. Just go to the Moonlight download page to get it. He also said that some Microsoft engineers worked hard last night to make this happen."
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Your Rights Online: Barack Obama Sworn In As 44th President of the US 1656 comments
Just before noon today, Eastern time, Barack Obama was sworn in before the US Capitol building as the 44th President of the United States (Whitehouse.gov has already been updated to reflect the new President), and offered an inaugural address which outlined some of the challenges that the country currently faces, both within the country's borders and abroad. Obama's election has been called "a civil rights triumph," and his candidacy has inspired perhaps the most visible political involvement of young voters of any candidate since John Kennedy. Here's your chance to discuss the newest occupant of the White House and what you'd like to see happen over the course of his presidency.
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So much for a tech savvy Whitehouse. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So much for a tech savvy Whitehouse. (Score:5, Insightful)
From these events, it is obvious that the new administration either does not know about or does not care about the passion this community has for free ideals.
A very tiny community, compared to the overwhelming majority who a) don't give a toss about "free ideals" and b) have seen this story for the bullshit it is, in that only one website requires Silverlight to watch the inauguration, whereas YouTube and many others will be showing it in Flash video.
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Re:So much for a tech savvy Whitehouse. (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:So much for a tech savvy Whitehouse. (Score:5, Informative)
I did find this. [senate.gov] The senate claims that you only need Flash to view the ceremony.
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Joost is advertising that they will stream it live (Score:5, Informative)
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
[...] in that only one website requires Silverlight to watch the inauguration, whereas [...]
Yeah, it just so happens that the "one website" is the official presidential inaugural committee site, which pompously dares to call it the most open inauguration in history [pic2009.org].
Welcome to the change.
Re:So much for a tech savvy Whitehouse. (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm sure that they meant open as in open access. Assuming that they meant open software is a bit of a stretch.
It isn't open access. I'm running Linux and I can't use it. Therefore it is excluding me based on OS usage. I'd gladly use Adobe Flash (they make it for Linux)
Oh! the injustice. Having to load a browser plug-in! You think Adobe would handle a monopoly in any market differently than Microsoft? You must not use their products, then.
Adobe isn't Microsoft. M$ does this because Windows is competing with other OSs and M$ doesn't want Silverlight to work there. If Silverlight didn't exist Flash would still work on Linux. It's just that then we wouldn't have any compatibility issues since everyone would be using Flash. Finally, I'd gladly install the closed-source Silverlight plugin, but M$ won't let me.
If you are from the US and voted for Obama because you thought his platform was somehow anti-Microsoft, then, frankly, you're an idiot. This is it though...*this* is what lifted the veil and caused you to see the world for what it is. Silverlight. When there are lots of other options available, no less (maybe that's what they meant by "most open"?) Your trolling needs work.
If I had been old enough to vote and I had voted for him, it would have been because I expected him to take a sterner line against blatantly anticompetitive measures such as Silverlight. And about the "other options": What if e.g. Congress decided its website would only work on Windows? Certainly people using Linux/Mac/whatever can get the information via news sources etc. right? The problem is that it becomes impossible to get the information straight from the horse's mouth (Why should I have to rely on The New York Times when their photojournalism is blatantly biases?).
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Re:Anti-competitive my rear. (Score:4, Insightful)
It's anticompetitive because it doesn't run on Mac PPC, Linux and FreeBSD? RFTS.
Firstly, Apple don't support Mac PPC anymore, why the fuck should anybody else?
Secondly, Linux and FreeBSD account for less than a single percentage point of the desktop market. Even so, you have people working on it. [mono-project.com]
Thirdly and finally, you don't have to watch at the official site. There's probably a hundred places online you could watch it. If you don't want to use Silverlight - don't.
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Re:By that definition (Score:5, Informative)
Sorry to inform you, but your definition of "open" isn't in line with the RMS/FSF party line. Pretty much MPEG* has all kinds of patents [kuro5hin.org] that would exclude it from use. Theora [theora.org] and Vorbis [vorbis.com] are the only video/audio codecs that would most likely pass the RMS/FSF smell test.
