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Microsoft To Extend RSS

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the yay-another-microsoft-standard dept.

Joshua53077 writes "Microsoft announced today a plan to 'extend the RSS standard to better support the publishing of ordered lists of information...' This feature will be included in Longhorn. It appears as though they will be including RSS support in Internet Explorer, which will come over a year and a half after the same technology was introduced in Apple's Safari RSS." From the article: "Gary Schare, director of strategic product management in the Windows division of Microsoft, says that while RSS is a reliable standard for updating information in message form, it currently has no logical way to organize that information in a way that could help subscribers keep track of what is being fed to them."

284 of 375 comments (clear)

  1. Bye, bye RSS .... by Luscious868 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Repeat after me "embrace and extend" ....

    1. Re:Bye, bye RSS .... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      Don't they have to "embrace" first?

    2. Re:Bye, bye RSS .... by Mathiasdm · · Score: 1

      No! This time, it's 'Extend and embrace'!

      --
      Join the anonymous, help develop the network: http://www.i2p2.de
    3. Re:Bye, bye RSS .... by Eggplant62 · · Score: 1

      Yeah, really. My first thought when I read this headline was their treatment of the Kerberos produce.

      Microsoft, give it up. You can compete, but you can't dominate.

    4. Re:Bye, bye RSS .... by xMilkmanDanx · · Score: 1

      ...exclude, exterminate.

      --
      I am not in anyway affiliated with Max Cannon
    5. Re:Bye, bye RSS .... by I_can_not_believe_I_ · · Score: 1

      Hmmm, "embrace and extend" sounds entirely too gentle and involved, somehow given Microsoft's current involvement with RSS (read, pretty much nil). I think "trample" is the more appropriate description.

    6. Re:Bye, bye RSS .... by ottothecow · · Score: 1

      but...really they are just HELPING all of the senseless computer users who wouldnt have RSS available to them without Microsoft RSSplorer (TM)

      --
      Bottles.
    7. Re:Bye, bye RSS .... by Trigun · · Score: 1

      try this one on: Copy and Corrupt.

    8. Re:Bye, bye RSS .... by sleepy2b · · Score: 1

      http://www.cnn.com/video/player/player.html?url=/v ideo/nitn/latest&wm=10

    9. Re:Bye, bye RSS .... by corsec67 · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Heh, that was my first though when I read the brief.

      The problem is, Microsoft's business plan is:
      1. Steal/Copy Idea
      2. Sell
      3. Profit

      --
      If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
    10. Re:Bye, bye RSS .... by CaymanIslandCarpedie · · Score: 2, Insightful

      This isn't meant to defend anyone or deamonize anyone, just an honest question (I realize /. isn't the place for that type of thing ;-)

      MS always gets kicked around (especially here) for doing things like this, so my question is:
      If a company is developing a product (RSS product seems an obvious example), and after exploring and using the standard meant for that type of product they see additional functionality which would be useful but isn't covered by the standards. What SHOULD they do? Just forget about additional functionality and live with the standard? Submit a request to the standard body, hope they agree, and wait for it to become part of the standard?

      I'm honestly curious about this because this type of action by MS is fuzzy in my head. Is it really that bad? What should they do?

      --
      "reality has a well-known liberal bias" - Steven Colbert
    11. Re:Bye, bye RSS .... by denissmith · · Score: 1

      that's called innovation.

      --
      I have nothing to hide. So, why are you spying on me?
    12. Re:Bye, bye RSS .... by corsec67 · · Score: 1

      What I am refering to there is that I don't have a single place to UPDATE my software manually.

      emerge -au world

      I can see what is going to get installed.

      On windows, either a program handles updates itself, doesn't update, or is part of windows and gets updates through windowsupdate.

      So, if I want to update gaim, ssh, openoffice, and a few other programs, on windows I have to download those update seperatly.

      I HATE programs in windows (like JAVA) that run the "do you want to update now" when I start using it, because that breaks my workflow. Adobe is terrible for this, because that window gets lost, and acrobat freezes.

      Instead, when I am done for the day, if I can run emerge sync;emerge -au world, then the compiling/installing will occur when I am gone.

      --
      If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
    13. Re:Bye, bye RSS .... by SimplexO · · Score: 2, Funny

      And that's better than the Open Source business plan, how?

      1. Steal/Copy Idea
      2. ???
      3. Profit

      --
      Get Firefox!
    14. Re:Bye, bye RSS .... by rsborg · · Score: 2
      And that's better than the Open Source business plan, how?

      1. Steal/Copy Idea
      2. ???
      3. Profit

      Dude, wtf are you talking about? Open Source is not about profit... sure, you can make one if you replace ??? with services/etc. but profit is not strived for or even wanted in some OS products.

      Yeah, I know, YHBT and all.

      --
      Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
    15. Re:Bye, bye RSS .... by corsec67 · · Score: 1

      Step 2 in the OSS business plan isn't "2. Sell"

      It is more "get people to use and then sell support."

      --
      If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
    16. Re:Bye, bye RSS .... by heinousjay · · Score: 1

      Why doesn't the license holder sue for some portion of operating system revenues? Stupider lawsuits have borne fruit.

      --
      Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
    17. Re:Bye, bye RSS .... by JDevers · · Score: 1

      They have, check on Google for more info. I believe that at least one of the companies won a medium amount of money.

    18. Re:Bye, bye RSS .... by Moofie · · Score: 1

      If they weren't a monopoly, they could do whatever they want to, and I wouldn't care. However, since they ARE a monopoly, I DO care.

      --
      Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
    19. Re:Bye, bye RSS .... by Lagged2Death · · Score: 2, Interesting

      This of course begs the question as to whether MS's extensions will in fact be useful.

      RSS was intended to collect news. Now MS is planning to make it show updates to ordered lists - something it was never intended to do in the first place. Is that really such a great idea? Is it likely to lead to a widely-compatible, stable and well-designed system?

      Wouldn't it be simpler to keep the frequently-updated list on a plain old web site, and put linked update notices in the RSS feed? What problem are we trying to solve here?

    20. Re:Bye, bye RSS .... by Rallion · · Score: 1

      If it isn't about profit, then it isn't a business plan, and so isn't relevant.

    21. Re:Bye, bye RSS .... by Moofie · · Score: 1

      They should not illegally attempt to extend their monopoly into other markets. That's what they should do. Apart from that, they can do whatever they want.

      --
      Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
    22. Re:Bye, bye RSS .... by FidelCatsro · · Score: 1

      Wow moderated as a troll for mentioning something in more than frank language .
      Well . No apologies here , MS have for years continued to say a large fuck you to the standards comities around the world and have for years continued unabated , If my language is a little low brow for you then I'm sorry , but Wanker in the UK is a term used to describe people who act in a manner such as this , Continuing to irritate people and to make our lives generally a little harder unless we go along with their way of thinking.
      They use their position as a monopoly to foist these things on to us as the vast majority of folks who do not understand and have no reason to need to understand this , all in an effort to force their way upon people who do know and now have to spend a lot of time making concessions for their little nuances .
      Their is a word for that and i shall not use it for fear of invoking something .
      Now moderate this troll if you must , i don't give a flying monkey .
      This is my opinion and one i know a few people share , if you disagree with me then please rationally counter my argument , i enjoy that.
      Don't be a coward and mod me down because you disagree . If you think im honestly doing this for any other reason than genuine concern over the abuse of my industry then feel free to mod away.

      --
      The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
    23. Re:Bye, bye RSS .... by vought · · Score: 1

      1. Embrace.
      2. Extend.
      3. Exclude.
      4. Extinguish.
      5. ???
      6. Profit!

    24. Re:Bye, bye RSS .... by FidelCatsro · · Score: 1

      No disrespect taken at all , you worded it rather kindly so no stress.
      The reason I'm angry is MS is using their power and position yet again to force another extension upon us.
      I agree most likely RSS could do with a bit of extra tweaking , but their are proper channels in place to do this, even if they do totally open their custom extension (which would be a step in the right direction) i still have a problem that they are leveraging their position to impose this upon us without going through the proper channels which were created to avoid such mishaps.(like web-sites which only work on MSIE).

      --
      The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
    25. Re:Bye, bye RSS .... by wilsone8 · · Score: 5, Informative

      It's not embrace and extend when the guy that created the RSS standard (Dave Winer), has a post up today about how Microsoft specifically asked him if it would be ok to extend the spec before going down this path and how he thought this would be a good addition to the RSS spec.

      http://www.reallysimplesyndication.com/2005/06/22# a634

      From the article: "The story begins in March of this year. I got a call from Robert Scoble saying there was a group on the MSIE team that wants to extend RSS to handle lists. I was immediately supportive of this, I told Scoble that some people think I'm conservative about extending RSS, but I'm actually liberal. The only thing I don't like is when people invent new ways of expressing data that RSS already defines. He assured me this isn't what was going on."

      --
      The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do. - B.F. Skinner
    26. Re:Bye, bye RSS .... by dr.badass · · Score: 1

      Repeat after me "embrace and extend" ....

      I embrace your "embrace and extend" and extend it to "embrace and extend and introduce exciting new security holes"

      --
      Don't become a regular here -- you will become retarded.
    27. Re:Bye, bye RSS .... by CaymanIslandCarpedie · · Score: 1

      First, thanks for the reply. By FAR the best reply thus far (most others are the predictable "MS sucks thats why" type reply ;-)

      without going through the proper channels which were created to avoid such mishaps

      This is exactly what I'm curious about. What are those channels? Are you supposed to submit this to a standards body and wait or is there some other way to handle this?

      Thanks again for the reply!

      --
      "reality has a well-known liberal bias" - Steven Colbert
    28. Re:Bye, bye RSS .... by RichardX · · Score: 1

      5. EEEEXXXXTTTTEEERRRMMMMIIIINNNNAAAATTTEEE

      Yes, lameness filter, I know using so many caps is like yelling. because that's exactly what I intend in this case. Daleks are not noted for their soft-spokenness.
      This additional free bonus waffle brought to you by the Slashdot Lameness Filter Avoidance Society.

      --
      Curiosity was framed. Ignorance killed the cat.
    29. Re:Bye, bye RSS .... by kalganian · · Score: 1

      Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.

    30. Re:Bye, bye RSS .... by FidelCatsro · · Score: 2, Informative

      The w3c and other bodies were Created to standardise the web (standardise as in make equally accessible , not as in the more scary all the same connotations).
      Every other thing must go by them for peer review and inclusion into our standards system for the world wide web. Frequently MS has just said yah-boo sucks to the whole idea and implemented many many changes to the standards (many time totally proprietary changes) for inclusion in their systems .
      Which is all well and good if you a small company (at least smaller than total market dominance) , if your small your browser can become a test bed for ideas, unfortunately the case with MS is that MSIE has become a defecato standard by nature of their monopoly so their changes have become dominant throughout the internet.
      This causes a whole host of problems for web developers and browser makers , even the average person who uses an alternate system. It was a case of use MSs way or don't browse.
      Lately this is greatly alleviated due to more common acceptance of the standards( IE: more people in the know have got to positions of influence)
      But still , I'm sure many people have come across sites which refuse to act well on all browsers
      Now its dammed hard to get things to work the way you want them on all the browsers because of this (again this is far less of a problem now but still an issue)

      What as i understand it MS do is this ,Submit change to W3C , wait , include it in browser anyway , See browser take over market due to windows dominance and its default inclusion and peoples lack of knowledge of alternates, try to force the W3Cs hand into accepting the standard.
      They may have a great extension , but the way they do it is totally unacceptable .
      The internet can never be a democracy for the standards , but the w3c is comprised of members from through out the industry (including MS) and its the best we have to ensure fairness and equality.
      Many folks have a few problems with some of the ways the w3c operate (I myself have a problem with their documentation and write ups of the standards.) but it sure beats having a way forced down my throat by a convicted abusive monopoly

      --
      The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
    31. Re:Bye, bye RSS .... by Baricom · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I'm honestly curious about this because this type of action by MS is fuzzy in my head. Is it really that bad? What should they do?

      A promise to not patent whatever it is they're doing would be an excellent start.

    32. Re:Bye, bye RSS .... by jpickett · · Score: 4, Insightful

      And if you read how Microsoft is handling their extentions, frankly I don't see what the issue is. So someone thought of a way to make RSS potentially better, and they're sharing it with other people.

      As I see it MS had two options:

      1) Create their own proprietary standard and have everyone bitch at them or;
      2) Use an existing standard, try and OPENLY build on it to do what they want, and only have retards like Slashdot minions bitch about it.

      Sure it's flamebait but I'm sick of this crap. Also wilsone8, I'm not directing this to you, just all the others that don't care to educate themselves first.

    33. Re:Bye, bye RSS .... by drsquare · · Score: 1

      You haven't answered his question. He asked, what should Microsoft do in this situation. What should they do? Microsoft don't have a monopoly on RSS.

      If you maintained a program which followed some standard, and though of some new functionality which would improve it, but wasn't in the standard, what would you do? Should you improve your product, or stagnate and wait for the stragglers to catch up?

    34. Re:Bye, bye RSS .... by Moofie · · Score: 1

      I don't care what Microsoft does, as long as they don't take control of yet another market. That's my point.

      If I maintained a program that followed some standard, I'd make sure I had the best implementation of that standard available. I'd also make sure I was working to improve the standard.

      MS's track record with embrace and extend is well-established. Why would they change their stripes now?

      --
      Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
    35. Re:Bye, bye RSS .... by JediJorgie · · Score: 1

      Jeremy Wright just posted a comment over at http://www.digital-web.com/news/2005/06/microsoft_ to_take_rss_five_steps_backwards/#comment1361 and pointed out the fact that the stuff MS is doing it actually fairly syndication agnostic. (Read: 'not just rss') They HAD to extend RSS to get the functionality they wanted that already exists the ATOM spec. So if you are worried that they will some how *screw you* if you try to use their extensions, just use ATOM and the functionality is already there. BTW I think the fact that their extension is being released under the same CC license as the RSS2.0 spec should earn them a little credit, but then again this is /. so I don't expect the 'regulars' to even notice. Here is the CC info that bother the original RSS2.0 spec and the MS extensions have been released under: "Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License" http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/ Jorgie

    36. Re:Bye, bye RSS .... by JediJorgie · · Score: 2, Informative

      ok, guess I just learned to make sure I have *text* selected...

      here it is as I actually typed it:

      Jeremy Wright just posted a comment over at

      http://www.digital-web.com/news/2005/06/microsoft_ to_take_rss_five_steps_backwards/#comment1361

      and pointed out the fact that the stuff MS is doing it actually fairly syndication agnostic. (Read: 'not just rss') They HAD to extend RSS to get the functionality they wanted that already exists the ATOM spec.

