Web RSS (Syndication) History

A "syndication" standard has been dealt two blows: the "push" bubble and RSS fork. See The Evolution of RSS for more introduction of the different versions and History of the RSS Fork for a political history, and RSS Links for the evolution of some of the specific technical features.

• Dec 96: While at Apple, Ramanathan Guha proposes a (pre-XML) Project Sauce/X MCF format, "which stands for Meta Content Framework, is an open format for representing information about content." Dave Winer, of UserLand, is a (skeptical) early adopter.
• Feb 97: Business Week starts the "push hype" by declaring an age of "Webcasting" in a cover story, the bubble grows for the likes of Marimba, PointCast and DataChannel.
• Mar 97: Microsoft submits the Channel Definition Format (CDF) to the W3C
• Jun 97: Netscape submits the Meta Content Framework Using XML (MCF) to the W3C
• Oct 97: W3C publishes the first public W3C RDF Working Draft, inspired by MCF and PICS.
• Dec 97: Dave Winer of UserLand proposes <scriptingNews> format, which is very similar to CDF.
• Mar 99: My.Netscape.Com is launched based on RSS 0.9 (RDF Site Summary) which uses RDF syntax and XML Namespaces. Interestingly, marketing folks at Netcenter caused this to be a stripped down version from the author's original, "semantically richer", RDF version. Dan Libby, the author, captured the original conception in a Futures Document which is very much like today's RSS 1.0.
• Jun 99: Dave Winer introduces scriptingNews 2.0b1, and raises some concerns with RSS, such that it only has headlines and no content/text, and he repeats an interest in collaboration with Netscape.
• Jul 99: Despite the fact that the "push" bubble bursts, syndication remains a compelling application even if based on "poll then pull."
• Jul 99: Netscape loses interest in the format, but given requests from UserLand and others, Netscape publishes RSS 0.91, renamed as "Rich Site Summary", devoid of namespaces, based on a DTD, and contains elements from UserLand's <scriptingNews>.
• Dec 00: The RSS-DEV group release RSS 1.0, continuing the RDF syntax of RSS 0.9 and closer to Dan Libby's original RDF conception, using XML namespaces, and focusing on modularity/extensibility.
• Sep 00: Debate erupts when Winer proposes a name split and accuses the RSS 1.0 community of theft and interference; animosity simmers.
• Dec 00: Userland releases RSS 0.92, compatible with 0.91 but with new, optional, features/elements.
• Aug 02: Dave Winer proposes RSS 2.0 with XML namespaces, some in the RDF community ironically propose a RSS 3.0.
• June 03: Given difficulties demonstrated of the history of RSS so far, a working group forms with the goal of creating a new Weblog and syndication format Atom. (formerly Echo) with the goal of being "100% vendor neutral, implemented by everybody, freely extensible by anybody, and cleanly and thoroughly specified."
• March 04: Dave Winer proposes a fusion of RSS2.0 and Atom via IETF standardization.

20040413: See this history of RSS with respect to specific technical developments and proposals

20040407: On April 06 2004 Dave Winer posted his own history. (However, his version elides many non-ScriptingNews events; I referred the version you are reading now to many folks — including Winer — and corrected it based on feedback, so I'm relatively confident in its completeness.)

20040407: There's another history in French at Opikanoba.