You still need a way to either offer a second stream or embed the Vorbis/Theora stream into a browser. And you would have to require Windows and most likely Mac users to install both codecs.
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Kids these days... (Score:4, Insightful)
Look, you choose to use an operating system built by essentially hobbyists in their spare time. Not everything is gonna work--that is a feature not a bug. And while I hate to say it, if you dont like that, perhaps you could dedicate some of your time to Moonlight so that you *can* use Silverlight stuff. Don't expect people to use their non-free time to develop software for a free operating system.
And yes, I do contribute to the free operating system I use in production environments--FreeBSD. I've contributed many ports to build and install CPAN modules. If something isn't in the ports tree and I need it, I don't just expect somebody else to put it there nor do I bitch, moan or cry--I take the time out of my day and write the damn port myself. That is how open source works--you give back to it and everybody benefits. If I didn't give back, I'd be a leech. That is also one of the biggest flaws in open source, you have to have the skills *to* give back, and not everybody does.
Silverlight exists, it is an amazing platform, and soon enough it will become widely adopted. Accept it as fact, and either either get used to being left out or get started working on Moonlight or something like it. Calling me a "Microsoft fanboy douche" will not result in the open source faeries giving you Silverlight support. You have to make it work!
Getting shit to work is what Linux is all about (or at least was all about). Back in the day, your only reward was the pride you got by getting $IMPOSSIBLE_DEVICE to work on Linux! Now I guess Linux is all about the politics of getting something for nothing. Sad. ...Now get the hell off my lawn!
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Re:Anti-competitive my rear. (Score:4, Insightful)
90% of the remaining 20% will not watch any of it over the Internet (Perhaps TV!!).
90% of the remaining 10% of 20% will watch a stream from a major media outlet (CNN, CSPAN, MSNBC, FOX, ABC, CBS...)
99.9% of the remaining 10% of 10% of 20% will be using Windows or OSX (Intel-Mac)
The President elect would like to extend his heart felt apologies to Chuck in Ohio.
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Re:Okay (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually the most likely reality is someone really cheap (as in how much he was paid by the political party versus how much he was paid by 'er' someone else) came in to do that part of web site and made some choices that where motivated less by their loyalty to the future administration and more by their loyatly to silverfish. A political web site is a political web site, everything about it is part of the message not just the content.
So the Obama camp is already starting to learn some lessons of how it can be manipulated to promote greed based corporate ideals. Of how it's message can be hijacked to promote some deceitful corporations agenda.
It is a major flub, a demonstration of being exploited by corporate intrests right at the very beginning of their term, a painful lesson to be learned but one they need to remember. Not all of their staff, will in reality be their staff and many of them will be their to serve other peoples interests and not the interests of the government they claim to be serving.
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Re:Okay (Score:4, Informative)
Flash has an open spec available: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/swf/ [adobe.com], silverlight does not.
Flash is available for linux, silverlight is not
Flash is available for PPC macs, silverlight is not
Flash is already installed on most systems, silverlight is not (i have an intel mac and never even thought about installing it)
Flash is a tried and tested, mature technology with years of usage and any large websites using it, silverlight is not and does not.
Flash is available for some embedded devices such as nokia internet tablets and the nintendo wii, silverlight is not
So Flash is clearly a better option than silverlight on so many levels, even if it isn't an ideal option. If you have to make tradeoffs, why make unnecessary ones?
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Re:So much for a tech savvy Whitehouse. (Score:4, Insightful)
I am sure you have this backwards - Micro$oft probably made campaign contributions to Obama and Obama owed M$ the favor....
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Re:So much for a tech savvy Whitehouse. (Score:5, Insightful)
People who spell that company's name "Micro$oft" give me flashbacks to 1997. Firstly because they need to grow up, and secondly because they haven't moved on since then.
On the other hand ... neither has Microsoft.
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Re:So much for a tech savvy Whitehouse. (Score:5, Funny)
you know if Bill Gates had a penny for every bug in a Microsoft product he'd be a Billionaire...
