UserLand Software

Type	Private
Founded	1988
Headquarters	Los Altos, California, USA
Key people	Dave Winer (founder and former CEO), Jean-Louis Gassée (former board member), John Robb (former president), Robert Scoble (former Director of Marketing)
Industry	Internet, software
Products	Web content management and blogging software packages and services
Employees	fewer than 10 at any time
Website	www.userland.com

UserLand Software is a U.S. software company founded by Dave Winer in 1988.^[1] UserLand sells Web content management and blogging software packages and services.

Contents 1 Frontier 2 Early Web building applications 3 Manila 4 Radio UserLand 5 XML-based protocols and XML Formats 5.1 XML-RPC 5.2 SOAP 5.3 RSS 5.4 OPML 6 References 7 External links

[edit] Frontier

In January 1992 UserLand released version 1.0 of Frontier,^[2] a scripting environment with an object database and a companion language called UserTalk for the Macintosh. When Apple bundled its own scripting language, AppleScript, with new systems, Frontier's initial market all but collapsed. In response, UserLand came to re-position its software as a Web development environment in 1995^[3] and launched a Windows version in 1998.^[4]

Userland distributed Frontier as freeware starting with the "Aretha" release of May 1995,^[5] yet began charging for licenses again with the 5.1 release of June 1998.^[6] It eventually placed the software under the open source GNU General Public License with the 10.0a1 release of September 28, 2004.^[7] Frontier is now maintained by the Frontier Kernel Project.

Frontier is the kernel for two of UserLand's products, Manila and Radio Userland, as well as Dave Winer's OPML Editor, all of which support the UserTalk scripting language.

[edit] Early Web building applications

Userland developed two pioneering Web building applications, AutoWeb^[8] in early 1995 and Clay Basket^[9] later that year. Both applications went through a free public beta period, yet neither was ever released in a 1.0 version. In 1996 Clay Basket was abandoned in favor of improved Web publishing functionality built into Frontier.^[10]

[edit] Manila

Launched as part of Frontier 6.1 in November 1999,^[11] Manila is a content management system that allows the hosting of web sites and their editing through a browser. Within days of releasing Manila, UserLand set up a free Manila hosting service, EditThisPage.com,^[12] which quickly became a popular weblogging service.

[edit] Radio UserLand

Radio UserLand is a client-side weblog system that hosts blogs on UserLand's servers for an annual software license fee. The software includes an RSS aggregator and was one of the first applications to both send and receive audio files as RSS enclosures (see podcasting). UserLand was an early adopter of the RSS syndication method, merging Winer's Scripting News XML format with Netscape's RSS.

First released as a public beta under the name Pike in March 2000,^[13] the software came to be released in synch with Manila version numbering: the initial release of 2001 was named Radio UserLand 7.0^[14] and its only major upgrade in 2002 Radio UserLand 8.0.^[15] The software is no longer considered to be under active development.^[16]

[edit] XML-based protocols and XML Formats

UserLand counts among the earliest adopters of XML, with first experiments made in late 1997.^[17] The company was involved in the development, specification and implementation of several XML formats and was noted for its commitment to openness.^[18]

[edit] XML-RPC

Created in 1998 by UserLand Software and Microsoft,^[19] XML-RPC is a remote procedure call protocol which uses XML to encode its calls and HTTP as a transport mechanism.^[20]

UserLand first included a stable XML-RPC framework with its 5.1.3 release of Frontier in August 1998^[21] and subsequently made extensive use of XML-RPC it its Frontier-based products, Manila and Radio UserLand. XML-RPC is also used in the MetaWeblog API.

[edit] SOAP

SOAP evolved from XML-RPC and was designed as an object-access protocol by Dave Winer, Don Box, Bob Atkinson, and Mohsen Al-Ghosein in 1998, with backing from Microsoft, where Atkinson and Al-Ghosein worked at the time.

SOAP 1.1 was submitted to the W3C by Microsoft, IBM, and UserLand, amongst others, on 9 May 2000.^[22] Version 1.2 of the proposed standard^[23] became a W3C recommendation on June 24, 2003.

[edit] RSS

RSS (abbreviation for Really Simple Syndication) is a family of Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works—such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video—in a standardized format.^[24] An RSS document (which is called a "feed", "web feed",^[25] or "channel") includes full or summarized text, plus metadata such as publishing dates and authorship.

Between 1999 and 2003, UserLand contributed various versions of the RSS specification. For an overview of the process see the History of web syndication technology.

Using RSS, UserLand also ran one of the first Web aggregators, My.UserLand.Com, which allowed users to follow numerous weblogs from a single web page.

Userland's RSS advocacy led them to develop RSS feeds for the New York Times company.^[26] The original feeds used a variation on standard RSS, and the feeds were only publicized to UserLand Radio bloggers. The Times later broadened its support of RSS, but the original relationship is still visible in Times RSS feed addresses, such as "http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/userland/HomePage.xml"

[edit] OPML

OPML (Outline Processor Markup Language) is an XML format for outlines. Originally developed in 2000 as a native file format for Radio UserLand's outliner application, it has since been adopted for other uses, the most common being to exchange lists of web feeds between web feed aggregators.

