Re: RSS owns itself (was Re: [syndication] What did I get myself into?)

["Dave Winer" <dave@userland.com>]

Mark, pretend we're face-to-face, and let me say I hope you feel better very
soon.

I thought Alis and Julian posted some excellent pieces yesterday.

If the RSS FAQ is going to be like that, then I'm all for it.

The more it's written by *users* of RSS, the better.

Features and benefits. Make it super easy to do it. Let's go.

Dave


----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Nottingham" <mnot@mnot.net>
To: <syndication@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, May 13, 2001 12:00 PM
Subject: Re: RSS owns itself (was Re: [syndication] What did I get myself
into?)


>
> I'm sick as a dog, and therefore am existing in the rare state where
> I don't care about the Send button ;)
>
>
> RSS is a particularly bad example of failure to agree, for whatever
> reason. The different factions have been co-existing with poor grace
> for some time; I'm suggesting that perhaps the time has come for them
> to accept the differences, let the market sort it out, and pool
> resources where appropriate. Evangelizing syndication is one such
> area (and quite appropriate for this list).
>
> Dave, if this happens in a reasonable fashion, would you participate,
> or at least point at such a resource when speaking about RSS?
>
>
>
> On Sun, May 13, 2001 at 10:24:56AM -0700, Dave Winer wrote:
> > Mark, I wanted to give this a fair amount of thought before posting, I
did
> > not hit the Send button right away. ;->
> >
> > In my opinion, formats like RSS are nothing more than politics. Consider
> > that there are many possible ways to syndicate Web content, even in XML,
and
> > XML is only one of the possible ways to do it. The value in a format
like
> > RSS is the agreement that it represents, however it came together, that
> > coalesced it into one identifiable thing.
> >
> > Now if you mean by not focusing on politics that we don't care who
"owns"
> > RSS, then right on, I'm behind you all the way. I don't want to own RSS,
> > I've always said that I don't. RSS owns itself.
> >
> > Dave
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Mark Nottingham" <mnot@mnot.net>
> > To: "James Shaw" <yahoo@coveryourasp.com>
> > Cc: <syndication@yahoogroups.com>
> > Sent: Saturday, May 12, 2001 6:47 PM
> > Subject: Re: [syndication] What did I get myself into?!
> >
> >
> > >
> > >
> > > James,
> > >
> > > I sympathize. FWIW, my advice is to pick the format that works for
> > > you, stick with it, and ignore the politics.
> > >
> > > To the Syndication list:
> > >
> > > What say you? The next step in the RSS story seems to be
> > > evangelization. It's obvious that we're at a stalemate re:
> > > determining the 'real' owner of the RSS torch. Continuing to infight
> > > serves no purpose, and as we see demonstrated so well here,
> > > discourages the adoption of RSS as a format.
> > >
> > > I propose that we (the members of this list) undertake to build a Web
> > > site that explains the ins and outs of RSS, with the politics
> > > relegated to ONE document (probably "the politics of RSS - choosing a
> > > format"). Can we do this, in the interest of syndication?
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > On Sun, May 13, 2001 at 12:50:32AM -0000, James Shaw wrote:
> > > > I've looked back at the recent posts, and I'm amazed what goes on
> > > > here and in the (as they're called here) "other" groups.
> > > >
> > > > A few of you posted messages about me and my efforts with STORS.org
> > > > recently, so I thought I'd tell the short story. I write articles on
> > > > my ASP web site and publish them by submitting title, description,
> > > > URL and various other details to directory sites like aspin.com,
> > > > devdex.com, etc where they categorize them. Readers follow their
> > > > links to my site. OK, so that's where I'm coming from.
> > > >
> > > > My gripe was that everyone's form was different, some you can't even
> > > > paste into! So on April 19th I proposed a *very* simple idea of
> > > > everyone using the same names for their form inputs. Within a week
> > > > there was an XML schema, a discussion list and a website.
> > > >
> > > > No-one mentioned RSS, and development was accelerating. Now, 3 weeks
> > > > since the original form idea STORS.org publishes source code for
> > > > publishers to create an XML file and directory sites to read it when
> > > > the XML (or more likely a URL to the XML) is submitted on a standard
> > > > form.
> > > >
> > > > More and more people offered to port my code to other languages and
> > > > platforms, and we were ready to make the big announcement that
> > > > STORS.org was live (scheduled for 2 days from now). And then I get
an
> > > > email from Alis.
> > > >
> > > > Much head scratching and frantic reading about RSS ensued. The 3
main
> > > > people behind STORS, me Steve Smith (ASPAlliance) and Pedro Pequeno
> > > > (Aspin) decided to change tack and instead use the established RSS,
> > > > which by all accounts was extensible enough even if we wanted a few
> > > > tweaks.
> > > >
> > > > 2 days later and I'm stunned to see the political nightmare we've
> > > > stepped into. I've subscribed to 4 discussion lists so far. This
one,
> > > > reallySimpleSyndication, rss2 and rss-dev.
> > > >
> > > > I'd really like to keep the momentum going and get my new site up
> > > > with code for everyone to use. Quickly. I'm not sure I want to go
> > > > back in the archives to find out where the split(s) occured, or why.
> > > >
> > > > I guess I was just hoping that a 2 year old effort was slick,
> > > > polished, with lots of documentation, sample code in every
> > > > conceivable language and more to the point, an "RSS.org" that was
> > > > running it. (Actually the RDF Site Summary 1.0 docs are very
> > > > impressive)
> > > >
> > > > What am I missing? Feel free to email me offlist if you prefer:
> > > > james@coveryourasp.com
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to
> > http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > Mark Nottingham
> > > http://www.mnot.net/
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
> >
> >
>
> --
> Mark Nottingham
> http://www.mnot.net/
>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>