In collaboration with Microsoft, Novell today released the version 1.0 of Moonlight for major Linux distros including openSUSE, SUSE Linux Enterprise, Fedora, Red Hat, Ubuntu, and likely other distros as well. With Moonlight 1.0 plugin installed in Firefox, Linux users can now run Silverlight 1.0 applications without a fuss. Miguel de Icaza, Novell's Vice President of Developer Platform, said in a blog post that his team was working hard to roll out the next version of Moonlight which will be able to run Silverlight 2.0 applications. Moonlight 2.0 is right around the corner, as the current pre-Alpha build of Moonlight 2.0 can already run some Silverlight 2.0 demo applications.

I think we are witnessing a major breakthrough today, as Silverlight is becoming a true cross-platform. Does it matter? Yes, it does. We will just develop our Silverlight application once, it will run anywhere whether it is on the web, mobile or desktop; whether the operating system is Windows, Mac, Linux, or Symbian.

For Linux users, you can download Moonlight plug-in for your browser at http://www.go-mono.com/moonlight/