      So if you are worried that they will some how *screw you* if you try to use their extensions, just use ATOM and the functionality is already there.

      BTW I think the fact that their extension is being released under the same CC license as the RSS2.0 spec should earn them a little credit, but then again this is /. so I don't expect the 'regulars' to even notice.

      Here is the CC info that bother the original RSS2.0 spec and the MS extensions have been released under:
      "Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License" http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/

      Jorgie

    37. Re:Bye, bye RSS .... by Frit+Mock · · Score: 1


      Excuse the question, I am an outlander ... so you going to say embrace, extend, exploit, extinguish?

    38. Re:Bye, bye RSS .... by CaymanIslandCarpedie · · Score: 1

      Wish I had mod points! Thank you very much for explaining this in a rational way!!!!! While I still don't see such things as the incarnation of evil some do, at least this helps me to understand the basis of those feelings! Very well written and again, thank you!

      --
      "reality has a well-known liberal bias" - Steven Colbert
    39. Re:Bye, bye RSS .... by Master+of+Transhuman · · Score: 1


      Reminds me of the line Robert Guillaume used to his boss in the Rutger Hauer bounty hunter movie:

      "Next time you want to fuck me - kiss me first!"

      --
      Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
    40. Re:Bye, bye RSS .... by ToasterofDOOM · · Score: 1

      My personal favorite from SC3
      "Isolate. Simplify. Complete."

      --
      I am Spartacus
    41. Re:Bye, bye RSS .... by NutscrapeSucks · · Score: 1

      Not really, because, unlike Kerberos, any change to RSS could be trivially reverse-engineered and supported in other readers. An extended protcol is often better than a brand-new protocol.

      Besides, who cares about dominating RSS? It has no strategic value.

      --
      Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
    42. Re:Bye, bye RSS .... by themoodykid · · Score: 1

      Exactly!

    43. Re:Bye, bye RSS .... by FidelCatsro · · Score: 1

      No problem ,Its not the incarnation of Evil really ;) it is however the incarnation of a corporate bullying i would say. IF you wish to find out about MS evil , look into their Goat sacrificing , Virgin deflowering and church burning (that was a joke)

      --
      The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
    44. Re:Bye, bye RSS .... by Silkejr · · Score: 1

      I was thinking the same thing. Knowing Microsoft's immoral business practices, they'll probably try to extend it and then call it their 'intellectual property'. Man, I hate those guys.

    45. Re:Bye, bye RSS .... by Phoe6 · · Score: 1

      The only thing I don't like is when people invent new ways of expressing data that RSS already defines.. I guess he is referring to ATOM here. What is M$ doing to extend ATOM?

      --
      Senthil
    46. Re:Bye, bye RSS .... by Alsee · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I'll tell you what, how about we come back to this issue in about 9 to 18 months and we can discuss whether or not Microsoft PATENTED this extention to RSS?

      And yes, I know the bottom of their page promises to "offer a royalty-free patent license on reasonable and non-discriminatory terms and conditions to any such patent". Care to wager whether it would be essentially the same DELIBERATLY SABOTAGED license that Microsoft slapped on their SenderID system? You know, the royalty-free patent license on reasonable and non-discriminatory terms and conditions that just so happens to PROHIBIT use by GPL and most other open source software? The license that conflicts with the GPL in at least three ways that I counted? And I'm not even a lawyer... so I'd expect there are probably even more conflicts in there that I didn't spot.

      Of course I could be wrong. It's certainly possible that this won't appear amongst the SEVERAL THOUSAND software patents that Microsoft is now filing each year. Or if they do patent it, it's certainly possible that Microsoft will come up with and use some BRAND NEW patent license that doesn't conflict with the GPL and other open source projects. And it's certainly possible that we'll finally find those WMD's in Iraq. And it's certainly possible that SCO will suddenly reveal those millions of lines of stolen SystemV code.

      Yep, it's perfectly possible that you're right and it's just a bunch of whiney uneducated Slashdot minions unfairly bitching against Microsoft without cause.

      -

      --
      - - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
    47. Re:Bye, bye RSS .... by Alsee · · Score: 1

      Have you read the part at the bottom of the Microsoft webpage on it? The part where they explain that they haven't received a patent on it yet, but if they do that they will license the patent under essentially the same exact terms they license the SenderID system? The SenderID system license which is deliberaly sabotaged to prohibit any use in GPL and many other open source projects?

      In which case this would not only be another case of Microsoft's embreace, extend, and exterminate, but it would actually be ILLEGAL for Firefox to use it. Illegal for Netscape to use it. Illegal for Lynx to use it. It would be illegal for almost any browser other than IE to use it.

      Does that answer your question?

      -

      --
      - - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
    48. Re:Bye, bye RSS .... by kiwibird · · Score: 1

      I hope I don't sound too biased now, but I still have a feeling they're gonna use this to somehow stuff some Hotmail-like advertisement into the feeds - "Did you know you can get all these informative newsletters for free straight into your inbox/feed?" (Last line of the article: "applications of RSS that aren't about news.")

      But I guess they're right in that RSS could have some more ways of organizing, at least I have trouble getting much useful info out of my messy del.icio.us feeds.

    49. Re:Bye, bye RSS .... by KLizard · · Score: 1

      It seems that the current MS Mantra is: 'Adopt and Adapt' or vice versa . . . :)

    50. Re:Bye, bye RSS .... by pfleming · · Score: 1
      MS always gets kicked around (especially here) for doing things like this, so my question is: If a company is developing a product (RSS product seems an obvious example), and after exploring and using the standard meant for that type of product they see additional functionality which would be useful but isn't covered by the standards. What SHOULD they do? Just forget about additional functionality and live with the standard? Submit a request to the standard body, hope they agree, and wait for it to become part of the standard?
      I think it remains to be seen if this is a good or bad thing. If what they are doing is related only to MS software, then maybe no one cares. If it has to do only with their reader, then probably no one will care. What they most likely will do is wreck feeds so that they look like crap... jam it in sideways into IIS and do a check so your rss feed reader has to begin "identifying" itself as "Really Simple Syndication reader for Longhorn 1.23; incompatible" or you won't be able to read any feeds from IIS driven sites. Then they'll add some form of Digital Restrictions Management and sell it as an "enterprise tool" probably with ads of people walking around with dinosaur heads on.
    51. Re:Bye, bye RSS .... by EddWo · · Score: 1

      I don't see how this breaks anything. If your RSS parser is correct it will just ignore tags from namespaces it does not support. You don't need to support the extensions to read the feeds.

      Basically there are 4 situations.
      1. You have an existing aggregator and don't care about the extensions. -- Do Nothing, your aggregator will go on working regardless of wether the feeds you read contain the extensions.

      2. You produce feeds from your site/service and don't care about the extensions. -- Do Nothing, IE users will be able to read all your feeds, be they RSS 0.92, 1.0, 2.0 or Atom.

      3. You produce feeds from your site/service and you want IE users to be able to use the extended features to sort and filter lists. -- Add a couple of extra tags to your feeds using the freely implementable standard Microsoft has defined.

      4. You have an aggregator and want to add extra functionality to support sorting and filtering lists defined with the Microsoft extension. -- This requires the most work, but you have a specification to go by and a reference implementation in IE7. Its an entirely optional feature you might want to add to benifit your users.

      Are the W3C channels for adding extensions to RSS? Apparently all you need to do is choose a unique namespace identifier, and place a standard specification document at that URL.

      Slashdot alreadt has its own extension defined here, http://web.resource.org/rss/1.0/modules/slash/
      should that have gone through the W3C?

      I just don't see how these extensions can have a negative effect on existing RSS users or developers.

      --
      "Taligent is still pure vapor. Maybe they'll be the last who jumps up on Openstep... "
    52. Re:Bye, bye RSS .... by Dwonis · · Score: 1
      In many cases, I think you would be right to be worried about MS patents, but I'd be really surprised if *this* was patentable.

      Their spec could use some improvement, though. A few complete examples would be nice.

    53. Re:Bye, bye RSS .... by yerfatma · · Score: 1
      Besides, who cares about dominating RSS? It has no strategic value.

      You're joking, right? It's about to replace email for all the things people use email for but shouldn't. See this post for an example. Once someone figures out a way to add security (maybe that's in one of these extensions?), it should grow quickly.

    54. Re:Bye, bye RSS .... by NutscrapeSucks · · Score: 1

      Yeah, and we've been hearing this since the yonder days of "Push Technology" (when RDF/RSS first appeared, BTW).

      Which is not to say that RSS doesn't have some interesting applications, but realistically it's about 0.1% of something like a document management system.

      --
      Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
    55. Re:Bye, bye RSS .... by jpickett · · Score: 1

      I really don't think their extension are capable of qualifying as a patent, but stranger things have happened.

      I could be reading things wrong, but as far as I can tell currently the "GPL and most other open source software" is capable of using these extensions. I can't really speculate as to if this will change in the future, but then again, it's somewhat irresponsible for you to do so as well.

      Sarcastically blaming Microsoft about filing as many patent applications as they do is just complaining about the symptom, not the real issue. You can't really blame them for playing the game.

      The comparison to SCO is a little off since SCO is currently doing the 'bad' thing. As I see it, right now, MS is doing the 'right' thing with simply your prediction that they'll do the 'bad' thing later. You could be right, but as I read it now, it looks fine.

      I hate to also sidetrack into politics, but people that think the only reason for going into Iraq was due to WMD's, well I guess you would be let down. Not that I think Iraq was a smart idea, but it wasn't just about WMD's.

      At any rate, I guess we'll see what happens. I won't hold my breath that MS will do the right thing, but I do think it's premature to criticize how they're handling these extensions.

  2. How? by Conspiracy_Of_Doves · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So how exactly will they be changing the standard to make it incompatable with non-Microsoft readers?

    --

    Technoli
    1. Re:How? by saintp · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Special features to interact with Exchange and/or Outlook.

      --
      Another one bites the dust
    2. Re:How? by Reverend528 · · Score: 5, Funny

      They're going to add a "Marquee" tag so that rss readers can now support scrolling headnlines.

      --
      Badass Resumes
    3. Re:How? by DaHat · · Score: 1

      Their extensions to it will be released under the Creative Commons License.

      --
      Help Brendan pay off his student loans
    4. Re:How? by pHatidic · · Score: 1

      If no one uses Microsoft's solution then it won't be incompatible. All you have to do is show a little self restraint.

    5. Re:How? by jellomizer · · Score: 1

      But Microsofts RSS has features like graphics and scripting.... How can I resist.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    6. Re:How? by Spy+der+Mann · · Score: 4, Funny

      Special features to interact with Exchange and/or Outlook.

      Whee, RSS Viruses! :D

    7. Re:How? by rf600r · · Score: 1

      I'd laugh, but realized just how true this was. Now, I think I'll cry.

    8. Re:How? by TwistedSpring · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Since RSS is an XML-based standard, it would be relatively simple to add new functionality to it without breaking existing implementations.

    9. Re:How? by MattWhitworth · · Score: 1

      Naturally, most people will switch to these new RSS feeds ('because it's Microsoft' will be their excuse), and we'll say goodbye to another open medium for simple syndication.

      Anyone got any ideas for another open simple syndication standard?

    10. Re:How? by nonsequitor · · Score: 1

      It won't. I thought it was a good thing when I read the article. I didn't see one mention of them patenting this extension and requiring others who want to use it to license it.

    11. Re:How? by Conspiracy_Of_Doves · · Score: 1

      Well yeah. Of course it would. What makes you think that MS is going to do that, though? You may not have seen the point of the post, that Microsoft WANTS to make it incompatible with other readers.

      --

      Technoli
    12. Re:How? by Decaff · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Special features to interact with Exchange and/or Outlook.

      That won't break the use of RSS with existing software. RSS is a dialect of XML. XML is designed to be extended without breaking existing uses. This is why XML can be so useful as a data format - software that uses an XML dialect will still work after the dialect is extended.

      I'm not defending Microsoft here, but worries about incompatibilities are almost certainly unfounded because of the way XML works.

    13. Re:How? by LilMikey · · Score: 2, Funny

      That won't break the use of RSS with existing software. RSS is a dialect of XML. XML is designed to be extended without breaking existing uses. This is why XML can be so useful as a data format - software that uses an XML dialect will still work after the dialect is extended.

      Yes, and HTML should work in any browser.

      --
      LilMikey.com... I'll stop doing it when you sto
    14. Re:How? by TedTschopp · · Score: 2, Insightful

      HTML is not XML
      XHTML is XML

      --
      Fantasy remains a human right; we make in our measure and in our derivative mode... -- JRR Tolkien
    15. Re:How? by Decaff · · Score: 1

      Yes, and HTML should work in any browser.

      This is irrelevant. There are many parallel 'standards' for HTML. With XML, a dialect can have one precisely defined DTD (Document Type Definition). If an extended dialect does not conform to that DTD, it is not an extension - it is a different dialect. Extensions to RSS have to conform to the RSS standard, as defined by the DTD. If they don't, they aren't RSS!

    16. Re:How? by killjoe · · Score: 1

      WOW. This meme has been repeated like a hundred times on this topic already. The astro-turfers are out in force today.

      --
      evil is as evil does
    17. Re:How? by spongman · · Score: 1

      they won't. as long as your RSS reader is using a namespace-aware XML parser.

    18. Re: How? by Decaff · · Score: 1

      3. Microsoft dominates the RSS market, RSS version 4 comes out.
      4. Microsoft in a confortable monopoly doesn't update their RSS reader.

      That shows how Microsoft can stifle innovation, but does not indicate how any existing standard is going to be broken.

    19. Re:How? by fatphil · · Score: 1

      Hey - could we get those headlines to blink too? That would be cool!

      FP.

      --
      Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
    20. Re:How? by cgreuter · · Score: 1

      RSS is a dialect of XML.

      This is incorrect. RSS is an application of XML.

      [...] software that uses an XML dialect will still work after the dialect is extended.

      This is also incorrect. XML is not magically backward compatible. The correct thing to say is that XML sometimes makes it possible to design an XML-based data format that is backward compatible. For example, there are nine different, incompatible versions of RSS.

