UserLand Software
Encyclopedia
UserLand Software is a US software company founded by Dave Winer
in 1988. UserLand sells Web content management
and blogging software packages and services.
founded the company in 1988 after leaving Symantec
in the spring of 1988. Jean-Louis Gassée
, who resigned in 1990 as chief of Apple's product development, came to serve on UserLand's board of directors.
tool. In January 1992 UserLand released version 1.0 of Frontier, a scripting environment with an object database and a companion language called UserTalk for the Macintosh. At the time of its original release, Frontier was the first system-level scripting environment for the Macintosh, but Apple soon released its own scripting language
, AppleScript
, and started bundling it with the MacOS 7 system software. As a consequence, most Macintosh scripting work came to be done in the less powerful, but free, scripting language provided by Apple.
In response, UserLand came to re-position Frontier as a Web development environment, distributing the software free of charge with the "Aretha" release of May 1995. In late 1996, Frontier 4.1 had become "an integrated development environment that lends itself to the creation and maintenance of Web sites and management of Web pages sans much busywork," and by the time Frontier 4.2 was released in January 1997, the software was firmly established in the realms of website management and CGI
scripting, allowing users to "taste the power of large-scale database publishing with free software."
Frontier's NewsPage suite came to play a pivotal role in the emergence of blogging through its adoption by Jorn Barger
, Chris Gulker
and others in the 1997–98 period.
UserLand launched a Windows
version of Frontier 5.0 in January 1998 and began charging for licenses again with the 5.1 release of June 1998.
Frontier subsequently became 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.
Userland eventually placed Frontier under the open source
GNU General Public License
with the 10.0a1 release of September 28, 2004. Frontier is now maintained by the Frontier Kernel Project.
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, which quickly became a popular weblogging service.
aggregator and was one of the first applications to both send and receive audio files as RSS enclosures (see podcast
ing). 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, the software came to be released in synch with Manila version numbering: the initial release of 2001 was named Radio UserLand 7.0 and its only major upgrade in 2002 Radio UserLand 8.0. The software is no longer considered to be under active development.
, with first experiments made in late 1997. The company was involved in the development, specification and implementation of several XML formats and was noted for its commitment to openness.
, XML-RPC is a remote procedure call
protocol which uses XML
to encode its calls and HTTP as a transport mechanism.
UserLand first included a stable XML-RPC framework with its 5.1.3 release of Frontier in August 1998 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.
, 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 May 9, 2000. Version 1.2 of the proposed standard became a W3C recommendation on June 24, 2003.
formats used to publish frequently updated works—such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video—in a standardized format. An RSS document (which is called a "feed", "web feed", 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. 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 "
format for outline
s. 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.
Dave Winer
Dave Winer is an American software developer, entrepreneur and writer in New York City. Winer is noted for his contributions to outliners, scripting, content management, and web services, as well as blogging and podcasting...
in 1988. UserLand sells Web content management
Content management
Content management, or CM, is the set of processes and technologies that support the collection, managing, and publishing of information in any form or medium. In recent times this information is typically referred to as content or, to be precise, digital content...
and blogging software packages and services.
Company History
Dave WinerDave Winer
Dave Winer is an American software developer, entrepreneur and writer in New York City. Winer is noted for his contributions to outliners, scripting, content management, and web services, as well as blogging and podcasting...
founded the company in 1988 after leaving Symantec
Symantec
Symantec Corporation is the largest maker of security software for computers. The company is headquartered in Mountain View, California, and is a Fortune 500 company and a member of the S&P 500 stock market index.-History:...
in the spring of 1988. Jean-Louis Gassée
Jean-Louis Gassée
Jean-Louis Gassée is a former executive at Apple Computer, where he worked from 1981 to 1990. He is most famous for founding Be Inc., creators of the BeOS computer operating system. After leaving Be, he became Chairman of PalmSource, Inc. in November, 2004.-1980s: Apple Computer:Gassée worked for...
