Microsoft To Extend RSS

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."

Comments

Bye, bye RSS ....

[Luscious868]

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

Re:Bye, bye RSS ....

[wilsone8]

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."

Re:Bye, bye RSS ....

[jpickett]

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.

How?

[Conspiracy_Of_Doves]

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

Re:How?

[saintp]

Special features to interact with Exchange and/or Outlook.

Re:How?

[Reverend528]

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

Re:How?

[Spy der Mann]

Special features to interact with Exchange and/or Outlook.

Whee, RSS Viruses! :D

Re:How?

[Decaff]

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.

plenty of time

[CausticPuppy]

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.

As it should be.

[TheBrownShow]

...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.

Re:As it should be.

[TheBrownShow]

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

By keeping track of what's being fed

[kwilliamyoungatl]

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

What will they really do?

[ravenspear]

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.

Re:What will they really do?

[DaHat]

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.

Innovation

[repetty]

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

Microsoft kicks ass!

Seen this before

[Bronz]

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 /.

Re:Microsoft "Breaks" RSS

[Utopia]

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

Microsoft is not breaking the standard.

Text should be enough for everybody...

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

SSSSLOLSUCKTOWN

[lullabud]

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

A summary of Slashdot comments:

[ArmpitMan]

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.