      Microsoft might actually be doing the world a favour by introducing their own funky version, since that's likely to be the version that everyone actually uses. It (or a subset thereof) may end up being the thing everyone can actually use without worrying about incompatibilies.

      Ah, who am I kidding? It'll be a horrible mess on par with HTML of the mid-nineties.

    21. Re:How? by Decaff · · Score: 1

      This is incorrect. RSS is an application of XML.

      No. The application is the software that processes it. RSS versions have DTDs, so they are dialects of XML.

      This is also incorrect. XML is not magically backward compatible. The correct thing to say is that XML sometimes makes it possible to design an XML-based data format that is backward compatible.

      This is incorrect. If you use either a DTD or Schema then you can force backward compatibility.

  3. plenty of time by CausticPuppy · · Score: 5, Funny

    This feature will be included in Longhorn.

    Don't panic. This gives the OSS community a couple of years to respond. Besides, this feature probably won't make it into the final release of Longhorn anyway.

    --
    -CausticPuppy "Of all the people I know, you're certainly one of them." -Somebody I don't know
    1. Re:plenty of time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      Actually Longhorn already has an RSS reader, and Microsoft has been building RSS into a lot of their beta software recently. It's not really much of a surprise at this point.

    2. Re:plenty of time by zwilliams07 · · Score: 1

      Besides, this feature probably won't make it into the final release of Longhorn anyway.

      Well at least Windows Users will still get WinFS, Avalon, Indigo, and Paladin... oh wait... nevermind.

    3. Re:plenty of time by AwaxSlashdot · · Score: 1

      final release .... Longhorn. Grammatically correct ?

      --
      Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
  4. I'm sure they won't jack up the spec by sdriver · · Score: 3, Funny

    I'm sure they will add stuff that makes sense as well!

  5. As it should be. by TheBrownShow · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...while RSS is a reliable standard for updating information in message form, it currently has no logical way to organize that information in a way that could help subscribers keep track of what is being fed to them.

    Which is exactly the way it SHOULD be done. Keep the management of the data seperate from the transmission of the data. Leave content management up to the APPLICATION.

    1. Re:As it should be. by Winterblink · · Score: 1

      They are. They're just also integrating it so that content management is handled by the application, the operating system, and the 14 year old hax0rs who are rejoicing at Microsoft opening up yet another way to rapidly disseminate nastiness to large groups of people.

      --
      "I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
      -Hoban Washburn
    2. Re:As it should be. by DaHat · · Score: 2, Interesting

      To quote one member of the team: "RSS is too good to just be in browsers and news aggregators" and he is exactly right. Why have multiple applications reinventing the wheel to do the same thing when different applications can do their own thing with the data, but leave many aspects of it up to the main system.

      --
      Help Brendan pay off his student loans
    3. Re:As it should be. by I_can_not_believe_I_ · · Score: 1

      *Ding* *ding* *ding* We have a winner, give it two years and not only will McAfee have an RSS plug-in, but I'll be wondering why the fsck my RSS reader is grabbing 60 meg videos every time I turn around. Text is a beautiful thing, and a great communication medium, quit taking the simple, elegant, and functional and "extending" it into garbage.

    4. Re:As it should be. by Winterblink · · Score: 2, Insightful

      (A bit offtopic here) I find it interesting how the internet went from a primarily text-based medium, and suddenly exploded with MEDIA MEDIA MEDIA everywhere. We ended up with horrble frankensites like IGN and CNet, with maybe 1% actual content per page, the rest being graphical and media fluff. And now I hear what you say a LOT, where people are sick of going to sites and being overloaded with junk, and trying to find the buried content. Lots of people are finding the minimalist standpoint to be a valid one (my website for instance is pretty minimalist in that regard).

      Back to RSS, I think we'll see the same thing happen. We'll rejoince at the BROADBAND MEDIA XPERIENCE it will bring us with all these extensions, but it will implode under its own weight. I'm just hoping it will return to its roots intead of fizzling out as another internet neato thing du jour.

      --
      "I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
      -Hoban Washburn
    5. Re:As it should be. by TwistedSpring · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Oh god. This was rated 5? Currently there is no way to organise data in a sensible list format. For example, I'm reading an RSS news feed, but there is no RSS standard on how to date the headlines. RSS readers currently have to cache the old RSS file and look for changes to ascertain when new headlines appear and infer the date based on when the new headline appeared. A sensible ordering/dating system would make RSS a great deal more powerful, and a great deal more sensible.

    6. Re:As it should be. by TheBrownShow · · Score: 5, Informative

      A sensible ordering/dating system would make RSS a great deal more powerful, and a great deal more sensible.

      There already IS a dating sytem in RSS, see the optional channel elements "pubDate" and "lastBuildDate" in the RSS 2.0 Spec at http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss

      Oh god. This was rated 5?
      Now that's not very nice at all, at least I did my homework :-P

    7. Re:As it should be. by oliverthered · · Score: 1

      When I added dates I just assumed that ISO date format should be used, or the same format kicked out by http or Javascript (yyyy-mm-dd GMT +- nn)
      Doesn't everyone?

      --
      thank God the internet isn't a human right.
    8. Re:As it should be. by Seanasy · · Score: 1
      but there is no RSS standard on how to date the headlines. RSS readers currently have to cache the old RSS file and look for changes to ascertain when new headlines appear and infer the date based on when the new headline appeared.
      <pubDate />

      This is in the RSS 2.0 Spec. +5 indeed.

    9. Re:As it should be. by Gobelet · · Score: 1

      Or they could use Unix Epoch. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_epoch

    10. Re:As it should be. by chris234 · · Score: 2, Funny

      (A bit offtopic here) I find it interesting how the internet went from a primarily text-based medium, and suddenly exploded with MEDIA MEDIA MEDIA everywhere. We ended up with horrble frankensites like IGN and CNet, with maybe 1% actual content per page, the rest being graphical and media fluff. And now I hear what you say a LOT, where people are sick of going to sites and being overloaded with junk, and trying to find the buried content. Lots of people are finding the minimalist standpoint to be a valid one (my website for instance is pretty minimalist in that regard).

      I like to refer to this stuff as nontent.

    11. Re:As it should be. by MynockGuano · · Score: 1

      Of course, that is until every little "helpful" toolbar and Internet Speeder-Upper and VIRTUAL TASKBAR SEX BABE and good-old-fashioned spyware subscribes you to them via some wide-open API that Microsoft has decided in their eminent wisdom to include. Share and Enjoy!

    12. Re:As it should be. by generic-man · · Score: 1

      Welcome home.

      And trip like THIS

      tripe

      truely this is no longer

      truly

      --
      For more information, click here.
    13. Re:As it should be. by ArghBlarg · · Score: 1

      .. and furthermore, the proper response to that statement is "WTF?!"

      I'm just learning about RSS myself, but I already see that RSS has tag. So there's already at least one way to organize RSS data.

      --
      ERROR 144 - REBOOT ?
    14. Re:As it should be. by babelex · · Score: 1

      Actually M$ additions are aimed at being able to define sorting types and groupings, RSS as is just supports dates or temporal sorting (rss 2.0). I should add that rss1.0 has all sorts of extensions/modules which arent supported by V2.0 but v2 is more likely to win in the long run, particularly backed by DW. A better argument might have been why didn't M$ use atom, which some refer to as rss3.0 ;) As this standard already does support the apparant needs M$ have stated. Perhaps the answer heres is that google likes it, DW doesn't and maybe it can't be Embraced and Extended. Then again M$ may have changed its spots and is now playing ball with everyone else ;)

    15. Re:As it should be. by vrmlguy · · Score: 1
      There already IS a dating sytem in RSS, see the optional channel elements "pubDate" and "lastBuildDate" in the RSS 2.0 Spec at http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss

      Sorry, the only RSS dating system that *I'm* looking for is a feed for http://www.single-russian-woman.com/.

      --
      Nothing for 6-digit uids?
  6. Other RSS uses by nizcolas · · Score: 3, Funny

    From the article, The people at Microsoft noticed something that I had seen, only peripherally--that there were applications of RSS that aren't about news. Like podcasting? Also, who thinks Microsoft's extension of RSS may be the attempted return of push technology?

    --
    If you get an error, type "OVERRIDE" or "SECURITY OVERRIDE" and then try the optimize command again.
    1. Re:Other RSS uses by user32.ExitWindowsEx · · Score: 1

      ooh...push-based spyware?

      --
      "Evil will always triumph because good is dumb." -- Dark Helmet
    2. Re:Other RSS uses by cei · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yeah, but isn't that really all RSS is? Another format of the RDF that was used for channels?

      --
      This sig intentionally left justified.
    3. Re:Other RSS uses by PepeGSay · · Score: 1

      who thinks Microsoft's extension of RSS may be the attempted return of push technology?

      Push never went away. Automatic updates in all your application are various incarnations of "push". Anything that gets some info without your explicitly asking for it essentially all that "push" ever was.

  7. By keeping track of what's being fed by kwilliamyoungatl · · Score: 4, Interesting

    You can add DRM and other "features". Uggh.

    1. Re:By keeping track of what's being fed by Alsee · · Score: 1

      RSS with Marquee, Blink, and DRM! YUM!

      -

      --
      - - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
  8. What will they really do? by ravenspear · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I hope by "extend the standard" they don't mean "basterdize it and then break compatibility with all non-M$ versions" because we've all seen that before.

    1. Re:What will they really do? by DaHat · · Score: 2, Informative

      Their extensions will be released under the Creative Commons License, how about you get some facts before you gripe.

      --
      Help Brendan pay off his student loans
    2. Re:What will they really do? by freshman_a · · Score: 1

      So? That doesn't mean they will make extensions that are 100% compatible with non-MS products.

      Their extensions will be released under the Creative Commons License
      There are 6 licenses to choose from, which one is MS using?

      --
      Slackware
    3. Re:What will they really do? by DaHat · · Score: 4, Informative

      I'm getting my facts from an interview video on Channel 9 where they sit down and talk with the team who built this system, as well as a demonstration of the system.

      You are right though, the Creative Commons is not a software license, it is a license for documents, including specifications. The original RSS specs were published under the CC, and in keeping in line with that because of their talks with the original developers of RSS.

      --
      Help Brendan pay off his student loans
    4. Re:What will they really do? by TwistedSpring · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Why is this relevant? You think Microsoft would change the standard so that no existing RSS reader on any platform could handle it? That's bullshit. Since RSS is based on XML it's easy to extend and add features to it that will simply be ignored by existing readers.

      Microsoft are big on XML. Their new office format will be completely open and XML compliant. I see no reason to believe that Microsoft will "basterdize" the RSS format, a format that has to be compatible with existing readers for its uptake to be guaranteed (i.e. no RSS publisher will embrace the extensions if they are incompatible with the majority of reader apps). The most Microsoft will do is say "Hey, you get a better RSS experience if you use the reader included in Longhorn since it is compatible with the new RSS extensions introduced by Microsoft".

      I think this is solely to do with improving usability and enhancing user experience, which is what Microsoft desperately need to do if Longhorn is going to beat OS X, and as someone who's written RSS parsers I welcome this addition to the standard, it seems like a really practical and useful idea.

    5. Re:What will they really do? by cei · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Looks like the RSS 2.0 spec is under Share Alike, actually. Ya learn something new every day...

      --
      This sig intentionally left justified.
    6. Re:What will they really do? by qurk · · Score: 1
      I see no reason to believe that Microsoft will "basterdize" the RSS format, a format that has to be compatible with existing readers for its uptake to be guaranteed

      You may be right but I don't have a lot of faith in Microsoft right now. I've been using a hotmail email address as my primary for many years now, and now I learn that this fall Microsoft is "basterdizing" the format to make it more secure. I get absolutely NO spam, I get absolutely NO unwanted emails on my hotmail account, yet I may have quit using it. Plus Microsoft's track record sortof speaks for itself.

      (i.e. no RSS publisher will embrace the extensions if they are incompatible with the majority of reader apps)

      Your statement makes complete sense to me but I've ran into enough MS fans over the years who feel like they gotta use MS's newest awesome technology and if I can't use it, then I should shell out $400 for a copy of longhorn too, by golly!

      Will stay optimistic though. I hope you are right.

    7. Re:What will they really do? by drbill28 · · Score: 1

      "Why is this relevant? You think Microsoft would change the standard so that no existing RSS reader on any platform could handle it? That's bullshit. Since RSS is based on XML it's easy to extend and add features to it that will simply be ignored by existing readers.

      Microsoft are big on XML. Their new office format will be completely open and XML compliant. I see no reason to believe that Microsoft will "basterdize" the RSS format, a format that has to be compatible with existing readers for its uptake to be guaranteed (i.e. no RSS publisher will embrace the extensions if they are incompatible with the majority of reader apps). The most Microsoft will do is say "Hey, you get a better RSS experience if you use the reader included in Longhorn since it is compatible with the new RSS extensions introduced by Microsoft".

      I think this is solely to do with improving usability and enhancing user experience, which is what Microsoft desperately need to do if Longhorn is going to beat OS X, and as someone who's written RSS parsers I welcome this addition to the standard, it seems like a really practical and useful idea."

      You could make the same argument in their HTML implementations. That sometimes screws up things for other browsers. Even on important or popular web pages.

    8. Re:What will they really do? by HishamMuhammad · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Microsoft are big on XML. Their new office format will be completely open and XML compliant. Do you call releasing a file format in a GPL-incompatible way "completely open"?? (Notice I didn't refer to GPL-incompatible code. There's a lot of GPL-incompatible free software out there, and they are still free software. File formats, however, are a different story. To be open, they need to be implementation-independent. Not only in their specification but also on their licensing.)

      --
      The filesystem is the package manager
    9. Re:What will they really do? by pentalive · · Score: 1
      i.e. no RSS publisher will embrace the extensions if they are incompatible with the majority of reader apps


      Since Microsoft is the biggest gorilla on the block, where ever they lead the RSS publihers will follow. If they extend RSS and Patent those extensions no one else can build readers that have the extensions (unless they pay for a licsense)

      Will the publishers use only the free subset? why? Everyone running Windows will have an RSS reader that can understand the full extended set. Because Microsoft is a MONOPOLY they get to do that sort of thing...

      (please tell me more people run LINUX or OSX than WINDOWS)
    10. Re:What will they really do? by killjoe · · Score: 1

      If MS is willing to tag all email not using their patented protocol as spam then they would indeed to break the existing standard. You think they all discovered jesus all of a sudden and are now going to act ethically? I think not.

