Microsoft has officially released Silverlight 1.0 this morning. This is the Javascript and XAML programming model that is focused around the media capabilities of the platform, and not the full .NET programming model that will come next year. The actual release is almost a non-event because there has been a rock solid release candidate for the last few weeks that has had all the features. Some major sites like Major League Baseball have already started rolling out for the past few weeks as I mentioned a couple weeks ago. Several other companies have piled on with the official release, including the WWE and the Home Shopping Network.

You can check out a very cool HD video in Silverlight 1.0 here (or click the thumbnail on the right). This is a live action version of Halo 3 that shows the brutes and a warthog (I have to get me one of those).

Enter Official Linux Support

It has been very tough answering the questions around platform support when I have been talking about Silverlight over the last couple of months. Windows and Mac cover the great majority of computers that people use, but to really have a true cross platform message you have to have Linux support. We have heard this message loud and clear, here is a quote from Bruce Eckel that sums it up:

Although it’s fascinating and compelling, the fact that Microsoft is not saying whether they’ll support Linux is still a deal-breaker; “cross-platform including Windows and OSX but not Linux” is not an option for me.

The message has been that the mono guys are working on moonlight, but it is not an officially supported project (Doing it unofficially would have been a second class experience).  That changed with the deal that Microsoft and Novell announced officially today. Now Silverlight on the Linux platform will be officially supported, but there will be some lag as the mono guys work to catch-up on the first couple releases. The current plans are that you will see the released 1.0 Linux version within 6 months. There are a lot of cool aspects to this deal that I will blog about later when I can dig into the details (not the least of which is the license under which moonlight will be delivered - a GPL License!).