Last year I displayed my severe displeasure for Major League baseball’s decision to use Microsoft’s Silverlight technology for their online video, a move that essentially cut GNU/Linux users out unless they wantedto jump thorough a number of hoops. Last night I was reading some news from Cnet and I got some delightful news. It turns out that back in November MLB decided not to continue to use Silverlight technology for their online videos, going back to relying on Flash technology that a very large majority of computer users already have installed.
It seems that MLB realized that to install Silverlight a user needs to have administrative privileges, something most users won’t have on their work PCs. There were also a number of glitches that made viewing the video content from Netflix (and I assume MLB) even harder.
All in all it’s a nice win for fans to start the season with, regardless of which team they root for. To make things even better, while fans in Boston have to wait an extra day for the start of the season thanks to some rain in the area yesterday, I saw this morning that the team I root for started off their season with a win yesterday. Hopefully we’ll get another win in the home opener next Monday.
For more on why MLB found Flash to be a better solution for their online video you can read the article I found last night from Cnet’s News.com. I love being abletoread the news on my PDA. 
14 April 2009 at 4:08 pm
How many people will really be watching MLB at work? You also need administrative rights to install Flash – that’s not a very strong argument. Also, Moonlight is available now for Linux users.
15 April 2009 at 10:57 am
True, people probably aren’t watching the MLB at work that often, but requiring Flash is probably less of an issue thanks to Flash’s market penetration. As for Moonlight, it is available for Linux but we still don’t have the latest version (that Windows/MacOS have) so we have to miss out on any content that specifically requires it. And there is content out there that we have to miss out on.