Second open-source Silverlight hits beta

The second edition of the open-source edition of Microsoft's Silverlight media player has been released to beta testing.

Moonlight, which puts the Silverlight player on Unix and Linux, updates the initial open-source player with fixes tackling security and performance.

Project leader Miguel de Icaza is reported to have said he expects Moonlight 2.0 to be finished and ready for availability in time for Microsoft's Professional Developers' Conference (PDC), in November.

The open-source implementation comes after Microsoft has already released Silverlight 3.0.

Speaking to The Reg earlier, de Icaza noted Moonlight would not include all the Silverlight 3.0 features, specifically those in workflow, and Moonlight seems more focused on media. He noted, though, this is the version of Moonlight he'd wanted to build since Microsoft released Silverlight 2.0 in late 2008.

Moonlight 2.0 implements APIs from Silverlight 3.0 that allow media content to run outside the browser, save content written in Silverlight, provide expanded support for Silverlight's DeepZoom, and allow you to write codecs in managed code. Moonlight 2.0 also adjusts to the quality of a users' connection to reduce breakages and delays.

The open-source player implements the Mono Project's runtime, for programming in Java, C#, Ruby, Python, IronRuby and IronPython. You can also use Silverlight and Moonlight with Mono project's OGG, Vorbis and Dirac codecs. ®