Moonlight 3.0 preview offered for rich Internet apps

The alpha release features 3.0 Binding/BindingExpression support and updates to APIs. An SVN (Subversion) of Silverlight 3.0 offers pixel shader support from developer David Reveman.

A beta version of Moonlight 3.0 is due this summer, followed by a final release in the fall, Novell said.

A download page for Moonlight 3.0 stresses that the project is only in an alpha stage and offers caution.

"This release should be considered alpha quality. There are various new subsystems in Silverlight 3 (e.g. pixel shaders, local messaging, the client http stack) which expose new and different attack vectors, and the implementations of these subsystems have not yet been exercised or audited," the page said.

"As such, we recommend that you should only use this plugin on trusted sites (e.g. internal or well-known Web sites) on non-production computers. This situation will gradually evolve over the beta releases. An up- to-date overview of Moonlight security features status can be found on Moonlight Security Status wiki page," according to the page.