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Re:So much for a tech savvy Whitehouse. (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:So much for a tech savvy Whitehouse. (Score:4, Insightful)
Ah, but your sound of reason will fall on flat ears with the Slashdot crowd. After all what is more important than having technology [fill in blank] being accessible?
I was reading in OSNews an article that talked about accessibility and one poster said the following (paraphrasing)
Is it really that bad that only certain operating systems are followed? For if you try to be completely open you will annoy somebody. After all what is to say that somebody using Haiku or some other esoteric operating system?
The point is that you are going to annoy somebody... At least the Obama camp knows that there is an Internet! And that it is not made of tubes....
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Or alternatively (Score:5, Informative)
You can watch it using flash video here [bbc.co.uk]
Re:Or alternatively (Score:5, Informative)
There's another list available here:
http://newteevee.com/2009/01/14/where-to-watch-obamas-inauguration-online/ [newteevee.com]
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Re:Or alternatively (Score:5, Funny)
There's another alternative, too. It turns out that streaming coverage will also be available using a wireless, thin client protocol.
I've set up my wireless client gear, and it's pretty sweet. For only a few hundred bucks, I got a 34-inch diagonal screen, WXGA resolution, and stereo sound. It streams video over a new protocol called "ATSC" in the ~500MHz band. And it all works for free without needing a subscription!
This event in particular will be delivered by multiple, simultaneous video streams that they call "channels". I encourage anyone who's not familiar with this technology to check it out.
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Re:Or alternatively (Score:5, Informative)
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But will it run linux? (Score:4, Funny)
Ah, fuck.
Huh? What? (Score:5, Informative)
The actual copy from the references story is...
Microsoft's Silverlight technology has been chosen to stream U.S. President-elect Barack Obama's swearing-in ceremony live on the Presidential Inaugural Committee's Web site...
Nowhere does it say that all the networks will be using Silverlight exclusively.
Re:Huh? What? (Score:5, Informative)
To enlarge upon your point, that would be a committee that Obama is NOT heading up. He probably won't be personally supervising the mowing of the White House lawn either. I suppose people will be blaming Obama if the D.C. dept of Sanitation doesn't provide enough waste baskets as well.
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WRONG! (Score:5, Informative)
The story *DOES NOT* say that Silver light will be used exclusivly accross all channels. It says:
Microsoft's Silverlight technology has been chosen to stream U.S. President-elect Barack Obama's swearing-in ceremony live on the Presidential Inaugural Committee's Web site
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
...on the Presidential Inaugural Committee's Web site, which states at the top of the page, "The Presidential Inaugural Committee, at the direction of President-elect Obama and Vice President-elect Biden, will organize an inclusive and accessible inauguration..."
There, fixed that for you.
Re:WRONG! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:WRONG! (Score:5, Interesting)
Are computers 3 years old outdated? Even back in 1998, sites could provide 3 alternatives (Qt, Real, Wmedia) on same page. What happened to that magnificent technology? Is such a historical event suited for another DRM framework install advertisement? I am not for flash too. It is giving user (citizen) the choice. It is possible, even basic pages on shared hosts can do it. Apple, Real, VLC and Adobe guys will happily install their servers too.
Linux Moonlight PRE ALPHA is not Silverlight 2. I was always wondering if anyone would fall into that trick and there we go. Microsoft doesn't support YOU, your OS. It supports Developers to make a clone of the real Silverlight. Just like Windows Media Codecs for Quicktime, even while excellently coded, can't replace a full feature Windows Media Player. E.g. it can't do DRM streams/music store. You know why they exist? So they can claim unofficial support when a media companies IT guy asks about "What about multi platform support? Mobile support?"
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You can watch it livde on YouTube (Score:5, Funny)
You can watch it Live on YouTube on this channel [youtube.com].
Moonlight ? (Score:5, Informative)
moonlight roadmap [mono-project.com]
The story is crap, but (Score:5, Interesting)
I think Silverlight is one of the few things Microsoft got right. I've been using Silverlight quite extensively on my Mac since Netflix switched to it, and it's rock solid. This kind of got me interested into looking into the programming aspects of it, and it's pretty darn easy if you know .NET Framework and WPF already, and if you don't, the learning curve is not that bad. I wanted to write a multi-file uploader for one of my apps, and I was able to do so in just a couple of hours, end to end.
