Wow! Microsoft releases new RSS standards under a Creative Commons license

I’m listening to the live stream of Dean Hachamovitch’s keynote at Gnomedex, where Larry Lessig just gave a public thank you to Microsoft for its decision to make its new list extension to the RSS standard available under a Creative Commons license. For those who don’t remember, Lessig was the special master appointed by Judge Jackson in the Microsoft antitrust trial. For him to give a shout-out to the folks in Redmond is a very big deal.

The press release has some details:

Microsoft Corp. today announced support for RSS (Really Simple Syndication) in the next version of the Microsoft^® Windows^® operating system, code-named “Longhorn.” The RSS functionality in “Longhorn” is being designed to make it simple for end users to discover, view and subscribe to RSS feeds, as well as make it easier for developers to incorporate the rich capabilities of RSS into their applications. In addition, Microsoft announced Simple List Extensions, a set of extensions to RSS that can be used to enable Web sites to publish lists such as of photo albums, music playlists and top 10 lists as RSS feeds. Microsoft is making the specification freely available via the Creative Commons license, the same license under which the RSS 2.0 specification was released. …

The RSS support in the “Longhorn” platform includes the following:

• Common RSS Feed List. This core feature of Windows maintains a common list of the user’s subscriptions across all applications. This allows the user to subscribe to a feed once and have all RSS-enabled applications able to access the common list to view the subscriptions.
• Common RSS Data Store. A common data store will provide a single location where applications can access content that has been downloaded to the PC via RSS, including text, pictures, audio, calendar events, documents and just about anything else. All applications will have access to this content for creating rich user experiences.
• RSS Platform Sync Engine. The sync engine will automatically download data and enclosures for use by any application. The engine is designed for efficiency, using idle network bandwidth whenever possible to limit the effect on the user’s Internet experience. Developers can use the platform to get RSS data without having to manage details such as synchronization schedules or subscriptions.

What does all this mean? The unexciting opportunity is for publishers to deliver more Top 10 lists that can be updated regularly in an RSS-enabled client. The more exciting opportunity is that you can build your own list – your favorite restaurants, photos, performers, writers, technology analysts. Using RSS, you can have those lists updated automatically and share them with other people.

Exciting.

Channel 9 video with first public demo of IE7 is here.