"If this is about using Silverlight to host client-side browser scripting in Ruby, it's definitely an appealing notion, but the problem will always be about Silverlight being a Microsoft technology."
Who cares who owns it? Microsoft is doing a fine job with the CLR/DLR. The problem isn't Microsoft; it's that thick client is thick client regardless of whether it's .NET, Java, or Flash. Users hate thick client apps.
Personally I just want to see a decent bytecode VM defined as a web standard so that I can write in any language that compiles down to it. And it needs to not be locked to any one vendor. Sorry Adobe and Microsoft.
It seems extremely unlikely that Microsoft, Mozilla, Apple, and Opera are going to agree on a cross-browser VM while Javascript, Flash, Silverlight and Java are floating around.
I think we're stuck with Javascript for the next 10 years.
"If this is about using Silverlight to host client-side browser scripting in Ruby, it's definitely an appealing notion, but the problem will always be about Silverlight being a Microsoft technology."
I couldn't agree more.