Moonlight, the Silverlight for Linux project, releases first public version

Miguel de Icaza has announced that that the first public sourcecode release of Moonlight (CNET article)is now available. This version of Moonlight is based on Silverlight 1.0 and not the Silverlight 2 beta that is out now from Microsoft. It's also not Moonlight 1.0 as it seemed early on. According to de Icaza's blog:

This is not Moonlight 1.0, this is the first source code release that we are making of Moonlight for interested contributors and developers. This release is not even a Beta release, as we are not yet feature complete (missing components in media codecs, the media pipeline, as well as fixing about 70 known bugs). Apologies for any confussion.

So if you're interested in contributing to the Moonlight project, you should now have your chance. The current build works on Firefox 2 as well as Firefox 3. There are some changes to Firefox 3 that require a simple Greasmonkey script to get working.

The team is simultaneously working on Silverlight 1.0 and Silverlight 2. The old 1.1 version isn't being maintained as they transition the APIs to 2. I've always been a big believer in Linux as an important platform to support. Adobe hasn't always had fantastic Linux support but with the newest versions of the Flash Player and AIR we've made an effort to quickly release versions for Linux. I think getting Linux users to buy into RIAs will bring dividends for everyone so I'm glad that the Moonlight project exists. They're also doing some very interesting things in terms of expanding the capabilities of Silverlight, so it's a project to keep an eye on.