FeedSync for Atom and RSS, previously Simple Sharing Extensions, are extensions to RSS and
Atom
Every atom is composed of a nucleus and one or more electrons bound to the nucleus. The nucleus is made of one or more protons and a number of neutrons. Only the most common variety of hydrogen has no neutrons.
Every solid, liquid, gas, a ...
feed formats designed to enable the synchronization of information by using a variety of data sources. Initially developed by
Ray Ozzie
Raymond "Ray" Ozzie (born November 20, 1955) is an American software industry entrepreneur who held the positions of Chief Technical Officer and Chief Software Architect at Microsoft between 2005 and 2010. Before Microsoft, he was best known for ...
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washi ...
Dave Winer
Dave Winer (born May 2, 1955, in Queens, New York City) is an American software developer, entrepreneur, and writer who resides in New York City. Winer is noted for his contributions to outliners, scripting, content management, and web servi ...
, the designer of the
UserLand Software
UserLand Software is a US-based software company, founded in 1988, that sells web content management, as well as blogging software packages and services.
Company history
Dave Winer founded the company in 1988 after leaving Symantec in the spri ...
RSS specification variants, has given input for the specifications.
The current version of FeedSync for Atom and RSS specification is 1.02 and can be found here
FeedSync for Atom and RSS is licensed under the
Creative Commons
Creative Commons (CC) is an American non-profit organization and international network devoted to educational access and expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has release ...
Attribution-ShareAlike License (version 2.5) and the
Microsoft Open Specification Promise The Microsoft Open Specification Promise (or OSP) is a promise by Microsoft, published in September 2006, to not assert its patents, in certain conditions, against implementations of a certain list of specifications.
The OSP is not a licence, but ...
.
The scope of FeedSync for Atom and RSS is to define the minimum extensions necessary to enable loosely cooperating applications to use Atom and RSS feeds as the basis for item sharing – that is, the bi-directional, asynchronous synchronization of new and changed items amongst two or more cross-subscribed feeds.
Note that while much of FeedSync is currently defined in terms of Atom and RSS feeds, at its core what FeedSync strictly requires is:
* A flat collection of items to be synchronized
* A set of per-item sync metadata that is maintained at all endpoints
* A set of algorithms followed by all endpoints to create, update, merge, and conflict resolve all items
This means that FeedSync can be implemented by almost any programming language have its metadata represented in many structured data formats.
Examples
RSS feed
To Do ListA list of items to do
https://www.example.com/something/foo/bar/
type="complete" />
type="aggregated"
title="To Do List (Jacks Copy)" />
Buy groceriesGet milk, eggs, butter and bread
Atom feed
To Do ListA list of items to doRay Ozzie2005-05-21T11:43:33Zurn:uuid:60a76c80-d399-11d9-b93C-0003939e0aaa type="complete" />
type="aggregated"
title="To Do List (Jacks Copy)" />
Buy groceriesGet milk, eggs, butter and breadurn:uuid:60a76c80-d399-11d9-b93C-0003939e0aa0Ray Ozzie2005-05-21T11:43:33Z
POX item
Buy groceries
Get milk and eggs
JSON item
Examples of real world use
There are several examples of "real world" use of FeedSync feeds to synchronize data between applications.
FeedSync service
This prototype developer service is an implementation of HTTP-based FeedSync endpoint. Applications can use HTTP GET and POST commands to synchronize feeds, where the latter performs the FeedSync merge operation on the feed hosted by the FeedSync Service. The service is not active anymore.
Strong Angel III
FeedSync feeds were used extensively at the Strong Angel III exercise in August 2006 as a lightweight middle-ware to link applications from
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washi ...
,
Google
Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...
,
ESRI
Esri (; Environmental Systems Research Institute) is an American multinational geographic information system (GIS) software company. It is best known for its ArcGIS products. With a 43% market share, Esri is the world's leading supplier of GIS ...
and others on desktops and mobile devices. The service is not active anymore.
ROME project
The comprehensive Java RSS project ROME is an implementation of the FeedSync specification since it creates a
Java
Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mo ...
layer for developers to create apps that will use the FeedSync service.
Mesh4x
Mesh4x an open-source set of libraries, tools, applications and services for mesh-based applications, uses FeedSync as the versioning standard, and implements a Feedsync-inspired packet-based protocol to synchronize data over SMS text messages.
See also
*
Podcast
A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosin ...
ing
*
Syndication
Syndication may refer to:
* Broadcast syndication, where individual stations buy programs outside the network system
* Print syndication, where individual newspapers or magazines license news articles, columns, or comic strips
* Web syndication, ...