So you’ve got your Silverlight 2.0 Beta 1 download and have synaptic marvels firing off about how to make a cool application with it, and perhaps some money.

On the Silverlight website you see that there’s a Go-Live license for this release – oh but there’s no information on how to get this.

Being a good boy you remember that there’s a software license with the SDK so you check it out – here’s a non-comprehensive sample:

a. You may install and use any number of copies of the software on your premises to design, develop and test your programs for use with Microsoft Silverlight.

b. You may not use the software to develop or distribute programs that work with the final commercial release of the Microsoft Silverlight 2, you must acquire the final release version of the software to do that.

c. You may also use the software to design, develop and test sample code and programs that you (i) make available to other designers and developers in source code form as examples of how to use Microsoft Silverlight or (ii) deploy to end users for non-commercial purposes. These license terms will refer to such sample code and programs as “Silverlight applications”.

Bummer – no commercially exploitive opportunities there.

But wait – there’s more:

If you want to use or distribute your programs for commercial purposes, you must do so under another agreement or an amendment to this agreement. For more information about applying for commercial use rights, please contact golive@microsoft.com.

Yippee… the words “golive” sound promising – time to send an email…

Then this:

Final-Recipient: rfc822;golive@microsoft.com
Action: failed
Status: 5.1.1
Diagnostic-Code: smtp;550 5.1.1 User unknown

:(..

The next move will therefore to be to contact Mr Tim Sneath (evangelist for Silverlight, etc) or Mr Scott Guthrie (head silverlight man and circus performer wannabe – see mix08 keynote) directly…

For those that don’t know – you can’t just pick up the phone and call Microsoft and ask for the Silverlight team – you need to know someone’s name.

OK we have some names, but these are busy people, so best to try contacting them via their blog or possibly email first – these are busy guys after all. 

UPDATE:

Adam Kinney (formerly MS Channel9, now MS client platform evangelist with Tim) spots the post and forwards the issue to the appropriate people.

UPDATE 2:

Tim Sneath contacts me here and by email with a humble and helpful response – the golive@microsoft.com mailbox had an issue but should be working shortly.  A fantastic response experience.  Thank you Tim & Adam.