[NLedu] Researching accessibility of Silverlight-based websites

[Kees Epema]

Hello Jan, all,

"..Microsoft could refute this by pointing at the support it gives to
Silverlight under Mac OS X (argument already used by the minister of
Education) and at the release of specifications for Moonlight that is
being developed for Linux, Android and iOS. It will then state, as it
has done before, that as a company it can not be held responsible for
the lackluster development of Moonlight by the FOSS community. And, as
a company, it will point out that it can not be asked to support it's
direct competitors (not to mention the argument that supporting Mac
OSX is easy in contrast to the fragmented Linux desktop market)..."

Oh yes MS can do that. But it is not a strong argument from MS. Don't you
think so?
Why?

Because MS apparently is still not able to *implement* *technology* that is
available on all platforms.

MS argument that they can't be responsible for the deprecated development
of Moonlight, could also account for their lack of technical knowledge. (I
mean : to port their solutions to Linux)
The MS -> Apple support fact, is possible because of similarities in both
operating systems... We can't tell, Apple and MS are both closed-source
isn't it?

If MS tells that it is okay to share silverlight only if the free-software
community pays for this 'technology', probably the same Apple did, free
software wins!
Why?

Because now we can argue that free software solutions have a better
technological position than MS has. This is important in our discussion
with the government.

The above could be our strategic position.

Of course we all know that MS is very well able to produce a cross-platform
silverlight version. But we should take advantage of the fluffiness of MS
position on this.

Why should we take this perspective into account?
Because governments maybe more sensible to a lack of technical knowledge
(and that they can't trust MS as proprietary vendor), than to moral
arguments like accesibility ore sustainability.

Kind regards, Kees


2011/11/25 Jan Stedehouder <jan at stedehouder.org>

> Hi Kees
>
> 2011/11/25 Kees Epema <cwepema at gmail.com>:
> > Hello all,
> >
> > What would you all think of the ability argument?
> >
> > Statement:
> > Microsoft is with its product Silverlight technical not able to adapt its
> > technology to other platforms.
>
> Microsoft could refute this by pointing at the support it gives to
> Silverlight under Mac OS X (argument already used by the minister of
> Education) and at the release of specifications for Moonlight that is
> being developed for Linux, Android and iOS. It will then state, as it
> has done before, that as a company it can not be held responsible for
> the lackluster development of Moonlight by the FOSS community. And, as
> a company, it will point out that it can not be asked to support it's
> direct competitors (not to mention the argument that supporting Mac
> OSX is easy in contrast to the fragmented Linux desktop market).
>
> > The government should choose a vendor that is able to comply with
> > cross-platform technical standards.
> >
>
> This is the key argument of our campaign, to make that choice mandatory.
>
> > Arguments:
> > I think it will be difficult for MS to contradict this without unveiling
> > their position towards free software.
> >
>
> I believe Microsofts position on free software is crystal clear,
> though it has shifted from it being a terrible disease to 'feel free
> to use free software on our platform and in our cloud' ;-)
>
> Regards
>
> Jan
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mail.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/fsfe-bnl/attachments/20111125/4ec6964d/attachment-0001.html>