      --
      evil is as evil does
    11. Re:What will they really do? by KwKSilver · · Score: 1

      Warning. Warning. Warning. Sounds like a clear warning that they are going to have a loaded gun ready to blast any GPL developers.

      --
      If you want your life to be different, live it differently.
  9. Thanks Microsoft by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    You assholes.

    1. Re:Thanks Microsoft by neverland0 · · Score: 1

      Im so tired. I feel very tired and discouraged this week. "Fighting" against Microsoft is very, very difficult...Sender ID, RSS , everything...

  10. Winer vs Microsoft by cxreg · · Score: 1

    Which of these 2 enormous &#@$^#@$% will win?

    --

    God Fucking Damnit
  11. Re:Here we go again... by ShieldW0lf · · Score: 3, Funny

    Apparently it's going to be called SSS - Sorta Simple Syndication.

    --
    -1 Uncomfortable Truth
  12. Hmmm... by ehaggis · · Score: 1

    1. Sounds like MS is playing Catch up.
    2. "Winer also suggested that Microsoft may be interested in integrating RSS more tightly with its software, in particular within Internet Explorer". Sounds like ActiveRSS to me.
    3. Another feature to add to Longhorn, only to drop it later.
    4. Probably will only work with IIS sites.

    --
    One ring to bind them - should probably have more fiber and less rings in their diet.
    1. Re:Hmmm... by It+doesn't+come+easy · · Score: 1

      Only security improvements are subject to being dropped...

      --
      The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
    2. Re:Hmmm... by neurokaotix · · Score: 1

      5. ????
      6. PROFIT!!!

      --
      "...if people respected copyright more, like you guys do with the GPL so religiously, [the DMCA] wouldn't be necessary."
  13. Microsoft "Breaks" RSS by gbulmash · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Whenever Microsoft "extends" a standard, they always seem to extend it in ways so use of their extensions makes your page/script/applet inoperable with competing products that support the internationally approved standard. So should the title of this article actually be "Microsoft Breaks RSS"?

    - Greg

    --
    Start a happiness pandemic
    1. Re:Microsoft "Breaks" RSS by Utopia · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The RSS standard itself allows for extensions.
      The extensions themselves can be standardized.

      Microsoft is not breaking the standard.




    2. Re:Microsoft "Breaks" RSS by jav1231 · · Score: 1

      My aren't we naive! I got a $50 that says if they touch RSS they WILL fsck it up. A tiger can't change his stripes and M$ doesn't seem to even want too. Anytime someone takes off, they seem to take the attitude that "If we could introduce some extension in there that only our software could correctly interpret, then the market for other applications will be hindered. Print it!" I think I'm up to exhibit S that M$ is inherently evil.

    3. Re:Microsoft "Breaks" RSS by MoonFog · · Score: 1

      That would mean editing the already existing tags and mess up the corresponding DTD/XSDs in which case it won't be RSS anymore.

    4. Re:Microsoft "Breaks" RSS by Windrip · · Score: 1

      Microsoft is patenting the standard

    5. Re:Microsoft "Breaks" RSS by TrappedByMyself · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Whenever Microsoft "extends" a standard, they always seem to extend it in ways so use of their extensions makes your page/script/applet inoperable with competing products that support the internationally approved standard.

      You mean like how they extended JavaScript to include XMLHttpRequest? Yeah, that whole emergence of Ajax has been a disaster.

      --

      Help me take back Slashdot. When did 'News for Nerds' become 'FUD and Conspiracy Theories for Extremist Nutjobs'?
    6. Re:Microsoft "Breaks" RSS by AngelfMercy · · Score: 1

      That's because they haven't *done* anything yet. . . give them a bit of time

      --
      -nando
    7. Re:Microsoft "Breaks" RSS by soulhuntre · · Score: 1

      You mean like how they extended JavaScript to include XMLHttpRequest? Yeah, that whole emergence of Ajax has been a disaster.

      No facts! You're not allowed to bring facts in here... this thread is for rampant uninformed paranoia!

      --
      --> Fight tyranny and repression.... read /. at -1!
    8. Re:Microsoft "Breaks" RSS by leighklotz · · Score: 1

      > The RSS standard itself allows for extensions.
      >The extensions themselves can be standardized.
      There is no RSS standard. There is no standards oragnization, or even industry consortium like the W3C, that defines it. If you don't like RSS 1.0 or 2.0, just declare an RSS 3.0 (or RSS 3.14159) and publish your own spec.

      Check out Atom, though; it is being hammered out in the IETF, so at least there is some process for defining it, and a single point of coordination makes it possible to believe you know what someone means when they say it.

    9. Re:Microsoft "Breaks" RSS by gbulmash · · Score: 1
      You mean like how they extended JavaScript to include XMLHttpRequest? Yeah, that whole emergence of Ajax has been a disaster.

      And many child molesters are remembered as beloved scoutmasters/coaches/pastors by the children they didn't molest. Just because Microsoft occasionally does something right, we should forget all their other wrong doings and trust them implicitly?

      Pull the other leg, it has bells on.

      - Greg

      --
      Start a happiness pandemic
    10. Re:Microsoft "Breaks" RSS by TrappedByMyself · · Score: 1

      Oh, the child molestor analogy. Such class.
      You have much hatred in your heart child. Is it anger, fear, or just the need to belong? I feel for you.

      --

      Help me take back Slashdot. When did 'News for Nerds' become 'FUD and Conspiracy Theories for Extremist Nutjobs'?
    11. Re:Microsoft "Breaks" RSS by NickFortune · · Score: 1
      The RSS standard itself allows for extensions. The extensions themselves can be standardized. Yeah! Like XML! Of course RSS is based on XML so that makes sense.

      Of course, usually when you create an extension to something, you call it something else, so as not to confuse people, or break existing apps.

      That doesn't sound much like Microsoft's usual Modus Operandi though. In fact I don't think Microsoft use mean the same thing by "extend" as the RSS people mean. The RSS guys probably meant "create a standard based upon RSS but distinct from it".

      When Microsoft say "extend" they generally seem to mean "Exterminate! Exterminate!"

      --
      Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
  14. Innovation by repetty · · Score: 4, Funny

    It's only reasonable to expect innovation like this from the company that invented the Internet.

    Microsoft kicks ass!

    1. Re:Innovation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      We need mod points for irony

    2. Re:Innovation by killjoe · · Score: 1

      YEA!. When the new MS RSS reader comes out all other RSS readers are going to DIE. If you are using an RSS reasder you better stop right now and wait till MS comes out with their vastly superior RSS format and reader. It's a killer app, MS will be betting the company on it!. Truly, honest, you better stop using competing products because all those companies will go out of business the day the new RSS reader comes out.

      --
      evil is as evil does
  15. Longhorn? What's that? by oliver+clozoff · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Is there really a concern that they'll embrace and extend when they take so long to embrace? Apple on Intel will likely be out before Microsoft releases the successor to XP, which was released in 2001.

  16. In Longhorn huh? by tktk · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Hopefully by the time Longhorn comes out, we'll have moved onto something better.

    So MSFT has basically taken the better, cooler features out of Longhorn and replaced it with an RSS reader? I haven't been paying too much attention to Longhorn but really, what new things are going to be in there?

    1. Re:In Longhorn huh? by UTPinky · · Score: 1

      "I haven't been paying too much attention to Longhorn but really, what new things are going to be in there?"

      The new Longhorn logo...

      --
      I'm only paranoid because everyone is against me...
  17. Re:Microsoft is The Follower by TripMaster+Monkey · · Score: 2, Insightful


    How long can this be maintained?

    As long as we let them.

    --
    ____

    ~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey

  18. Will be included in longhorn? by Roadmaster · · Score: 1

    No need to worry then, chances are it gets stripped from longhorn before release and it's another 10 years before this sees the light.

  19. I can't wait by m50d · · Score: 2, Funny

    After the enormous improvements that were the MS extensions to Java, I'm sure this will be a great extension that will benefit everyone involved, and act to reduce lock-in. What wonderful people MS are, improving things for everyone.

    --
    I am trolling
  20. Seen this before by Bronz · · Score: 4, Insightful

    1. Pick an up and coming technology that _you_ didn't see coming (and that your products don't support at all).

    2. Point out a fault in it. Promise to *fix* it by changing the standard so the improved version is only compatible with your software.

    3. Get people to believe the technology isn't ready until you have a chance to support it.

    4. Sell it as a new idea and profit.

    Look, I made an ordered list without extending /.

    1. Re:Seen this before by mrchaotica · · Score: 1
      Look, I made an ordered list without extending /.
      No you didn't; you made a bunch of paragraphs. This is an ordered list:
      1. Pick an up and coming technology that _you_ didn't see coming (and that your products don't support at all).
      2. Point out a fault in it. Promise to *fix* it by changing the standard so the improved version is only compatible with your software.
      3. Get people to believe the technology isn't ready until you have a chance to support it.
      4. Sell it as a new idea and profit.
      Hopefully this Microsoft extension will be something akin to changing a <ul> tag to a <ol> tag rather than some complicated hack that might be patentable (analogous to starting with the <p> tag and inventing the idea of extending it into a list by adding the numbering, to use the example of your post). ; )
      --

      "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

    2. Re:Seen this before by NetNifty · · Score: 1
      "changing a
        tag to a
          tag rather than some complicated hack that might be patentable"

          Unfortunatly I wouldn't be surprised changing that
          that was patentable.
      --
      Linux Wireless Hardware in the UK
    3. Re:Seen this before by mzwaterski · · Score: 1
      Microsoft takes cool stuff, dumbs it down, and makes it avaiable to everyone else. This is what has made them so popular. People who understand the cool stuff in the raw form are the minority (changing slowly). Microsofts power is directly proportional to the average person's lack of computational understanding and the lack of developer's understanding of the average person's lack of computational understanding. Microsoft can take the developers stuff that is cool but hard to use, simplify it, and distribute with marketing power behind it.

      I'm pretty sure that this all fits nicely in your list. Instead of complaining about it, its time that people realize (and they are) that you can't just release the most powerful software and expect people to figure out how to use it.

    4. Re:Seen this before by Floody · · Score: 1

      Microsoft takes cool stuff, dumbs it down, and makes it avaiable to everyone else. This is what has made them so popular. People who understand the cool stuff in the raw form are the minority (changing slowly). Microsofts power is directly proportional to the average person's lack of computational understanding and the lack of developer's understanding of the average person's lack of computational understanding. Microsoft can take the developers stuff that is cool but hard to use, simplify it, and distribute with marketing power behind it.

      No. What Microsoft does is carefully review existing deployed technology and figure how best they can use their installed-base to render said technology as non-functional as possible while simultaneously creating increased dependency on Microsoft products. Case and point: Active Directory Services and DNS, Active Directory Services and Kerberos.

      This is not about engineering, this is about marketing. Microsoft does not want you to have any non-Microsoft choices regarding what software technologies you deploy. Their past behavior has shown that they will stop at nothing to achieve this goal.

      So while there is considerable "knee-jerk" reactionism to what might only amount to benign behavior on the part of Microsoft (RSS extension/design), can you really blaim people? Beat a man repeatedly enough times and he'll flinch when you raise your hand to offer him food.

  21. 'Really Simple' by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    'Really Simple' obviosuly means something different in Redmond. They've obviosuly embraced and extended English as well. I'll have to try that one in the Word thesaraus. Mark

    1. Re:'Really Simple' by MirrororriM · · Score: 1
      According to MS Word Thesaurus:

      Really: If truth be told
      Simple: effortless

      So the truth is - they're making no efforts.

      --
      Content Management System: A pretentious way of saying "text editor."
  22. Didn't We Already Have This? by pestilence669 · · Score: 1

    Active Desktop had this channel subscription policy. Netscape Navigator had channels.

    This technology, years ago, was hyped as "push." It went nowhere. RSS isn't REALLY that different, it's just more general purpose.

    Is RSS worth the hype? Sadly, I think yes, but not this much.

  23. Sorting the data? by taskforce · · Score: 2, Informative
    "Gary Schare, director of strategic product management in the Windows division of Microsoft, says that while RSS is a reliable standard for updating information in message form, it currently has no logical way to organize that information in a way that could help subscribers keep track of what is being fed to them."

    Surely sorting the data is the job of the client program, RSS is just a way of delivering the information. I'd assume the Participatory Culture Foundation is going to have some way of sorting through the shows you subscribe to. Ways which currently exist include indexing the RSS message "Spotlight" or Longhorn search style or just using the existing HTML Meta Tag systems. (The former being IMO much more flexible and informative than anything Microsoft could come up with in code.)

    --
    My 3D Texturing Skinning work (under construction)
  24. Re:Microsoft is The Follower by xMilkmanDanx · · Score: 1

    Unfortunately, their near-monopoly gives them the freedom to be so mediocre.

    New company slogan?

    "Microsoft... striving to be acceptable." or "Microsoft... quality is job 42.

    --
    I am not in anyway affiliated with Max Cannon
  25. Safari's RSS? How about Firefox's by Noksagt · · Score: 1
    It appears as though they will be including RSS support in Internet Explorer, which will come over a year and a half after the same technology was introduced in Apple's Safari RSS.
    Safari had RSS in the release which came with Tiger (released 2005-04-29). Firefox had LiveBookmarks since release 0.10 (released 2004-09-13), and of course had it in extensions before then.
  26. Gee, that's funny ... by w98 · · Score: 2, Insightful
    no logical way to organize that information in a way [to] keep track of what is being fed to them

    Funny, every RSS feed *I* have ever subscribed to has always been returned in timestamp order, newest article first.

    How *else* would you organize it? I watch my feeds based on timestamp - if something new shows up, it shows up at the top of the list.

    It ain't rocket science ...

    --
    my geeklog
    1. Re:Gee, that's funny ... by brontus3927 · · Score: 1

      I think the point MS is trying to make is this: I subscribe to the slashdot RSS feed. However, I may only want to read the YRO and AskSlashdot stories. That I know of, there is no way to selectively download stories from a feed. If there was some sort of header of section info, I could pick and choose which stories to view and wich to discard before it reaches the viewer. The closest thing to this is what Reuters and Yahoo do: have seperate feeds for each topic: Science, Technology, Top News, Politics, etc. But I'm sure it would be easier for a site to offer one RSS feed which the end-user could selectively filter instead of seperate feeds for different topics.

