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What is the history of RSS?
The history of RSS can be traced back to 1997, and the creation of
Resource Description Framework. Resource Description Framework is
also known as RDF. RDF was created by a man named, Ramanathan V.
Guha. RDF is similar to RSS.
The mark up language RDF, was used to store
metadata. Metadata is basically information about information, for
example if there is an article or a news report, the metadata would
be the author, the language, the copyright and all of the
information related to the article or news report. In 1999 Netscape
created a standard named RSS version 0.90. This was the beginning of
RSS as we know it today. Dan Libby, an employee of Netscape improved
version 0.90 and released RSS version 0.91. Dave Winer, an employee
at Userland also created a new version of RSS. He too named it, RSS
version 0.91, creating confusion, because the two versions of RSS
were named the same but the specifications were slightly different.
Unfortunately this was the beginning of a trend.
Netscape's RSS team abandoned RSS development,
because it was dubbed too complicated for what they were trying to
accomplish. Meanwhile Rael Dornfest at O'Reily released RSS version
1.0. The new specification by O'Reily was based on the RDF standard
rather than the previous versions of RSS. RSS 1.0 was incompatible
with previous RSS versions. The specification caused significant
marketplace confusion because though RSS 1.0 had the same purpose as
the 0.90 series, the specifications were very different. In an
attempt to minimize further confusion Userland named their next
release RSS version 2.0. RSS 2.0 is very similar to the 0.9 series
and is generally considered compatible, while RSS Version 1.0
remains very different.
Harvard Law accepted responsibility for the RSS 2.0
specification because Dave Winer of Userland, found that competitors
were leary of using the standard he had a hand in creating. In order
for the specification to be endorsed by all it was donated to a
non-commercial third party, Harvard Law school. Harvard Law is now
responsible for the future development of the RSS 2.0 specification.
What is XML? XML or eXtensible Markup Language is a mark up
language.
| There are a lot of folk legends about the evolution of RSS.
Here's the scoop, the sequence of events in the life of RSS,
as told by the designer of most of the formats.
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scriptingNews format, designed by DW at UserLand.
12/27/97.
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RSS 0.90, designed by Netscape,
for use with my.netscape.com, which also supported
scriptingNews format. The only thing about it that was RDF was
the header, otherwise it was plain garden-variety XML.
3/15/99.
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scriptingNews 2.0b1, designed by DW at UserLand, enhanced
to include all the features in RSS 0.90. Privately DW urged
Netscape to adopt the features in this format that weren't
present in RSS 0.90. 6/15/99.
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RSS 0.91, designed by Netscape, spec written by Dan Libby,
includes most features from
scriptingNews 2.0b1. "We're trying to move towards a more
standard format, and to this end we have included several tags
from the popular <scriptingNews> format." The RDF header is
gone. 7/10/99.
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UserLand adopts RSS 0.91, deprecates scriptingNews
formats. 7/28/99.
- The RSS team at Netscape evaporates.
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UserLand's RSS 0.91 specification. 6/4/00.
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RSS 1.0 published as a proposal, worked on in private by a
group led by Rael Dornfest at O'Reilly. Based on RDF and uses
namespaces. Most elements of previous formats moved into
modules. Like 0.90 it has an RDF header, but otherwise is a
brand-new format, not related to any previous format. 8/14/00.
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RSS 0.92, which is 0.91 with optional elements, designed
by DW at UserLand. 12/25/00.
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RSS 0.93 discussed but never deployed. 4/20/01.
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MetaWeblog API merges RSS 0.92 with XML-RPC to provide a
powerful blogging API. 3/14/02.
- RSS 2.0, which is 0.92 with optional elements, designed by
DW, after leaving UserLand. MetaWeblog API updated for RSS
2.0. While in development, this format was called 0.94.
9/18/02.
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RSS 2.0 spec released through Harvard under a Creative
Commons license. 7/15/03.
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