, who resigned in 1990 as chief of Apple's product development, came to serve on UserLand's board of directors.
Frontier
UserLand's first product release of April 1989 was UserLand IPC, a developer tool for interprocess communication that was intended to evolve into a cross-platform RPCRemote procedure call
In computer science, a remote procedure call is an inter-process communication that allows a computer program to cause a subroutine or procedure to execute in another address space without the programmer explicitly coding the details for this remote interaction...
tool. In January 1992 UserLand released version 1.0 of Frontier, a scripting environment with an object database and a companion language called UserTalk for the Macintosh. At the time of its original release, Frontier was the first system-level scripting environment for the Macintosh, but Apple soon released its own scripting language
Scripting language
A scripting language, script language, or extension language is a programming language that allows control of one or more applications. "Scripts" are distinct from the core code of the application, as they are usually written in a different language and are often created or at least modified by the...
, AppleScript
AppleScript
AppleScript is a scripting language created by Apple Inc. and built into Macintosh operating systems since System 7. The term "AppleScript" may refer to the scripting system itself, or to particular scripts that are written in the AppleScript language....
, and started bundling it with the MacOS 7 system software. As a consequence, most Macintosh scripting work came to be done in the less powerful, but free, scripting language provided by Apple.
In response, UserLand came to re-position Frontier as a Web development environment, distributing the software free of charge with the "Aretha" release of May 1995. In late 1996, Frontier 4.1 had become "an integrated development environment that lends itself to the creation and maintenance of Web sites and management of Web pages sans much busywork," and by the time Frontier 4.2 was released in January 1997, the software was firmly established in the realms of website management and CGI
Common Gateway Interface
The Common Gateway Interface is a standard method for web servers software to delegate the generation of web pages to executable files...
scripting, allowing users to "taste the power of large-scale database publishing with free software."
Frontier's NewsPage suite came to play a pivotal role in the emergence of blogging through its adoption by Jorn Barger
Jorn Barger
Jorn Barger is an American blogger, best known as editor of Robot Wisdom, an influential early weblog. Barger coined the term weblog to describe the process of "logging the web" as he surfed...
, Chris Gulker
Chris Gulker
Christian Frederick Gulker was an American photographer, programmer, writer, and pioneer in electronic publishing....
and others in the 1997–98 period.
UserLand launched a Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
version of Frontier 5.0 in January 1998 and began charging for licenses again with the 5.1 release of June 1998.
Frontier subsequently became the kernel for two of UserLand's products, Manila and Radio Userland, as well as Dave Winer
Dave Winer
Dave Winer is an American software developer, entrepreneur and writer in New York City. Winer is noted for his contributions to outliners, scripting, content management, and web services, as well as blogging and podcasting...
's OPML
OPML
OPML is an XML format for outlines...
Editor, all of which support the UserTalk scripting language.
Userland eventually placed Frontier under the open source
Open source
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
GNU General Public License
GNU General Public License
The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....
with the 10.0a1 release of September 28, 2004. Frontier is now maintained by the Frontier Kernel Project.
Early Web building applications
Userland developed two pioneering Web building applications, AutoWeb in early 1995 and Clay Basket 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.Manila
Launched as part of Frontier 6.1 in November 1999, Manila is a content management systemContent management system
A content management system is a system providing a collection of procedures used to manage work flow in a collaborative environment. These procedures can be manual or computer-based...
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, which quickly became a popular weblogging service.
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 RSSRSS (file format)
RSS 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...
aggregator and was one of the first applications to both send and receive audio files as RSS enclosures (see podcast
Podcast
A podcast is a series of digital media files that are released episodically and often downloaded through web syndication...
ing). UserLand was an early adopter of the RSS
RSS (file format)
RSS 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...
syndication method, merging Winer's Scripting News XML format with Netscape
Netscape
Netscape Communications is a US computer services company, best known for Netscape Navigator, its web browser. When it was an independent company, its headquarters were in Mountain View, California...