      --
      Free MacMini
    2. Re:Gee, that's funny ... by Gobelet · · Score: 1

      If you go to yro.slashdot.org, and subscribe to the RSS Feed, only news from YRO will appear.

    3. Re:Gee, that's funny ... by TwistedSpring · · Score: 1

      What timestamp?

    4. Re:Gee, that's funny ... by ubernostrum · · Score: 1

      I think the point MS is trying to make is this: I subscribe to the slashdot RSS feed. However, I may only want to read the YRO and AskSlashdot stories. That I know of, there is no way to selectively download stories from a feed. If there was some sort of header of section info, I could pick and choose which stories to view and wich to discard before it reaches the viewer.

      Yeah, it's not like RSS already has a "category" tag that you could use to mark which topic an item belongs to and let people filter on...

  27. Re:Here we go again... by m50d · · Score: 1
    Apparently it's going to be called SSS

    You sure that's not "SOS"?

    --
    I am trolling
  28. We prefer the phrase.... by Noksagt · · Score: 2

    Embrace and Extinguish (TM)

  29. more MS innovation by Macnetic · · Score: 1

    after tabbed browsing... time to celebrate...

  30. Discussion and Demos from the team on Channel9 by km790816 · · Score: 3, Informative

    http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=8053 3

    Amazingly good discussion and demos!

    --
    A speech...
    1. Re:Discussion and Demos from the team on Channel9 by Evets · · Score: 1

      I thought this should have been modded informative too.... then I followed the link.

      Just a bunch of uninformative praise for MS, a link to a non-working video, and a link that points to a site for screenshots, but as it turns out the screenshots are just ones that were grabbed from flickr that you can see here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/ie7/

  31. mod parent up by 5plicer · · Score: 1

    You hit the nail on the head. Content should be separated as much as possible from presentation. Just think of CSS and XHTML. Maybe the reason why M$ wants to break this rule is that it goes against some of W3C's fundamental philosophies.

    --
    The bits on the bus go on and off... on and off... on and off...
  32. Re:Microsoft is The Follower by Shag · · Score: 2, Informative
    They have done it from day 1, nearly 25 years ago, in purchasing QDOS.
    Young whippersnapper! Day 1 was more like 30 years ago, when they took BASIC (which had been developed a decade earlier at Dartmouth) and ported it to... what was it, the Altair? Then they licensed it, presumably for money - and that was Microsoft's true "innovation" - taking something that people had created for free and finding a way to charge money for it.
    --
    Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
  33. Watch out for patents.. by segfault_0 · · Score: 1

    The real danger is that this very plausibly is just an excuse for them to make it "different" enough to patent the crap out of it. The patent office doesnt seem to be against letting people tweak good ideas and calling them their own.

    --

    I was crazy back when being crazy really meant something. (Charles Manson)
    1. Re:Watch out for patents.. by Skiron · · Score: 1

      That has nothing to do with it. You need lots and lots of money and good legal writers to file a patent.

      Microsoft has both - the rest of us just do the stuff to see it given away 'legally'.

      Microsoft cannot ever be stopped on the Patent front. No one could ever afford to defend a case against them.

  34. RSS, compatibility, and Safari by cahiha · · Score: 1

    First of all, there are several incompatible versions of RSS already, so one more won't hurt.

    Secondly, what is the point of the Safari comment? Safari has a tiny market share and it wasn't the first browser with RSS features either. Is there some kind of competition going on between Microsoft and Apple who can copy other people's features faster? Why not limit mentions of Apple to those areas where they actually came up with something for themselves?

    1. Re:RSS, compatibility, and Safari by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Amen. I use a Mac but frankly the little sneaky comments embarass me. It like Six degrees of Mac with /. comments

  35. We're from Microsoft and we're here to help ... by John+Jorsett · · Score: 1

    Strangely, this doesn't comfort me.

  36. Re:Safari's RSS? How about Firefox's by learn+fast · · Score: 3, Informative

    No, Safari's had it since 2004-07-28 from which the Firefox team may have gotten the idea in the first place.

  37. Embrace, Extend, Patent by Albanach · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Is't microsoft as usual...
    1. Embrace
    2. Extend
    3. Patent
    4. Profit

    Their Office 2k3 XML format's 'may' have patents prohibiting their use in open source applications. Who's to bet the new RSS 'standard' will similarly be patented.

    1. Re:Embrace, Extend, Patent by xphase · · Score: 1
      I'm going to lose all of my Karma for this post, but did you actually read the Patent license that you just linked to?

      Notable excerpts:

      Microsoft may have patents and/or patent applications that are necessary for you to license in order to make, sell, or distribute software programs that read or write files that comply with the Microsoft specifications for the Office Schemas.

      Except as provided below, Microsoft hereby grants you a royalty-free license under Microsoft's Necessary Claims to make, use, sell, offer to sell, import, and otherwise distribute Licensed Implementations solely for the purpose of reading and writing files that comply with the Microsoft specifications for the Office Schemas.


      and


      If you distribute, license or sell a Licensed Implementation, this license is conditioned upon you requiring that the following notice be prominently displayed in all copies and derivative works of your source code and in copies of the documentation and licenses associated with your Licensed Implementation:

      "This product may incorporate intellectual property owned by Microsoft Corporation. The terms and conditions upon which Microsoft is licensing such intellectual property may be found at http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/odcXMLRef/ html/odcXMLRefLegalNotice.asp."

      By including the above notice in a Licensed Implementation, you will be deemed to have accepted the terms and conditions of this license. You are not licensed to distribute a Licensed Implementation under license terms and conditions that prohibit the terms and conditions of this license.



      Microsoft reserves the right to terminate this license grant if you sue Microsoft or any of Microsoft's affiliates for patent infringement over claims relating to reading or writing of files that comply with the Office Schemas. This license is perpetual subject to this reservation.


      If you actually read through the text, you will see that, although this license is not anywhere close to open source, it's main purpose is to prevent Microsoft from getting sued for patent infringement over the file formats. The text on that website grants everyone the right to use the specification in "those specific portions of a software product that read and write files that are fully compliant with the specifications for the Office Schemas."

      I do not believe in software patents, but, even if Microsoft's patents here are validated (which they may not be), then you still have a license to use the specification.

      I'm sure that if you tried a little harder you would be able to find something better to bitch about than this specific Microsoft issue.

      N.B. The above quotes have at least one auto generated inaccuracy due to Slashdot's display system.
      --
      The following sentence is TRUE. The previous sentence is FALSE.
    2. Re:Embrace, Extend, Patent by anubi · · Score: 1
      Note the wide scope:

      Microsoft reserves the right to terminate this license grant if you sue Microsoft or any of Microsoft's affiliates for patent infringement over claims relating to reading or writing of files that comply with the Office Schemas.

      We are dealing with a business. And Government. Has anyone known these guys to change stuff after they get what they want, always being sure to keep the "fuckees" below a critical power level and mass so that they can't get enough public uproar to upset their apple cart?

      Very restrictive laws are in place. I don't like going into a dungeon only trusting either a business or the Government won't lock the door, trapping me inside.

      We are dealing with a Government today that seems to have no qualms over forcibly evicting people from their own bought and paid for homes because somebody else wanted their land.

      I'd feel a helluva lot more comfortable if anything that's called a 'standard', was - by definition - public domain. Otherwise, call it what it is - a proprietary protocol subject to license.

      Pipe threads are standard - anyone can make a fixture that's compatible with everyone's plumbing. Microsoft technology is still proprietary if Congress rules they own it, regardless of any intent of the day to 'share'.

      As long as the snake is alive, it may bite.

      --
      "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]

    3. Re:Embrace, Extend, Patent by advocate_one · · Score: 1
      If you distribute, license or sell a Licensed Implementation, this license is conditioned upon you requiring that the following notice be prominently displayed in all copies and derivative works of your source code and in copies of the documentation and licenses associated with your Licensed Implementation:

      "This product may incorporate intellectual property owned by Microsoft Corporation. The terms and conditions upon which Microsoft is licensing such intellectual property may be found at http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/odcXMLRef/ html/odcXMLRefLegalNotice.asp."

      By including the above notice in a Licensed Implementation, you will be deemed to have accepted the terms and conditions of this license. You are not licensed to distribute a Licensed Implementation under license terms and conditions that prohibit the terms and conditions of this license.

      and there we have the killer phrase... the last sentence of the final paragraph quoted... the one that makes it impossible for gpl applications to use the technology... and what's the bets they'll use similar language in the license to use their RSS extensions???

      --
      Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
    4. Re:Embrace, Extend, Patent by KwKSilver · · Score: 1

      I followed in the link in the middle of your post and there it says:
      "No right to create modifications or derivatives of this Specification is granted herein. There is a separate patent license available to parties interested in implementing software programs that can read and write files that conform to the Specification."
      I'm no lawyer, but what's quoted above seems to negate the idea that you have a liscence to use the specification. These's also another link to some legal page.

      --
      If you want your life to be different, live it differently.
  38. Microsoft to extend RSS by PrimeNumber · · Score: 1

    The headline should actually read:
    Microsoft to embrace and extinguish RSS.

  39. Quick, someone do a Public Patent by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 1

    before MSFT patents all the "Extending" and happens to patent the core concepts.

    --
    -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
  40. Re:I'm sure they won't "bloat" up the spec by GecKo213 · · Score: 1

    Ahhh BLOATware! Easiest way to look continually busy at work!

    --
    Generation Trance: What generation are you?
  41. Speaking of Microsoft and RSS by widderslainte · · Score: 1

    Any recommendations for an RSS plug-in/add-on for Outlook?

    1. Re:Speaking of Microsoft and RSS by IdahoEv · · Score: 2, Funny
      Any recommendations for an RSS plug-in/add-on for Outlook?


      Yeah. Thunderbird.
      --
      I stole this sig from someone cleverer than me.
    2. Re:Speaking of Microsoft and RSS by widderslainte · · Score: 1

      Thanks for your completely unproductive sarcasm.

    3. Re:Speaking of Microsoft and RSS by soulhuntre · · Score: 1

      Try http://www.newsgator.com

      --
      --> Fight tyranny and repression.... read /. at -1!
  42. Re:Safari's RSS? How about Firefox's by Noksagt · · Score: 2, Informative
    I referred only to the RELEASED software. I'm sure that IE RSS is already written too. You couldn't use Safari's RSS on 2004-07-28.

    But, if we want to include prereleases: some could use Firefox's RSS on 2004-06-15, as there was a publicly-published patch (see bug 244078)
    https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=24407 8
    (note: not linkied because mozilla's bugzilla doesn't like slashdot referrals.
  43. Re:Here we go again... by LittleGuernica · · Score: 3, Funny

    Are YOU sure it's not "$$$"?

  44. Re:Microsoft is The Follower by mrchaotica · · Score: 1

    And yet people think Apple is the one giving out the kool-ade. If that's true, Microsoft must be dusting Windows CDs with crack cocaine, or something! It's the only way to explain how people keep waiting for Microsoft's version Real Soon Now when they could get someone else's better version Actually Now every single time.

    --

    "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

  45. Maybe if they froze Longhorn's feature set by Deagol · · Score: 3, Interesting
    they'd get the damned thing released.

    How many features were promised then dropped in Win2003 and Longhorn to get them released? Why the hell do they keep adding features?

    At this rate we'll get Longhorn Lite in 2006, Longhorn Complete in 2007, and Longhorn As It Was Really Promised Ten Years Ago in 2012.

    MS just needs to get over themselves and get a product out the door with the *current* set of features they promised.

    --
    Method of processing duck feet
    1. Re:Maybe if they froze Longhorn's feature set by tktk · · Score: 1
      You know...OSS coders could make it into a sort of Zeno's Paradox for Microsoft. If people keep coming up with cool ideas, then Microsoft will have to include them into Longhorn and push back its release date.

      Quick...everyone start coding.

      Oh, and my personal prediction for the next new feature for Longhorn: Podcasting.

      Err...that is if they didn't already announce it. I'm not up to date with Longhorn.

    2. Re:Maybe if they froze Longhorn's feature set by hacker · · Score: 3, Interesting
      "At this rate we'll get Longhorn Lite in 2006, Longhorn Complete in 2007, and Longhorn As It Was Really Promised Ten Years Ago in 2012.

      MS just needs to get over themselves and get a product out the door with the *current* set of features they promised."

      Have you ever considered that this might just be a marketing ruse by Microsoft to get their competitors (Apple, the OSS community, etc.) to slow down on focusing their efforts, because "..well, we have a couple of years before Longhorn is released, whats the rush?"

      Seriously, what if they released Longhorn in December of this year, with all of the features they've previously claimed were pulled from it? (WinFS, podcasting, IE7, etc.)

      This is a very VERY common marketing move, and I'm surprised nobody has seen through it yet. You publically announce that your product is being delayed, so your competitors relax a bit, then you announce some key feature of your product was dropped, etc. and your competition smirks and goes out and celebrates... and then you release the full product, WITH the "dropped" features on Monday.

      Your competition crumbles and cries in the corner.

    3. Re:Maybe if they froze Longhorn's feature set by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Riiiiiight... because Microsoft's history is replete with instances of giving us exactly what was promised when the shipping date arrived.

      No, what's a very common marketing move for Microsoft is to take existing features and innovation from other companies, rehash them into slightly or not-so-slightly incompatible formats, and then bolt them into the operating system monopoly to make sure that "everyone" has the "enhanced" version that doesn't work right for the standard itself.

      The reason Microsoft has to strip features out of Longhorn but is more than willing to put enhanced RSS into Longhorn is because all those features that Microsoft is pulling haven't been invented by someone else yet for Microsoft to copy, but RSS is right there for the taking and breaking.

    4. Re:Maybe if they froze Longhorn's feature set by myov · · Score: 1

      Doesn't seem to be stopping anyone though. Tiger has many of the dropped Longhorn features, it was released well before Longhorn, and 10.5 may even make it out before Longhorn.

      OSS tends not to run to marketing deadlines anyways. It's done when it's done.
      There are a few exceptions (openbsd's twice a year update), but those prove it's possible to work to a deadline and still keep it secure.

      --
      I use Macs to up my productivity, so up yours Microsoft!
    5. Re:Maybe if they froze Longhorn's feature set by Jboy_24 · · Score: 1

      "This is a very VERY common marketing move, and I'm surprised nobody has seen through it yet. You publically announce that your product is being delayed, so your competitors relax a bit, then you announce some key feature of your product was dropped, etc. and your competition smirks and goes out and celebrates... and then you release the full product, WITH the "dropped" features on Monday."

