www.silverlight.nettaken from wikiMicrosoft Silverlight (code-named Windows Presentation Foundation/Everywhere or WPF/E) is a proprietary runtime for browser-based Rich Internet Applications, providing a subset of the animation, vector graphics, and video playback capabilities of Windows Presentation Foundation. Version 1.1 also includes a complete version of the .NET Common Language Runtime, named CoreCLR, so that Silverlight applications can be written in any .NET language.
Silverlight aims to compete with Adobe Flash and the presentation components of Ajax. It also competes with Sun Microsystems' JavaFX, which was launched a few days after Silverlight. The first Community Technology Preview of Silverlight was released in December 2006. Microsoft aims to have a final release by mid-2007. An unattributed report claimed that Microsoft aims to release certain parts of Silverlight source code as open source software, but Sam Ramji, director of platform technology strategy at Microsoft, said the company has no plans to do so. However, portions of the Dynamic Language Runtime, included with Silverlight, have been made available on Microsoft's CodePlex website using the Microsoft Permissive License.
