I noticed a comment thread on Groklaw about Moonlight, with a link to the license terms on Microsoft's website. They call it Covenant to Downstream Recipients of Moonlight - Microsoft & Novell Interoperability Collaboration . A comment by Microsoft's Brian Goldfarb on Dana Blankenhorn's article about Novell being a lead pony for Silverlight started the discussion originally.

Microsoft only produces the Silverlight runtime for Windows and OS X, leaving Linux support to Novell's Mono project, which produces Moonlight. Mono developers argue that Mono is not chasing tail lights, but in the case of Moonlight it very clearly is.

Moonlight, the de facto open-source implementation of Microsoft's Silverlight platform for Linux that leverages Mono, is nearing its 3.0 release. Moonlight 2.0 was just released a half-year ago, but Moonlight 3.0 Preview 7 was just released and it's offering up more features.

A batch of small updates on the Mono/Moonlight situation - NOVELL'S (and Microsoft's) plan with Moonlight is something that we have warned about ever since Moonlight was first announced.

In the same vein, if Novell and Microsoft call it "Microsoft Moonlight", does it make Moonlight developers de facto Microsoft employees?

Boycott Novell contributors explain why Mono and Moonlight are real risks

Moonlight 3.0, which puts Microsoft's Silverlight rich Internet plug-in software on Linux and Unix platforms, is now being offered in an alpha release, according to Web pages from the Mono project, which has jurisdiction over Moonlight. The release features infrastructural capabilities designed to move Moonlight closer to the capabilities of Silverlight 3, said Novell, which sponsors Mono.

The purpose of Moonlight and Mono put in doubt again

Novell-sponsored Mono software gets extended so as to make it interconnected with Microsoft Moonlight, a "forbidden" component by Red Hat's assessment