RSS, or Really Simple Syndication is a method to syndicate your site’s content. Microsoft has applied for two patents, (here and here) that cover the ability to ‘subscribe to a particular Web feed’ and ‘efficiently consume or read RSS feeds using both an RSS reader and a Web browser.’
Now this would be okay if Microsoft had invented the readers, but the fact of the matter is that they didn’t!
Word of Microsoft’s applications drew fire from Dave Winer, a self-described co-inventor of RSS. “Presumably they’re eventually going to charge us to use it,” he wrote in Thursday morning’s dispatch at his site, Scripting News. “This should be denounced by everyone who has contributed anything to the success of RSS.”
Originally posted on December 22, 2006 @ 10:40 pm