Open Content Syndication
Introduction
Open Content Syndication (OCS) is an application of XML.
The OCS Directory format is designed to enable channel listings to be constructed for use by portal sites, client based headline software and other similar applications.
For more information and feedback please contact iand@InternetAlchemy.org or join the Syndication mailing list.
OCS News
3 September 2002 - New OCS Draft
I've published a new draft of OCS version 0.5.
Based on the poll I did earlier this year I have tidied up the RDF to make it more similar to the RSS 1.0 style (and made it valid RDF at that!). Schedules and formats can be shared between channels and I'm planning to provide a standard set of them. The spec also allows extension modules to be created for OCS, a sample one is the Alias Module that allows alternative (usually defunct) urls to be supplied for channels.
As usual, discussion of the draft should occur on the Syndication list.
1 July 2002 - Results of Poll on RDF
Thanks to everyone who voted on the future of RDF in OCS. The results were as follows:
- No changes - 0 votes (0%)
- Fix OCS to be compliant RDF, keep general structure the same - 2 votes (11%)
- Fix OCS to be compliant RDF and rewrite in form similar to RSS - 10 votes (55%)
- Remove RDF, keep namespaces - 5 votes (27%)
- Remove RDF, no namespaces - 1 vote (5%)
So the consensus is clearly that RDF should stay and that the syntax of OCS should be expressed in a similar manner to RSS 1.0. I'll be publishing a draft of the new spec soon and hope that everyone can give feedback on its evolution.
14 June 2002 - Poll on RDF in OCS
OCS has been at version 0.4 for over a year and it's time to revisit it. One of the major flaws of OCS has been that it is not strictly correct RDF which means that implementors can't use an RDF parser to process it and standard xml methods are complicated by the nearly-RDF syntax. I'd like to take this opportunity to take a poll of opinion on the future of RDF in OCS. This poll will close at noon (GMT) 30 June 2002.
Vote on future of RDF in OCS, ( View results)
OCS Specifications
Who is Using OCS?
- XMLTree is publishing it's entire list of channels in OCS Directory format.
- Moreover publishes it's extensive channel list as OCS. [OCS File]
- 10.am tech news aggregator also publishes it's channel list as OCS: [OCS File]
- NewsIsFree.com publishes its directory of news channels as OCS: [OCS File]
- Headline Viewer can read in channels from OCS Directory lists.
- Network54 publishes over 650 discussion groups in OCS format
- A list of Blogger weblogs in OCS format: [OCS File]
