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MS Reveals Info On New RSS Extensions

Posted by Zonk on from the many-hands-make-light-work dept.

dizzy_p writes "Microsoft released yesterday more information on their earlier announced extensions to the RSS format(s). The specifications can be found on MSDN. The question is, will the mainstream developer adopt these specifications, or will they only live in the Microsoft "Blogosphere" (To quote MSDN). The specifications in question are named Microsoft Simple Sharing Extensions Specification and Microsoft Simple List Extensions Specification"

4 of 146 comments (clear)

  1. Proprietary? by rmsousa · · Score: 5, Informative

    RTFA. Specially at the end. The text of the specification is under a Creative Commons license. Also, MS explicitly states that they have no intention of burdening implementations of the standard with patents.

  2. Licensed Under Creative Commons by ThinkFr33ly · · Score: 5, Informative

    FTFA: Microsoft's copyrights in this specification are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.

    This license is more simple, but the same in principle, to the GPL.

  3. Re:What kind of attitude is that? by PianoComp81 · · Score: 3, Informative

    No where do the links call this a "standard". RSS is a standard. These are add-ons (extensions) to the RSS standard. Now, I have no love for Microsoft, but I'd say we should give them a little credit for releasing their own extensions and licensing them under a Creative Commons License that essentially lets anyone impelment these extensions.

  4. Re:SSE Licensing information enigma by xenotrout · · Score: 3, Informative
    If Microsoft later becomes aware of any such necessary patent claims, 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.[1]

    Although royalty can mean "payment to the holder of a patent or copyright or resource for the right to use their property"[2], which would prevent Microsoft from charging for patent licenses applicable to their RSS Extensions, it more commonly means "a share of the profit or product reserved by the grantor"[3] or "compensation that is paid to the owner of an asset based on income earned by the asset's user"[4], which essentially limits Microsoft to a flat-fee license. Royalty free doesn't mean that they necissarily will charge for licenses but it seems to mean that they could.

    Although they say the terms will be "reasonable and non-discriminatory", I don't know what that means. I would hope it means that they don't discriminate against Free software, commercial software, competitors, people without money to pay for a license, etc. but it's very vague--perhaps there's a legal meaning or it's just there to sound nice.

    I think the patent trap idea is a bit out there--I don't think it's going to happen--but it doesn't seem that Microsoft is guaranteeing that it won't happen.

    Sources

    [1]http://msdn.microsoft.com/xml/rss/sse/
    Copyright © 2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

    [2] WordNet ® 2.0
    Copyright © 2003 Princeton University

    [3] The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
    Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
    Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

    [4] Wall Street Words: An A to Z Guide to Investment Terms for Today's Investor by David L. Scott.
    Copyright © 2003 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company.