's RSS.
First released as a public beta under the name Pike in March 2000, the software came to be released in synch with Manila version numbering: the initial release of 2001 was named Radio UserLand 7.0 and its only major upgrade in 2002 Radio UserLand 8.0. The software is no longer considered to be under active development.
XML-based protocols and XML Formats
UserLand counts among the earliest adopters of XMLXML
Extensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....
, with first experiments made in late 1997. The company was involved in the development, specification and implementation of several XML formats and was noted for its commitment to openness.
XML-RPC
Created in 1998 by UserLand Software and MicrosoftMicrosoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
, XML-RPC is a remote procedure call
Remote procedure call
In computer science, a remote procedure call is an inter-process communication that allows a computer program to cause a subroutine or procedure to execute in another address space without the programmer explicitly coding the details for this remote interaction...
protocol which uses XML
XML
Extensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....
to encode its calls and HTTP as a transport mechanism.
UserLand first included a stable XML-RPC framework with its 5.1.3 release of Frontier in August 1998 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
MetaWeblog
The MetaWeblog API is an application programming interface created by software developer Dave Winer that enables weblog entries to be written, edited, and deleted using web services....
API.
SOAP
SOAP evolved from XML-RPC and was designed as an object-access protocol by Dave WinerDave Winer
Dave Winer is an American software developer, entrepreneur and writer in New York City. Winer is noted for his contributions to outliners, scripting, content management, and web services, as well as blogging and podcasting...
, Don Box
Don Box
Don Box is a Distinguished Engineer currently working at Microsoft.Along with Bob Atkinson, Mohsen Al-Ghosein, and Dave Winer, Don was one of the original four designers of SOAP, a basic messaging layer for web services....
, Bob Atkinson, and Mohsen Al-Ghosein in 1998, with backing from Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
, where Atkinson and Al-Ghosein worked at the time.
SOAP 1.1 was submitted to the W3C by Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
, IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
, and UserLand, amongst others, on May 9, 2000. Version 1.2 of the proposed standard became a W3C recommendation on June 24, 2003.
RSS
RSS (abbreviation for Really Simple Syndication) is a family of Web feedWeb feed
A web feed is a data format used for providing users with frequently updated content. Content distributors syndicate a web feed, thereby allowing users to subscribe to it. Making a collection of web feeds accessible in one spot is known as aggregation, which is performed by an aggregator...
formats used to publish frequently updated works—such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video—in a standardized format. An RSS document (which is called a "feed", "web feed", or "channel") includes full or summarized text, plus metadata
Metadata
The term metadata is an ambiguous term which is used for two fundamentally different concepts . Although the expression "data about data" is often used, it does not apply to both in the same way. Structural metadata, the design and specification of data structures, cannot be about data, because at...
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
History of web syndication technology
This article is specifically dedicated to the history of web syndication technology and, more generally, to the history of technical innovation on many dialects of web syndication feeds such as RSS and Atom, as well as earlier variants such as Channel Definition Format and more recent innovations...
.
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. 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 "
OPML
OPML (Outline Processor Markup Language) is an XMLXML
Extensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....
format for outline
Outline
An outline is a list of the main features of a given topic, often used as a rough draft or summary of the content of a document. A hierarchical outline is a list arranged to show hierarchical relationships, and is a type of tree structure....
s. Originally developed in 2000 as a native file format for Radio UserLand
Radio UserLand
Radio UserLand is a software package from UserLand Software, first released in 2000, which includes not only a client-side blogging tool but also an RSS aggregator, an outliner and a scripting language.-Features:...
's outliner
Outliner
An outliner is a computer program that allows text to be organized into discrete sections that are related in a tree structure or hierarchy. Text may be collapsed into a node, or expanded and edited....
application, it has since been adopted for other uses, the most common being to exchange lists of web feeds between web feed aggregators.