      I think the more common marketing ruse, the one MS perfected, is to pre-announce that they're going into a certain area to freeze all 3rd party development.

      "Oh hey, why don't we add ordering to RSS? Oh, Microsoft is going to release their ordering mechanism in Longhorn, we'll just wait so we don't develop something that they'll trample right over"

      I mean, how many Windows based, Free/OSS RSS-reader developers read this news and crumbled and cried in the corner? Now realizing that 96% of people will use the capability built into longhorn and which uses the spiffy new Longhorn graphics, while they retool their code after the release.

    6. Re:Maybe if they froze Longhorn's feature set by Doros · · Score: 2, Interesting

      That doesn't make sense to me at all. Are they secretly letting their stockholders know that their next product isn't going to just be a new UI? How about all the 3rd-party software companies that need APIs before the release? Also, many of the features they originally promised are now available in alternative OSes. I also can't think of an example where a software company (or any other company) used this move.

    7. Re:Maybe if they froze Longhorn's feature set by enjo13 · · Score: 1

      Only problem with that is that it's fraud...

      Microsoft is a publicly traded company, and releasing information about product features is considered material information. Thus, if they put in a feature they announced was not going to be available in a major product they would be in serious trouble with the SEC.

      So I kind of doubt your hypothesis.

      --
      Turn s60 photos into awesome videos with mScrapbook for all S60 3rd edition phones!
    8. Re:Maybe if they froze Longhorn's feature set by hacker · · Score: 1
      "I mean, how many Windows based, Free/OSS RSS-reader developers read this news and crumbled and cried in the corner? Now realizing that 96% of people will use the capability built into longhorn and which uses the spiffy new Longhorn graphics, while they retool their code after the release."

      I'm going to guess... none.

      Microsoft isn't a threat to Free Software/OSS, and Free Software/OSS doesn't exist to displace Microsoft products or their users.

    9. Re:Maybe if they froze Longhorn's feature set by hacker · · Score: 1
      "Microsoft is a publicly traded company, and releasing information about product features is considered material information. Thus, if they put in a feature they announced was not going to be available in a major product they would be in serious trouble with the SEC."

      You almost got it... but its exactly the opposite of what you've described.

      I'm saying that Microsoft will announce that their product will be available in 2007, minus some key features.

      Instead of releasing "some" of an OS in 2007, they release ALL of the OS in December 2005.

    10. Re:Maybe if they froze Longhorn's feature set by ky11x · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Parent is overrated.

      This is not a "common" marketing move because it makes no sense. You cannot "lull" your competitors into slowing down -- your competitors do not react to your announcements, they react to what they perceive the market wants and what they think you are doing, not what you say you are doing. Neither does it help to suddenly pop something onto the market when you have been telling IT managers for months to prepare for a release in 2006/2007. MS makes its living by allowing IT shops to phase and plan for purchases and upgrades. Do you think anyone is going to buy Longhorn in "December," if MS magically released it, when they were planning to upgrade their infrastructure and develop and test for Longhorn in 2007? You can bet that they'll wait until 2007 to purchase Longhorn even if it were released early.

      So, if this scheme were so "common," how about some examples?

    11. Re:Maybe if they froze Longhorn's feature set by KwKSilver · · Score: 1

      As if the govermnment would hold them accountable for fraud. They were convicted of being an abusive monopoly. So what? Their "punishment" was to make more copies of Office available, i.e. spread the infection, and for a few cents a CD... So what?

      Microsoft has learned that they are not accountable for anything they do. John W. Campbell, the now-deceased editor of Analog magazine hit it dead on: It's not power that corrupts, if it did, God would be the ultimate in corruption. It's immunity that corrupts and absolute immunity corrupts absolutely. [my paraphrase~30+yrs later] Microsoft is absolutely immune. Go figure.

      --
      If you want your life to be different, live it differently.
    12. Re:Maybe if they froze Longhorn's feature set by aug24 · · Score: 1
      This is a very VERY common marketing move

      Perhaps... but not for Microsoft.

      If you ask me, the grandpappy post has just updated the roadmap of win95->Win XP which finally delivered what had been promised ten years before.

      Justin.

      --
      You're only jealous cos the little penguins are talking to me.
    13. Re:Maybe if they froze Longhorn's feature set by Glitch010101 · · Score: 1

      Some examples of a giant 'corporation' hiding the fact that it had a product ready ahead of schedule? Did you sleep through return of the Jedi?

      "Now witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational battlestation!"

  46. Sig Nazi by Jaysyn · · Score: 1

    "Look, I don't know how they do things on your home planet, spaceman...but here in Mayberry, we just don't talk to gun-toting, redneck, amphetamine
    freaks that way"

    I love Red Meat.

    --
    There is a war going on for your mind.
    1. Re:Sig Nazi by xMilkmanDanx · · Score: 1

      Yeah, no room for the full quote in there. I should switch over to link directly to that page.

      --
      I am not in anyway affiliated with Max Cannon
    2. Re:Sig Nazi by Jaysyn · · Score: 1

      Microwave Pet Carrier

      --
      There is a war going on for your mind.
    3. Re:Sig Nazi by xMilkmanDanx · · Score: 1

      Yep, I had already changed it but haven't posted anything yet.

      --
      I am not in anyway affiliated with Max Cannon
  47. Desktop Sidebar by B5_geek · · Score: 1

    If you want an excellent RSS +more sidebar (That LongHorn is actually based on) check out http://desktopsidebar.com/ ... I have used it for a very long time now and find it to be very actively developed.

    Here is my screenshot: http://www.mnsi.net/~n0spam/I_broke_Google.PNG

    --
    "The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
  48. Did I mention the clock? by 64nDh1 · · Score: 1
    The screenshots I've seen show a really, really clock on the desktop. No really. It's quite spiffy.

    Really.

    It's this and the groundbreaking RSS shiznit that shows the sort of innovation that will make users more than willing to lose 10% of the damn desktop to the stupid taskbar (maybe I'm wrong, but it looks like it's grown morbidly obese).

    Other than that, ooooh.... um, we have a new file system to look forward to I think, which is definitely better than those stupid Mac users who got to leave all their documents and applications (give or take the compatibility issues) and just install Tiger under the existing Panther installation.

    Not for Longhorn users. If you're upgrading, you'll have to wipe the NTFS partition. I'd like to know if Longhorn can mount NTFS, so maybe you could migrate your documents, but I doubt it.

    Other than that.... well, no plans to mimic/outright steal Dashboard just yet, did I mention the clock?

  49. Microsoft's Strategic Plan for RSS by mitchell_pgh · · Score: 1

    Microsoft's Strategic Plan for RSS

    1) Accept RSS and patent "Edison Extreme+"

    2) Add enhancements to RSS

    3) Add enhancements to the enhanced version of RSS and rename "Rapid System Service".

    3.1) Rename Rapid System Service" to "RSS Edison Extreme"

    4) Bundle RSS Edison Extreme with Longhorn beta v11

    5) Release Edison Extreme+ (Edison Extreme Plus) [this is a completely new product from Microsoft (not to be confused with RSS Edison Extreme or RSS).

    6) Profit.

    1. Re:Microsoft's Strategic Plan for RSS by omry_y · · Score: 1

      This 1. 2. 3. 4. Profit thingie is really getting annoying.
      it was funny with the little gnomes in south park.
      drop it.

      --
      Omry.
  50. Good News! by bheerssen · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Now, I'm no MS apologist (look back at my comments) but this is actually good news because Microsoft has decided to release the specs under a Creative Commons "Attribution, Share-Alike" liscense: one of the more generous liscensing plans released by the Creative Commons.

    Larry Lesig has more at his blog.

    I can't vouch for Microsoft's reasons for doing this, other than speculate that they are trying to respond to the old criticism that "embrace and extend" really means "steal and lock away". If Microsoft really is trying to be more open in it's communiction protocols, I can't help but see that as a good thing. They are free to extend all they want as long as they do not use their dominant market position to force those extensions on their customers to unfairly place burdens on their competitors.

    --
    (Score: -1, Stupid)
    1. Re:Good News! by TheMediaWrangler · · Score: 1

      They are free to extend all they want as long as they do not use their dominant market position to force those extensions on their customers to unfairly place burdens on their competitors.

      That's true. Embracing and extending would never have been a problem if it weren't for the propensity of Microsoft to force the extensions on their customers and unfairly place burdens on their competitors. Uh, how is this good news again?

      --
      People should not fear what they do not understand; people should fear because they do not understand.
    2. Re:Good News! by jamrock · · Score: 1
      "If Microsoft really is trying to be more open in it's communiction protocols, I can't help but see that as a good thing. They are free to extend all they want as long as they do not use their dominant market position to force those extensions on their customers to unfairly place burdens on their competitors."

      Yes, I agree. If Microsoft were to be more open their protocols and formats, it would be a very good thing. But the problem is that this is Microsoft we're talking about, and their history is not exactly a litany of beneficence. They have long since burned through any trust and goodwill that the public may have had for them. It would be prudent to view with suspicion anything that Microsoft announces "as a good thing."

  51. Re:Did I mention the adjective? by 64nDh1 · · Score: 1
    The screenshots I've seen show a really, really clock on the desktop. No really. It's quite spiffy.

    Read above as:

    The screenshots I've seen show a really, really cool clock on the desktop. No really. It's quite spiffy.

  52. Just Announced...Microsoft Improves Wheel by multimedium · · Score: 1

    Microsoft spokesman Jeremy Allaire today announced at the MS Java Developers' conference that Microsoft has develeped a new, improved version of The Wheel. 'Ours is simply rounder and a more robust architecture.' Allaire was quoted as saying. 'of course, our MS Wheel will be licensed to interested companies and individuals for a modest fee.' The new MS Wheel will be appearing in the 2008 Hummer H6, to be released in conjunction with LongHorn, who's horn just keeps on growing.

  53. Goodbye RSS by Szaman2 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    First they will extend it, patent it then they will make sure that IE and Office throw security warning when viewing non extended RSS. Since they have the market share they can pull it off and make it seem that standard RSS is somehow broken.

    Then, you can either roll a feed that will apear to be broken in IE, Outlook et all or you will have to pay Microsoft a licensing fee / sign your soul away into shared code slavery...

    That is of course if we let them... There is a small chance that RSS is already to popular for them to pull it off. MS would need all the major news providers to jump on the bandwagon with this really fast...

    --
    I'm teminally incoherent
  54. Text should be enough for everybody... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://www.popsci.com/popsci/how2

    "5 Things You Didn't Know You Could Track with RSS

    Package deliveries

    New to RSS? Get a free account with Web-based RSS reader Bloglines (bloglines.com). In addition to tracking headlines from your favorite sites, you can now receive an RSS feed on packages from UPS, FedEx or the USPS-just enter the tracking number, and the feed will update at each stage of the delivery.

    Library books

    Avoid late fees and fruitless trips to the library with ELF (libraryelf.com), which generates a feed to inform you when books you've requested are available at your local branch (including a link to operating hours) and when your checked-out books are almost due.

    Local weather

    RSSWeather (rssweather.com) sends updates on current and forecasted weather conditions for your city. You can even customize the feed to notify you only when certain changes occur (temperature, forecast, etc.).

    TV listings

    Need to know when you can next catch Deadwood on HBO? Bootleg RSS (ktyp.com/rss/tv) provides channel-specific feeds (by time zone) with the day's programming for dozens of cable networks, including CNN, the Discovery Channel and ESPN.

    Yourself

    Find out when your company, favorite sports team or even your name is mentioned just about anywhere on the Web with PubSub (pubsub.com). The site trawls more than nine million news and blog sites and lets you create an RSS feed that alerts you when your specified keywords appear.

  55. Re:Microsoft is The Follower/No unusual by plopez · · Score: 2, Informative

    It is not unusual in most mature industries for the large companies to sit back and let others do all the hard work and R&D. IBM and Computer Associates frequently buy smaller and more innovative companies.

    In the oil and gas industry the large multi-nationals often sit back and let the 'wild catters' take the exploration risk, only buying those that have a good record of finds. Chrysler bought Jeep which was a strong brand and filled a hole in their portfolio. GM was built from zero on nothing but smaller companies (e.g. Pontiac, Buick, Chevrolet) after it became apparent cars were a thing of the future and the companies purchased had staying power.

    This is how risk averse accountants operate. It is a very old business pattern.

    --
    putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
  56. Ignorant remarks FTW by ad0gg · · Score: 1

    Yeah extending RSS is bad, I mean no one would dream of extending RSS. Just look at the slashdot RSS, there's no slash:department nodes or slash:section nodes in side of it. Oh wait there is. Please buy a clue before you post. Thanks

    --

    Have you ever been to a turkish prison?

  57. Now for MS. RSS Feed Today by LifesABeach · · Score: 1

    And in a related news story, "Corn seen growing in Nebraska; Film at 11."

    And this just in, "Doctors make a startling discovery; If you are color blind, then the BSOD is a lie!"

  58. SSSSLOLSUCKTOWN by lullabud · · Score: 4, Funny

    Sorta Simple Syndication Supporting Lengthy Ordered Lists So Users Can Keep Track Of What's New.

  59. What about Atom? by TheLoneGundam · · Score: 1

    Atom is heading for IETF to proceed along the standards track; it is the "standard" for RSS in many ways (don't forget that there are now at least 3 flavors of RSS)

  60. RSS Viruses by lullabud · · Score: 3, Insightful

    That get updates every hour on new ways to exploit your system.

  61. Microintersoftnet by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 1

    They're extending RSS, they're extending SMTP with their patented "SenderID", and leveraging it all with their monopoly powers. Next: MMS will replace HTTP for streaming. Microsoft has distracted everyone enough with their vague talk of "open formats" for Office documents that they expect to blow through with proprietary protocols that interoperate advantageously with closed-source Microsoft apps.

    --

    --
    make install -not war

  62. Re:Here we go again... by dozer · · Score: 1

    Like SOAP and SNMP, two of the most decidedly unsimple protocols I've had the displeasure of working with? And MS deserves most of the blame for SOAP...

  63. uhoh here comes SOAP again by Splork · · Score: 1

    RSSOAP. run in fear.

