From the Lessig blog I learned that Microsoft is releasing its spec for “Simple Feed Extensions” under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license, often referred to as a “CopyLeft” . People are free to modify and redistribute the spec so long as the modifications are licensed under a similar license.
This shows a couple things about Microsoft. First, that it is not (and probably never has been) a mono-culture. Secondly, that groups within Microsoft get it when it comes to RSS and know how to play nice. Bravo!