Dear Ken

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

Thank you for these comments, and thanks for exposing more of the philosophy
of the RDF proponents.

As we've seen so many times before you and your colleagues require me to be
your foil.

Without Dave to complain about the whole reason for the namespaces and RDF
approach goes away, right?

So -- let me offer you a deal.

1. I will stand down as the defacto leader of the simple approach to RSS,
I'll just be another user of RSS, making proposals, and looking for input or
agreement with others.

2. I'll pass the baton to someone who isn't so convenient a target for your
personal issues. I would recommend Jeff Barr, he's got longevity in RSS, a
product, and a lot of experience. I don't know if he has the time.

3. Along with this, you will also stand down, by renaming the RDF and
namespaces format to something other than RSS,

How does that sound?

Wouldn't that be the best approach to unifying RSS, and getting into selling
mode, and helping newbies get on board?

And if you don't think unifying RSS is a good idea, why not ask some users
what they think? You might be surprised to hear how confused they are about
all this michegas. [1]

Anyway, I think there's a general consensus that this two-RSS approach is
pretty bad for RSS.

BTW, of course, this proposal is for everyone, not just Ken and Rael and
their colleagues, *everyone* who is involved in RSS, and might not feel they
are empowered to discuss these issues.

Dave

[1] Which contrary to your statement, *you* keep bringing up, you didn't
have to post your hurt message to this mail list. Rael didn't, Aaron didn't,
when I asked them to privately stay out of the reallySimpleSyndication
discussion, they simply respected the very reasonable request I made. This
was your choice Ken, not mine, or anyone else's. Pretty self-centered of you
to take this list down this road once again, but a productive thing to do at
this stage of the unwinding process.


----- Original Message -----
From: "Ken MacLeod" <ken118@bitsko.slc.ut.us>
To: <syndication@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, May 29, 2001 7:30 AM
Subject: [syndication] Dear Dave


> Dave, I was trying to make useful suggestions, you are making issues
> of it.
>
> "This little community keeps swirling around your issues. That's
> pretty selfish, if you ask me."
>
> Assuming you're good people, let me try to explain some things that I
> don't think you "get".
>
> Not everybody in the RSS community agrees with you 100% and feels that
> your manner of doing things is the one and true way.  Many, if not
> most, in the community do not want to see you be the dictator of RSS
> the way you are the dictator of RSS 0.91+, your benevolence in that
> regard is in serious question, and how you, solely, came to assume
> that role is unclear.  "Let's work together" fails miserably when it's
> only your vote that counts.
>
> Most would probably like the leadership of RSS to be "open", but that
> was botched.  Because the "decision to be open" was made in a closed
> manner, the result was only natural.  Had a working group formed
> first, and then voted on a direction for the format, we would probably
> still have two formats, and we might still be a whole community.  I
> wish we could change history, but we can't.  I wish we could be one
> community now -- I believe there are only a very few people who don't
> desire that.
>
> > [RSS is] simple, understandable at a first read, and then continues
> > to make sense after you read the spec.
>
> Your document is written at a certain level of formality.  One of the
> things the community disagrees on is whether that level of formality
> is sufficient on its own.  It is partly coincidence that a different
> group of document writers would choose a different level for their
> normative works.  Other communities cover a broad range in their
> documents.
>
> Dave, RSS has two formats.  The community is bigger than you want to
> believe.  You are not *the* leader of the community, you are *a*
> leader of the community.  That you don't "get" that is why you
> continue to dwell on these issues, thus grinding this community to a
> halt every time.
>
>   -- Ken
>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>