  64. How about "may not break the standard"? by jfengel · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Let's say "may not break the standard". There are approved, compatible ways to extend it, but it's really hard to design extensibility into a standard. Often extensions are unforseen and won't fit into the way you expected to extend it.

    Not to mention Microsoft's history (with Java and HTML) of making extensions designed to lock you in. They succeeded with HTML; they failed with Java (though perhaps that's more Sun's fault than Microsoft's).

    Of course, if they have good ideas (and they have an awful lot of smart people working for them) the improvements will be propagated into the standard, and then all of the other RSS readers will want to implement them, too.

  65. 12 step program. by lullabud · · Score: 3, Funny

    1) Embrace
    2) Extend
    3) Delay release until after Longhorn.
    4) PROFIT!!
    5) Patch Critical Security Flaws.
    6) Patch Critical Security Flaws.
    7) Patch Critical Security Flaws.
    8) Patch Critical Security Flaws.
    9) Patch Critical Security Flaws.
    10) Patch Critical Security Flaws.
    11) Patch Critical Security Flaws.
    12) Patch Critical Security Flaws.

  66. OSS Developers: Embrace and Preempt!!!! by iPaqMan · · Score: 1

    Since the OSS community says that they can produce quality software faster than a closed source shop, why don't they trump Microsoft's "Embrace and Extend" tactic by using an "Embrace and Preempt" tactic?

    For example, MS announces they are going to incorporate RSS and add feature X in their next release sometime in the next year. The OSS community should just implement MS's idea in 6 months. If OSS developers have the advantage of speed to market then beat MS down with it. They can't extend what has already been extended.

    Get my point???

  67. Apparently NOT GPL-incompatible (unlike Office12)? by Dr.Dubious+DDQ · · Score: 1

    In reading the links there, it looks like this may NOT be GPL-incompatible (the attribution, etc. restrictions would only apply to the specifications document, NOT to software implementations OF that specification, right?). Is Microsoft finally getting through it's growing pains to become a "mature[1]" company?

    With the Office 12 "we decided to roll our own after OASIS did all the initial design work rather than work with them" XML-in-a-ZIP file formats, it seems like the formats THEMSELVES are under similar restrictions, though, so as to prevent GPL-licensed projects from using them legally (simplistic explanation - the GPL says (to paraphrase) "You can't impose any additional restrictions on people to whom you redistribute this or derivatives of it". "You must include the following attribution: [blah blah blah]" is an additional restriction. Sure, it's a very minor restriction, which allows MS to turn around and yell "see how unreasonably those horrible GPL people are? All we wanted was a little credit!" in hopes of undermining the GPL...)

    Or are things better or worse than I imagine here?...

    [1]As opposed to a company that is still trying to grow (or "growing up"?)

    --
    Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
  68. Yeah... by lullabud · · Score: 1

    And only allowing select NDA partners to view portions of the closed source palladium protected proprietary schema documentation for their new Microsoft Syndication Standard which breaks compatibility with pre-existing and inferior syndication standards.

  69. Re:Microsoft is The Follower by gwalcharian · · Score: 1

    One acronym to consider: CP/M

  70. Just like Krb5 by jlrobins_uncc · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Which they released a 'legal', but value-added-only-for-microsoft extension, whose documentation was explicitly licensed as to prevent you from making an open-source interoperable equivalent.

    AFAIR, anyway. Does SambaNG or whatever truly smell like an AD with the MS-KRB5 authorization field properly filled-in?

  71. Reminder: RSS 1 and RSS 2 have rules for extension by acroyear · · Score: 1

    RSS 1.0, based on the RDF standard, is extensible through a documented mechanism involving RDF and namespaces. (I highly doubt MS has any interest in the 1.0 RDF-based standard at all)

    RSS 2.0 (not RDF based, but itself an extension of 0.92) basically permits anything outside of its standard as an extension, provided the tags are in their own namespace.

    If microsoft invents an extension that conforms with those rules, their feeds will not break existing browsers/readers/aggregators at all.

    Its only a problem if they thumb their nose at the namespace thing and just blithely add tags in the "default". THEN they'll have pissed off a number of people.

    In the end, it matters little. RSS systems have been built like HTML systems (and following the knuth policy) -- be specific in what you write; be generous in what you read.

    --
    "But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
    -- Joe
  72. Standardize on it, dont let ms do it by eddie12208 · · Score: 1

    It could be a good idea if it was standardized.... Let the standards ppl implement it (w3), not MS. As long as you merged it into RSS version 3, then thats great, cause then your rss reader will know if it can/cant handle a specific feed. I'm open to new ideas, wherever they may come from. Just don't let MS implement it, all they want to do is break everything and own all technology on the planet.

  73. Blink me needs blink. by zippthorne · · Score: 1

    But what about blink? I used to use that all the time back in the day. Oh the memories. The ol' starter page with the forty random and poorly organized links, all blinking and scrolling so you can't tell what's what. right after (black text gray backgrond) and right before (sane colored text white background) became popular "styles". Why I remember briefly, everyone thought it would be "cool" to make white (or for those of use who didn't like eye-strain, off-white) on black backgrounds. (fortunately, 'everyone' only included home pages.)

    --
    Can you be Even More Awesome?!
  74. Winer's perspective by Jesse_132 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Dave made a post earlier today here

  75. 0.10 0.1; 1.0 Precedes Safari's release by Noksagt · · Score: 1

    0.1 != 0.10. In versioning math, .10 is often bigger than .1. The 0.1 release was called "Phoenix" & happened in 2002.

    Firefox 0.10 came 2 years later and was the so-called "preview release." and, though pre-1.0 was included and promoted as stable software on multiple platforms.

    Yes, there is a difference between stable releases and unstable/testing/development releases. Firefox 0.10 was still made available to the public. If you don't want to consider it a "release," that is fine.

    However, 1.0 was released on 2004-11-09, which is still before OS X.4.

  76. Too Late? by razmaspaz · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Is this too late? I mean blogger is already the place to do blogging for 90% of all blogs out there. RSS is already very well defined and there are literally hundreds of apps that spit out RSS. Will microsoft's enhancements be doomed to second place? I would think even the most agressive "embrace and extend" campaign would fail here. Of course you can't fault them for trying!

    --
    I tried for 5 years to come up with a clever sig...only to realize that I am not clever.
    1. Re:Too Late? by spectecjr · · Score: 1

      Is this too late? I mean blogger is already the place to do blogging for 90% of all blogs out there. RSS is already very well defined and there are literally hundreds of apps that spit out RSS. Will microsoft's enhancements be doomed to second place? I would think even the most agressive "embrace and extend" campaign would fail here. Of course you can't fault them for trying!

      Blogger doesn't use RSS. It uses Atom.

      --
      Coming soon - pyrogyra
  77. A summary of Slashdot comments: by ArmpitMan · · Score: 5, Informative

    Group 1: MORE LIKE EMBRACE AND BSOD AM I RITE?
    Group 2: RSS is XML and therefore works using magic! It's not like there were eight thousand different conflicting RSS standards before!
    A Vanishingly Small Number Of Voices Of Fucking Reason: You know, they released the spec for extensions under a ShareAlike Creative Commons license. They might as well have done it under the god-damned GPL. This is PROGRESS, you imbeciles.

    1. Re:A summary of Slashdot comments: by yetanotherluser · · Score: 1
      This is PROGRESS, you imbeciles.

      Does anybody know any services that print custom bumper stickers? That sentence sums up so much, it just has to be immortalized. ;)
    2. Re:A summary of Slashdot comments: by Baricom · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I don't believe it is. Their disclaimer is that if they find any patents infringed, "Microsoft also agrees to offer a royalty-free patent license on reasonable and non-discriminatory terms and conditions to any such patent claims for the purpose of publishing and consuming the extensions set out in the specification."

      Every instance of "reasonable and non-discriminatory terms", such as those of the Office XML formats, has made it impossible to use in GPL software in the past.

      Now, if their patent license for these RSS extensions doesn't do that, then I'll be impressed.

    3. Re:A summary of Slashdot comments: by Alsee · · Score: 1

      imbeciles

      No, that would be you.

      It doesn't matter how much Microsoft smiles and says sweet things and makes wonderful promises and what kind and generous things they do. What MATTERS is the legaleese they use to pull out a knife slit your throat with.

      First of all the reason the copyright in the specification is Creative Commons is because they are copying and working off of the original RSS specification which is under the creative Commons.
      Second, and most important, who cares how they license the specification document? It does not matter!

      The problem is not in any copyright on the specification. You can read the specification and program off of it no matter what license they try to slap on it (you don't need to accept any such license if you don't create copies of the text, you can read without being bound by anything), or someone could even work up an independant specification text and then you can just ignore any license Microsoft has on their version. Specification copyright license it completely irrelevant. The problem is patents on implementations. Patents that prohibit implementation. The same Microsoft patent license they use on SenderID. The same patent licence that prohibits use in Firefox or Netcape or Lynx or any GPL software or almost any open source software at all. The same patent license that would prohibit use in virtually any browser other than Internet Explorer.

      Progress... riiiight. Microsoft is suddenly giving up their illegal and abusive tactics. Suuuure.

      -

      --
      - - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
    4. Re:A summary of Slashdot comments: by ArmpitMan · · Score: 1

      Did I say that this meant that Microsoft was now a cute fuzzy bunny that ejaculated rainbows? That Bill Gates and RMS are totally making out right now? I don't think that I did.

      What I did say was that there are some interesting things going on with this that the vast majority of Slashdot was ignoring in favour of making obvious IN SOVIET RUSSIA EXTEND EMBRACES YOU jokes. Microsoft is beginning to pretend that open-source isn't evil. That says to me that their tactics aren't working. That's progress, whether or not they mean it when they say, "No patents this time, for realsies!"

    5. Re:A summary of Slashdot comments: by Alsee · · Score: 1

      Microsoft also agrees to offer a royalty-free patent license on reasonable and non-discriminatory terms and conditions to any such patent claims for the purpose of publishing and consuming the extensions set out in the specification.
      Is that not good enough for you?

      You apparently did not read my post to the end. In particular where I point out:
      The same Microsoft patent license they use on SenderID. The same patent licence that prohibits use in Firefox or Netcape or Lynx or any GPL software or almost any open source software at all. The same patent license that would prohibit use in virtually any browser other than Internet Explorer.

      No, using patents and faux "open" patent licenses to sabotage SenderID and RSS such to legally ban other software from using them is not "good enough for me".

      -

      --
      - - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
    6. Re:A summary of Slashdot comments: by Alsee · · Score: 1

      1) that's not the same terms as SenderID

      That is a DESCRIPTION of the license, not the actual terms.
      That description is in fact the exact same description Microsoft gives for their SenderID license.

      At a minimum the UNSPECIFIED actual licensing terms *can* be the exact same SenderID license because it fits the exact same description. The rational assumption is that it is the exact same description of the exact same license. Moreover you're delusional if you think Microsoft is going to come up with a new and different license that just so happens to fit the exact same description that is suddenly GPL compatible. Microsoft deliberately designed the license to exclude the GPL and other open source use.

      And I don't understand how you read "non-discriminatory terms" as "prohibits use in Firefox".

      You cannot distribute GPL code unless you provide any and all required licenses along with it. You cannot create and distribute a sabotaged package that the receiver might not be able to use.

      Microsoft's "non-discriminatory terms" license forbids you to provide the required license along with the code (forbids transfer and sublicensing). You can only give someone code WITHOUT the required patent license, and then that receiver must turn to Microsoft and hope to aquire a license.

      You must provide the required license, but the package is sabotaged forbidding you to provide the required licence. A direct conflict, therefore GPL use is forbidden.

      Firefox and Netscape and Lynx and other browsers use either the GPL or a close relative of the GPL.
      Q.E.D. Firefox and virtually any browser other than IE are excluded.

      And that is just one of the conflicts. By my count there are at least three legaleese catches creating conflicts, maybe more.

      -

      --
      - - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
  78. RSS has been extended - it's called ATOM by PostItNote · · Score: 1

    Because ATOM - the SOAP-using, kitchen-sink-including extension to RSS - is chopped liver in MS land? It even uses their buzzwords!

  79. Re:Microsoft is The Follower by man_of_mr_e · · Score: 1

    Altair BASIC wasn't a port of DM Basic anymore than Linux is a "port" of Unix.

    DM Basic was compiled. Altair Basic was interpreted. DM Basic used about 16k of memory, AB could be loaded into the 4k of the Altair with room for applications code. DM Basic was written in (IIRC) GE GAP (General Assembly Program) while of course AB was written in 8080 Assembly.

    --
    If you need web hosting, you could do worse than here
  80. Re:Reminder: RSS 1 and RSS 2 have rules for extens by MadAhab · · Score: 1
    That's an interesting point.

    Its only a problem if they thumb their nose at the namespace thing and just blithely add tags in the "default". THEN they'll have pissed off a number of people. You mean "when", right? Or are you implying Longhorn might never be released? Seriously, though, one can't criticize them for leaving open the the possibility of eXtending the eXtensible Markup Language. Not yet, anyway.

    --
    Expanding a vast wasteland since 1996.
  81. Microsoft? Extend? by jamrock · · Score: 1

    Is it just me? Or does anyone else feel a frisson of apprehension whenever they hear the words "Microsoft" and "extend" in the same sentence? They'll extend RSS, all right. They'll extend it out of the reach of any operating system that isn't named Windows.

  82. Extend my RSS! by Snart+Barfunz · · Score: 1

    (That's RSS as in arse). As has already been pointed out, RSS is XML and therefore extensible. In order to cope with any arbitrary extensions that anyone cares to add, why not just bolt the concept of a schema onto RSS? That way, my RSS reader would know how to parse and sort any metadata your RSS feed cared to send me, and all options are kept open. Something like that is surely better than some self-appointed overlords attempting to mandate their own extensions. It would also open up many more machine-to-machine communications possibilities.

    --
    --- Yx3 = Delilah ---
  83. We found it! by GweeDo · · Score: 1

    We found the new feature in Windows Longhorn! We found it!

    Wait...this is in Apple's Webcore already...why does MS need until late next year to steal it?

    --
    Unstable Apps: Our Android Apps Don't Suck
  84. New to this but don't understand the problem by markyb74 · · Score: 1

    I have only just started reading rss feeds but it seems to me to be fairly easy to organise the list as each entry has a date field see http://slashdot.org/rss/index.rss for an obvious example, or am I missing something obvious?