[edit] References

1. ^ Winer, Dave (1988). "Outliners & Programming". Userland. http://davewiner.userland.com/outlinersProgramming. Retrieved 2008-08-15. 
2. ^ "Userland launches Frontier scripting tool for Macintosh". InfoWorld: pp. 20. 1992-01-20. 
3. ^ Winer, Dave (1997). "The Story of Frontier". Userland. http://davewiner.userland.com/historyOfFrontier. Retrieved 2008-08-08. 
4. ^ Userland (1998-01-30). "Frontier 5.0 is shipping!". Frontier News. http://frontier.userland.com/news/1998/01/30. Retrieved 2008-08-08. 
5. ^ Winer, Dave (1995-05-09). "Being Free". DaveNet. http://www.scripting.com/davenet/1995/05/09/beingfree.html. Retrieved 2008-08-09. 
6. ^ Walsh, Jeff (1998-06-29). "UserLand releases Frontier 5.1, drops freeware model". InfoWorld. http://www.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/displayStory.pl?980629.wifrontier.htm. Retrieved 2008-08-09. 
7. ^ Winer, Dave (2004-09-28). "Introducing Frontier 10.0a1". Kernel Scripting. http://web.archive.org/web/20041009163113/http://kernel.scripting.com/2004/09/28. 
8. ^ Duncan, Geoff (1995-05-29). "Frontier Justice". TidBits. http://db.tidbits.com/article/01471. Retrieved 2009-05-06. 
9. ^ Engst, Adam C. (1996-04-29). "More Bookmarks than Books, Part III". TidBits. http://www.tidbits.com/tb-issues/TidBITS-326.html#lnk5. Retrieved 2009-05-06. 
10. ^ Winer, Dave (1996-12-31). "The Art of Moving Forward". DaveNet. http://www.scripting.com/davenet/1996/12/31/TheArtofMovingForward.html. Retrieved 2009-05-06. 
11. ^ Winer, Dave (1999-11-29). "Frontier 6.1 has been released!". Userland Frontier. http://frontier.userland.com/news/default$1999/11. Retrieved 2009-03-07. 
12. ^ Winer, Dave (1999-12-08). "EditThisPage.Com". DaveNet. http://www.scripting.com/davenet/1999/12/08/editthispagecom.html. Retrieved 2009-03-07. 
13. ^ Winer, Dave (2000-03-25). "What is Pike?". http://pikebeta.userland.com/whatIsThis. Retrieved 2008-11-03. 
14. ^ Userland (2001-03-09). "Radio Userland is shipping!". Frontier News. http://frontier.userland.com/news/2001/03/09. Retrieved 2009-03-07. 
15. ^ Winer, Dave (2002-01-11). "Estimated time of arrival: 6:30PM Pacific". Scripting News. http://archive.scripting.com/2002/01/11. Retrieved 2009-03-07. 
16. ^ Winer, Dave (2007-04-28). "Twitter as coral reef". Scripting News. http://www.scripting.com/stories/2007/04/28/twitterAsCoralReef.html. Retrieved 2009-03-07. 
17. ^ Winer, Dave (1997-12-15). "Scripting News in XML". DaveNet. http://www.scripting.com/davenet/1997/12/15/scriptingNewsInXML.html. Retrieved 2009-03-07. 
18. ^ Dumbill, Edd (1999-10-13). "XML Inter-Application Protocols". XML.com. http://www.xml.com/pub/a/1999/10/open/index.html?wwwrrr_rss. Retrieved 2009-06-03. 
19. ^ Box, Don (2001-04-01). "A Brief History of SOAP". O'Reilly. http://webservices.xml.com/pub/a/ws/2001/04/04/soap.html. Retrieved 2008-10-09. 
20. ^ Simon St. Laurent, Joe Johnston, Edd Dumbill. (June 2001) Programming Web Services with XML-RPC. O'Reilly. First Edition.
21. ^ Userland (1998-08-16). "Frontier 5.1.3 Change Notes". Userland Frontier. http://frontier.userland.com/changes/513. Retrieved 2009-03-13. 
22. ^ Userland (2000-05-09). "UserLand Submits SOAP 1.1 to World Wide Web Consortium". Userland. http://www.userland.com/stories/storyReader$66. Retrieved 2009-03-07. 
23. ^ SOAP Version 1.2 specification
24. ^ Libby, Dan (1999-07-10). "RSS 0.91 Spec, revision 3". Netscape Communications. http://web.archive.org/web/20001204093600/my.netscape.com/publish/formats/rss-spec-0.91.html. Retrieved 2007-02-14. 
25. ^ "Web feeds | RSS | The Guardian | guardian.co.uk", The Guardian, London, 2008, webpage: GuardianUK-webfeeds.
26. ^ Accessing the NY Times archive through their RSS feeds - Backend.Userland.Com

[edit] External links

• Official website
• Frontier kernel open source project

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