FeedSync
a set of extensions to the RSS and Atom feed formats
FeedSync for Atom and RSS, previously Simple Sharing Extensions, are extensions to RSS and Atom feed formats designed to enable the bi-directional synchronization of information by using a variety of data sources. Initially developed by Ray Ozzie, Chief Software Architect at Microsoft, it is now maintained by Jack Ozzie, George Moromisato, Matt Augustine, Paresh Suthar and Steven Lees. Dave Winer, the designer of the UserLand Software RSS specification variants, has given input for the specifications.
The last version of FeedSync for Atom and RSS specification is 1.02.
FeedSync for Atom and RSS is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License (version 2.5) and the Microsoft Open Specification Promise.
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
Atom feed
POX item
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.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “FeedSync” as a set of extensions to the RSS and Atom feed formats. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 5, 2024. The linked authority identifier is Q4038677. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “FeedSync” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.