RSSScoble: MS Has No Plans to Rename RSS
by Ed Oswald
In an interview with IDG, Microsoft technical evangelist Robert Scoble said that Microsoft has never had plans to rebrand RSS, and was trying to work with the community to build some consensus on how RSS should be referred to within Windows Vista and Internet Explorer 7.
The spat over RSS began following the release of IE7 Beta 1, in which Microsoft dubbed the technology: "Web feeds." The move sparked an outcry from a number of technology enthusiasts, including RSS co-creator Dave Winer.
However, what could be a contributing factor in the criticism of Microsoft over its proposed name change are its past actions. Some critics of the company have a deep distrust over its tendency to take standards and make them Redmond's own.
One of those attempts cost Microsoft $1.9 billion; Sun successfully sued the company last year for co-opting its popular Java technology.
Scoble acknowledged the company's past, and said it was all the more reason to "do the right thing" with RSS.
Joe Wilcox, senior analyst with Jupiter Research, seems to agree with Scoble and says the controversy over renaming RSS is way overblown. "Maybe the discussion should be more about what the best name should be rather than why not to change it. I think it's inevitable that Microsoft will use something other than RSS."
Dave Winer has offered a contrarian opinion, and said the battle to rename RSS was a "dumb one."
"If you're serious about working with a community of independent developers you need to build trust," Winer wrote in his Web log. "Throwing your weight around stupidly is a good way to destroy trust and to keep developers far far away from you."
12 Comments
Going to be time to rename the whole thing, RSS doesn't say anything to most of Internet users, the one who placed this on the endless nonsense name list should receive a ego award...
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One way that has long pissed me off about Microsoft is how they think they can just change the standard 105 key layout with mini arrow keys and dislocated Del,Insert,PG UP, and PG Down keys. I mean seriously, everybody thinks it's screwball and no one has followed suit. I thought the whole idea behind a keyboard was that one was able to type by having the keys located in standard and expected places.
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wtf does this have to do with RSS?
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Microsoft dosen't design their own keyboards, Logitech does. Same way with Microsoft broadband routers/hubs/popcorn makers.
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Apple used the term "RSS" in Safari 2, and there wasn't a public outcry because no one knew what it was. They just explained it a little on their website.
I didn't use RSS before Safari 2, and now I use it all the time. Not to put down Windows users, but it's not rocket science... I'm sure you guys can figure it out just as well as the Mac guys.
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The only problem Winer has is that he didn't throw this spat with Mozilla, the NewsGator idiots, et al. Personally, I'd rather RSS become the more general term that connotes any type of web feed variant. How much simpler can "Really Simple..." get?
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Let's not get distracted from the fact that Winer played a pivotal role in making RSS the mess that it is today. RSS would be more unified today had Winer worked with the community rather than making his own "standard."
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Very Good point posted by Jason Antonelli
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If you are building an application that consumes a variety of different formats (RSS, ATOM, etc.) it makes total sense to introduce a higher level abstraction such as "web feed" or just "feed". It makes zero sense -- in fact it would be a misnomer -- to call it it RSS since RSS is just one of many formats that the application supports. So IE introducing the term "web feed" or "feed" or other such thing for things it aggregates makes total sense. I don't know what the big deal is -- and definitely don't get the various diatribes I've been reading. A number of competing formats are out there -- IE supports them -- they can't use the name for a specific format for everything.
On the other side -- applications that produce RSS feeds -- should continue to call them RSS since that's what they are. And it just so happens that what MSN Spaces does -- we have the orange little log, we actually use RSS instead of XML like some providers do, we say "Syndicate using RSS", etc.
Exposing data via XML isn't rocket science. The RSS format is great to expose data where new data is often introduced, but old data is often kept unchanged. However like it or not -- competing formats exist -- and when an application supports more than just RSS, it's paramount that the application comes up with a generic term for the conceptual thing it's supporting.
Published By Jason Antonelli (http://spaces.msn.com/members/jasona/) - August 14 1:26 PM
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"we actually use RSS instead of XML like some providers do,"
RSS is a form of XML. It's an XML specification.
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Microsoft is an OS for the massess. RSS is *not* a marketable name.
Most MS users will not know what the hell RSS is, just by seeing an RSS bar in their browsers.
They would, however, have a somewhat clearer idea of what a 'Web-Feed' is.
Sorry, guys, but this is just the way MS works. They aren't here to educate their users and support OSS, they are here to make money.
If Dave an Co. wanted total control over RSS, he should have patented/copyrighted it. As it stands, he left it wide open. Hind-sight sucks ass, don't it?
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Don't try to confuse me with logic.
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Now you;re in for it...
1 + 1 = 2
So there!
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