  85. Re:Microsoft is The Follower by Shag · · Score: 1

    The compiled-vs-interpreted bit might make it a non-port, but other than that, implementing the same thing on a different CPU architecture, potentially with different RAM limits, sounds like a port to me. *shrug*

    --
    Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
  86. Re:Safari's RSS? How about Firefox's by killjoe · · Score: 1

    If that is so I gotta hand it to the firefox team for making one hell of an improvment over apple's implementation. I love livebookmarks, so much more practical and usefull then the safari's use of RSS.

    --
    evil is as evil does
  87. Standards update confusion? by tepples · · Score: 1

    If you don't like RSS 1.0 or 2.0, just declare an RSS 3.0 (or RSS 3.14159) and publish your own spec.

    Aren't many spec names trademarked, in order to prevent somebody from thinking that your "RSS 3.0" is the official update to the standard from the entity widely recognized as the maintainer of the standard?

    1. Re:Standards update confusion? by leighklotz · · Score: 1

      >>If you don't like RSS 1.0 or 2.0, just declare an RSS 3.0 (or RSS 3.14159) and publish your own spec.
      >Aren't many spec names trademarked, in order to prevent somebody from thinking that your "RSS 3.0" is the official update to the standard from the entity widely recognized as the maintainer of the standard?

      It's too late to close the barn door on the name "RSS" as the problem with RSS is that there is no "entity widely recognized as the maintainer of the standard." (Even Dave Winer's hagiography of RSS shows the froth.) Some people like the lack of any central body or process for changes, and some don't. If you don't like that, then you might like Atom, provided you like the IETF (the IETF works by "rough consensus and working code").

  88. Here are the detail to the RSS extension by JediJorgie · · Score: 1

    http://msdn.microsoft.com/longhorn/understanding/r ss/simplefeedextensions/

    Jorgie

  89. Re:Safari's RSS? How about Firefox's by Damek · · Score: 1

    And I feel the other way. Safari lets me load multiple RSS feeds at once, as if they were one feed, with the most recent posts from all at the top. That way I can quickly grasp what's going on at multiple feeds, and scan the content as well.

    Firefox requires me to go to the bookmarks or my bookmark bar and activate each one individually, and then only shows me the headlines, with no idea of how recent a new post is, or what its actual content is without click on it to go read the whole thing.

    But, to each their own.

  90. DATE STAMPS by Mirkon · · Score: 1

    No logical way to organize?

    They must be mistaken. Instead of RSS, they're probably thinking of what they will eventually create to compete with RSS.

    --
    Glog!
  91. Let the feature creep begin by tit4tat · · Score: 1
    From the Channel9 blog:
    And when you can synch your databases, web directories, book marks, photos, calendars, reports, contacts, sales pipelines and everything else you can think of over RSS, you can have announcements like this to thank for kicking it off.
    Be scared. Be very scared.
  92. Microsoft Releases NEW version of RSS by Basehart · · Score: 1

    Called MRSS, the new RSS will work only on systems running Windows.

  93. Re:Safari's RSS? How about Firefox's by adpowers · · Score: 1

    I really like Safari RSS, but I have one major complaint. About 1/3 the time, it gets the dates wrong on the new entries in feeds. Often times it thinks the date is a few days before the actual post date of the entry. I've confirmed in the RSS feed that the date is correct, but Safari manages to fuck it up.

  94. sort it on the client side by Quevar · · Score: 1

    Why can't you just sort it on the client side in a manner that suits you. In Safari RSS, I can sort by new, date, source, or title and I can search them. That gives me all the flexibility I need. Why publish a list in an RSS feed? It would be easier and better formatted in html anyway.

  95. I, for one, welcome our new RSS overlords by chrisbtoo · · Score: 1

    I just watched the channel 9 video and it looks to me like they're doing some really interesting stuff with RSS.

    The extensions they're talking about are cleanly done, and actually useful.

    They're also talking about a central RSS feed list within Windows, which several apps can talk to in order to extract data. So you don't have to have a list managed by thunderbird, a separate one managed by firefox, etc. - you just grab it from the OS, and you don't need to worry about fetching, parsing and so on - it just becomes a data store.

    ISTM that this has good implications for users and developers. Would be a good thing to have in other OS platforms too.

    --
    Registering accounts later than some other chrisb since 1997
  96. Re:Here we go again... by Master+of+Transhuman · · Score: 1

    "Let's just hope that they don't put any security holes in it"

    Yo, dude, this is Microsoft, remember? Security holes are the FIRST thing that goes into the specifications for ANY Microsoft product, followed by the instability rules, then comes the massive confusing menu and dialog screens, followed by the toy GUI design, and then and ONLY then comes the functional specification - which consists of a long list of things they WON'T implement (or will implement in a non-standard way) followed by the (very) short list of actual capabilities.

    Oh, yeah, I forgot - before the functional specs also comes the hype marketing plan - and maybe the copying of some other company's product.

    Oh, yeah, and then they have to pay Rob Enderle and Laura DiDio to produce a report saying it's better than anything else on the market - especially anything that could be remotely considered open source.

    --
    Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
  97. forgive me if I appear dense, by circusboy · · Score: 1

    is there not a 'date' field in the rss schema already? can you not figure out what's new from that? does that not imply an order?? I don't understand....

    --
    -- it's ridiculous how many people misspell ridiculous... (damn, damn, damn...)
  98. Re:Safari's RSS? How about Firefox's by Jon+Abbott · · Score: 1

    I'm with you, and agree that Safari's RSS implementation is better... I wonder how the RSS interfaces will evolve with time though, as IE may very well do a unique spinoff different than Safari or Firefox. We may end up with a similar interface across all three, but it will take a few years.

    --
    Slashdot's first reaction to VMware
  99. Um, that was a joke... by lullabud · · Score: 1

    I don't know how on earth that got modded Insightful. If MS's implementation of RSS was to be exploited it would be done so with a malicious RSS feed and not with a virus that uses RSS to communicate. If the virus used RSS to communicate it wouldn't necessarily need MS to implement their own version RSS.

  100. excepting perhaps... by circusboy · · Score: 1

    spellchecker?

    themsselves? ;-)

    sorry, couldn't resist...

    --
    -- it's ridiculous how many people misspell ridiculous... (damn, damn, damn...)
  101. you underestimate MS. by danielsfca2 · · Score: 1

    > [The RSS] format has to be compatible with existing readers for its uptake to be guaranteed (i.e. no RSS publisher will embrace the extensions if they are incompatible with the majority of reader apps).

    I understand that supposedly MS is going to do this in a nice, friendly way, and all our alarm is supposedly unfounded, but where were you in the late 90s?? I suppose you posted the following on /. in 1996 when MS was planning IE 4.0:

    "The HTML format has to be compatible with existing browsers for its uptake to be guaranteed (i.e. no Web publisher will embrace the extensions if they are incompatible with the majority of browsers)."

    The moral of this story is, Microsoft knows Longhorn will have instant 80% marketshare (among Windows PCs) within 6 months of Longhorn's release, and then the RSS publishers will have no choice but to publish their feeds in MSRSS format, if MS chooses to bastardize the format. Don't underestimate them! That's what Netscape did, and look where they are now. The bottom line is, if MS chooses to do it, they will do it, and they will get away with it. This is true for all values of "it." No one is strong enough to stop them anymore.

    -
    * Do you realize how quickly PCs are replaced these days?? Dell, HP, etc PCs are being thrown away after 6-8 months because people don't know/can't be bothered to have someone spend hours removing spyware/viruses from it. They just go to dell.com, buy a new $299 or whatever after $5000 rebate piece of crap and begin the cycle again! So Windows Longhorn Home Edition will be on every one of these idiots' machines within months after release, even if MS cannot convince a single person to upgrade! Of course, many many people will pirate it (despite the inevitable claims they make every time that this version of Windows will be unpiratable), and a few will even buy it. If you remember also from the browser wars, when one comes bundled with the OS, most people won't bother to download, and/or buy and install another one as long as the bundled one is at least half-assed.

  102. Some Points. by ScifiterX · · Score: 1

    RSS 1.0, RSS 2.0, Atom, and Microsoft's proposed standard are all dialects of XML. This means each dialect is compatible with it's XML roots it may not be compatible with other dialects. If Microsoft actually honors the Sharealike thing it will be a good thing. If they do not honor it, which is not beyond the scope of their standard operating procedure, then they will likely screw up other formats. As far as there being no way to track or organize RSS feeds, my default RSS reader uses catagories where I can put specific subscriptions of my choice in. I can sort the individual stories by when they arrived, their title, their sources. I can search them using one or more keyword. I can flag them for later perusal and search. That's all I could ask.

  103. Opera's RSS... by hkmwbz · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Opera had RSS in a 7.5 beta in April 2004. 7.5 final with RSS was released in May 2004.

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    Clever signature text goes here.
  104. Re:Longhorn? What's that? by 51mon · · Score: 1

    "Is there really a concern that they'll embrace and extend when they take so long to embrace?"

    Yes, they embraced and extended DNS, and many other technologies, years after these technologies were widely deployed and used.

    Many companies have subsequently deployed Microsoft DNS because they needed the interoperability with other Microsoft products (ADS) which they discovered they suddenly needed to manage their Windows boxes, when of course there was never any need for ADS to require any DNS changes, other than at most one name in each domain identifying the ADS servers for that domain.

    Indeed it is probably better to embrace and extend established technologies, as a way of levering your way into an established market.

    Without the totally unnecessary dependence on MS DNS in ADS, few would have replaced their Unix or Linux based DNS servers with MS DNS (and MS servers). Because the MS DNS technology was overly complex for the task at hand, notoriously buggy and insecure, and only ran on Microsoft servers (which still aren't enterprise quality, but more like overgrown desktop machines), in an area where 100% service availability has long been considered normal.

    When people discuss 100% service availability, they discuss things like deliberately using diverse platforms for increased availability, this kind of thinking doesn't fit the Microsoft way.

    It isn't clear that this particular example is "embrace and extend", not every standard change Microsoft proposes will be, but anyone dealing more than necessary with a company for which "embrace and extend" is a deliberate business strategy will get what they deserve in the long run.

  105. When will they take it out? by houghi · · Score: 1

    This feature will be included in Longhorn.

    When will we read that this featur will not be included in Longhorn after all?

    --
    Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
  106. ICQ, Netscape, etc. by Artemis3 · · Score: 1

    ICQ used to be the main instant messenger system...
    And Netscape the main browser.

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    Artix
    Your Linux, your init.
  107. Push WHAT?? by Godwin+O'Hitler · · Score: 1

    Push technology?

    --
    No, your children are not the special ones. Nor are your pets.
  108. A better way to include calendars by epeus · · Score: 1
    There was a demonstration of extended RSS processing that the Microsoft IE team did regarding a calendar. Dare Obasanjo explains:

    Dean then started to talk about the power of the enclosure element in RSS 2.0. What is great about it is that it enables one to syndicate all sorts of digital content. One can syndicate video, music, calendar events, contacts, photos and so on using RSS due to the flexibility of enclosures.

    Amar then showed a demo using Outlook 2003 and an RSS feed of the Gnomedex schedule he had created. The RSS feed had an item for each event on the schedule and each item had an iCalendar file as an enclosure. Amar had written a 200 line C# program that subscribed to this feed then inserted the events into his Outlook calendar so he could overlay his personal schedule with the Gnomedex schedule. The point of this demo was to show that RSS isn't just for aggregators subscribing to blogs and news sites.


    Now, being able to subscribe to an event calendar is very handy, but there is a much simpler way - using hCalendar and Brian Suda's x2v calendar parsing tool.
    I adapted the conference calendar page, to add an "hevent" to each session ( with help from Ryan and his hCalendar creator).

    Now you can subscribe to it directly using the x2v link. This is available today, not in a future release of IE, and you can easily add events to your blog or webpage this way for people to subscribe to. (from my blog)
  109. Re:Safari's RSS? How about Firefox's by killjoe · · Score: 1

    I put the firefox livebookmarks on my toolbar. they update automatically and I can scan the headlines quickly by running my mouse along the toolbar. The feed is sorted by date most recent first. If I am interested in a headline I just click on it and go. If I am not interested then I stay at the page I am at. This is exactly how I want rss to work.

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    evil is as evil does
  110. MS is reaping what it has sown by Infonaut · · Score: 1
    The interesting thing to me about reactions to this article is that if just about any other company announced the same thing, most of us would think it was fine.

    Microsoft faces a huge credibility gap, which is the result of years and years of ethically questionable business practices. Any company sitting in such a powerful monopoly position would be treated with some skepticism, but phrases like "knife the baby" take a long time to forget. Microsoft's bipolar disorder when it comes to open source doesn't make them any easier to trust.

    Hey Ballmer, is open source licensing the scourge of capitalism, is it a tool that can be used in conjunction with closed source, or is it a mechanism you want to subvert and use as yet another means of obstructing competition?

    It is humorous to watch Microsoft trying to change its corporate DNA, a task that seems nearly impossible. The stage in Microsoft's lifecycle when they could bully their way to the top is over. Now they're sitting at the top and they have nowhere to go but down. It brings to mind a game of Diplomacy, one in which a player has succeeded in tricking everyone, only to be brought down by their combined wrath.

    --
    Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
  111. Re:Safari's RSS? How about Firefox's by Damek · · Score: 1

    I do the same thing in Safari (put feeds on my toolbar). They also update automatically and show me how many new posts they have. In fact, I group similar feeds in folders, and the folder on my toolbar shows me how many total new posts there are in all the feeds in the folder. When I click on the fold, the bookmarks menu that pops down shows me the individual feeds, and then shows me a "View all RSS feeds in this folder" selection which opens them all up in one page, aggregate-style. I can view separate feeds if I like.

    And these methods aren't mutually exclusive. Safari could make the feed bookmarks expandable and show the headlines as individual bookmarks like Firefox does. Firefox could let you click on the feed link itself and show all the stories in an interface like Safari, and add a "view all feeds in this folder" option to display the content in aggregate.

  112. This is all well and good... by Xformer · · Score: 1

    ...as long as they can play nice, and do three things:

    - Color within the lines (add their crap using a separate namespace)
    - Don't break the existing spec
    - Accept RSS feeds without their markup

    What are the chances of that happening, though, considering their history? STL... Java... JavaScript... TCP/IP... HTTP Digest Auth... SPF... RSS?

    --
    All I want is a kind word, a warm bed and unlimited power.