Net neutrality sort of exists today, although in the U.S. there is no binding regulation that forces it (that I know of). In certain other countries, some form of net neutrality is actually required by law. However, back to the U.S., a few ISPs have experimented on a small scale with throttling traffic, which is what got the scuffle kicked off to begin with. The way I understand it, the ISPs are getting squeezed. Being an internet provider is already a thin margin business to begin with (although the margins in the U.S. are significantly larger than in other industrialized nations). But there are newer forms of internet end points that through competition are forcing consumer prices lower (some cities and Google are now trying to offer basic 4mbps wi-fi to entire cities for free, for example). So essentially, margins are getting tighter, and they can't squeeze much more revenue from consumers. The only other place to get revenue is from content and service (app) suppliers (not consumers). No supplier is going to pay in a market where suppliers have never paid, so the only way to get money there is to offer faster priority lanes for money. Also, the idea isn't to add a significant amount of faster resources to the network (let's face it, if ISPs could be significantly faster for the price, they would be already in order to differentiate their offers from competitors). What this really means is that it's super tough to make things faster, but it's a whole lot easier to make other things slower. It's important to note that the multi-tier discussion is about back-end network resources (the ISP's traffic lanes, which almost all have fiber already), and not the consumer end-points (like adding fiber to your neighborhood). And if you look at all the actual proposals from the ISPs, the details all stipulate that they intend to throttle down "non-essential" internet services in order to give "premium" services priority on network resources. So this is really about slowing things down for those who don't pay, not really about speeding things up for those who do.

Yeah, sorry for the wall of text :) Not regulating is off the table mostly because you have two opposing groups who are forcing the issue. The ISPs in question want to create a multi-tier system, and they are lobbying the FCC to allow it explicitly so they can avoid lawsuits from people who don't want it. The free-internet groups want to keep things they way they are, but the only way to guarantee that is to force it in writing now - in other words, avoiding a rule in writing would open the way for the first group to do what it wants. Both groups are in direct conflict, and are forcing the explicit citation. I seriously doubt the status quo will hold, with or without regulation. The status quo is already semi-broken. Which is to say that all traffic lanes being the same speed is the norm today, but some ISPs have already experimented with throttling some traffic (this is actually what got all groups to start squabbling in the first place). That last sentence was actually the topic of a NYT article (at least I think it was NYT, I'll have to check). Some startups feel they will die out or not receive initial investment funding if the big established companies have the fast lane, and the startups are relegated to a slower lane. So it's entirely possible that some VC's are sitting on the sidelines waiting for the final word before they free up investment cash. I don't know how much this is actually the case today, but I think it's safe to say there certainly is the possibility that a lack of a way forward might be as problematic as one of the other regulatory solutions.

Yeah, but to clear something up - what's on the table isn't whether to regulate or not. It's whether to regulate one way or another. Either way, the government (the FCC in this case) is now going to be involved. The FCC is being asked to create regulations for a multi-tier system, or to create regulations that guarantee one tier for all. As things stand right now (in the U.S.), net neutrality is the default state of things. There's no law requiring it or formal regulation keeping it going. Conversely, the FCC has not given ISPs the authority to create a multi-tiered system either. Without that authority, the ISPs fear they will be swimming in legal hell for years. So up until now, the FCC is doing what most small-gov't proponents want: keeping the lightest possible touch and generally staying out of the way. However, now that ISPs are asking for the authority to create and maintain a multi-tiered system, the FCC is being forced to regulate one way or the other. The other interesting question is that of stifling innovation. I know most times people talk of government stifling innovation, but to keep things in perspective, private companies often actively do the same thing. When a company is on top, they will "create barriers to entry" for their competition (a term I hear way too often), and attempt to otherwise maintain a competitive edge. As long as that competitive edge is fair competition, nobody really cares and that is actually beneficial for the consumer and market at large. But as soon as the company with the keys to the gate locks it out for any other potential competitor, they are doing far more to stifle innovation than any bumbling government agency could. So in this case, there's a risk that government may stifle innovation, but there's an equal (and some argue greater) chance that a handful of ISPs will abuse this multi-tier system to keep startups from being able to compete with their services, and that would severely stifle innovation. As for the last point about choices, we are already fairly restricted in our choices. You can have dial-up or DSL, in which case, you are stuck with your one and only phone provider for the area. You can have cable, in which case you are stuck with your one and only cable provider for the area. If you are lucky enough to have fiber in the area, you are stuck with the provider who laid the fiber for your area. So bottom line: while there are potentially several providers (unless you live in rural areas), based on your needs, you will have one or extremely few choic

What about events that come from FrameworkElements or DependencyObjects?

You aren't the only one confused by this. MS (particularly the Win8 team) has done an incredibly hideous job of messaging, and an equally hideous job of defining Windows 8 (which is actually two operating systems). I'll try my best to explain. Windows 8 is actually two operating systems duct-taped together. One is the "Desktop" OS, which for all intents and purposes is Windows 7. It runs just like Windows 7 (minus the Start Bar), and is fully backwards compatible with all the code and plug-ins (including Silverlight) that you used before Windows 8. The other side of the OS is what people sort of called "Metro". But we can no longer call it that because MS found out that "Metro" was already trademarked. There is effectively no good name for it now (apps for this part of the OS are now loosely called Windows Store Apps rather than Metro apps, for example). This part of the OS is exposed as WinRT or Windows RT. It is brand new code that has little to do with old Windows, and includes all the consumer-ish UI bits, like live tiles, charms, touch gestures etc. When you buy Windows 8 on a PC (or for a PC), you get both sides of the OS installed. If you run the newer Windows Store Apps, they are launched from the tiles screen and run in WinRT. If you try to run old Windows apps, they run in "Desktop" mode, even though you will probably be launching them from the tiles screen too. If you get Windows 8 on a mobile device powered by an ARM chip, you only get the new WinRT side of the OS (no Desktop mode). So, if you attempt to create a new Windows Store App (WinRT application) in .NET, part of it will feel familiar because WinRT apps also use XAML to define the user interface (just like WPF and Silverlight did). However, there are some WinRT quirks in the runtime, like most operations being asynchronous, that force developers of WinRT apps to learn some things that are not so similar to older Silverlight or WPF apps. As for the second question, about whether or not Silverlight is alive or dead... it sort of depends who you ask, and what platform you are targetting. Steve Jobs effectively killed plug-ins on mobile devices. After he decided that iOS would not allow plug-ins for mobile app devices, most other mobile producers followed suit (including MS). Silverlight requires a plug-in to run, so it's effectively been killed from most new mobile platforms. Windows Phone 7 was trying to force all apps to be Silverlight, but Win 8 Phone is now all WinRT, and will *not* be supporting Silverlight. Silverlight