Re:The story is crap, but (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
May I respectfully suggest the damn TV? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's what you get. (Score:4, Funny)
I use Ubuntu at home, and I use it by choice. We all now that if we're running FreeBSD of a PowerPC Mac there are certain things that aren't available for us either. It's the price we knowingly pay for the choices me make. We're the exceptions, not the rule.
MS has pulled this stunt before (Score:4, Interesting)
Msft pulled the same stunt for the Democratic National Convention:
http://ixnotes.wordpress.com/2008/08/26/democratic-national-convention-against-gnulinux-or-bought-by-microsoft/ [wordpress.com]
And for the Olympics.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080623-nbc-olympics-on-the-go-download-service-is-vista-only.html [arstechnica.com]
Must be nice to able to buy so much influence.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"All hail Pres Bush the 3rd"
That would have been McCain. Obama is Clinton the Second, to judge by his cabinet.
Re:Humm... (Score:5, Insightful)
Many of the people held there are simply too dangerous to let go. Many of the others who aren't have no where to go
The US Department of Defense operates many military prisons. They can all easily be transfered to a military prison within the US. They were only held offshore to avoid jurisdiction, and that point's been rendered moot.
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Re:Humm... (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't that sort of the point of closing gitmo? To try them in a court of law, as opposed to hold them illegally and indefinitely without trial?
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Re:Humm... (Score:4, Insightful)
Most reasonable people would acknowledge that it's going to take awhile to close down Gitmo. Many of the people held there are simply too dangerous to let go. Many of the others who aren't have no where to go -- their home countries won't accept them. It should be obvious that you can't just close the facility down and give everybody there a bus ticket home. Obama has committed himself to ending torture and finding a safe way to closing down Gitmo. What more do you want?
Call me a woolly-minded old liberal, but they could always, y'know, try them, and either bang them up legitimately or let them go as appropriate.
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Stupid submitter (Score:5, Informative)
I did very well. Mac PPC means Macintosh PowerPC. You know, not everyone switched to Intel and MS left out PPC users on release of Silverlight 2.0 without any kind of explanation. Mono Silverlight 2.0 support is in pre-alpha stages and there is no guarantee it will do a trick like that (live streaming).
There should be another way of doing it and if I was Mr. Obama, I would really check that committee's ties with that convicted monopolist as this is not the first time they do this trick. It doesn't really give a good image. Even MS themselves offer Flash or at least WMedia alternatives on their own site.
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Re:Stupid submitter (Score:4, Insightful)
Those running Windows 9x are out in the cold too.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I did very well. Mac PPC means Macintosh PowerPC. You know, not everyone switched to Intel and MS left out PPC users on release of Silverlight 2.0 without any kind of explanation.
PPC on the desktop is a small market getting smaller by the day. Sorry, but thats the way it is.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:False, false false... (Score:4, Insightful)
It is Intel only. Lots of people , especially G5 home/business users excluding big time gamers didn't upgrade to Intel yet. Apple knows this fact very well as they still ship iLife/iWork 09 as Universal binary. Adobe Flash 10 for example is both universal binary and recently SMP enabled for PPC dual G4s etc.
Like the dotcom boom days, MS can air a "exclusive Madonna concert" via silverlight, to make it popular and make people install it but this event isn't a Madonna concert or a Hollywood trailer. They couldn't convince their own OS users yet.
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Re:Hulu? Youtube? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:MOD PARENT UP (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, the TV option is still available, but this team has not given it much attention. This team is setting a precedent in streaming the proceedings, and future presidents will follow this example. My biggest concern is that, over the next decade, the ability to record a TV program will only be available to those who pay for "DVR service," likely locked down to prevent users from keeping copies without paying, and that if that happens, and these proceedings are streamed by websites like YouTube, people will lose their ability to keep personal copies of government proceedings. Most people will just shrug, but for some activists, the ability to record the government is important and should not be lost because of misguided efforts to be "tech savvy."
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