Re: [syndication] RFC: Clearing confusion for RSS, agreement for forward motion

[Ian Davis <ian@calaba.com>]

On Wednesday, May 30, 2001, 4:46:05 AM, Dave wrote:

> OK, I've given this some thought, I'd like everyone to keep discussing even
> if there are points of disagreement. There may be holes in what I'm
> proposing. So please read this carefully, give it some thought, if you see a
> problem, state it. Items 1-5 are recitals, and 6-14 form a proposal. I am
> not a lawyer, and did not have my lawyer review this document before posting
> it.

> 1. I don't like the idea of "sharing" the name. While sharing is a good
> thing in general, when it comes to naming things, well if they're different
> they should have different names. This is the source of the confusion.
Agreed. RSS 1.0 and RSS 0.92/OPML are intended for different purposes.

> 3. One thing's for sure, though, 0.91 has had the longest run of any of the
> formats. It was promoted heavily, and gained wide adoption. Orphaning this
> format is not a good option. Therefore, in my humble opinion, anything that
> has the RSS name must be compatible with 0.91.
I propose that RSS is frozen at version 0.91 for evermore. Anything
else may be derived from RSS but should not be called RSS.

> 4. I strongly believe RSS is a Web content syndication format and nothing
> more. You can see that I acted on this belief by creating a new format in
> OPML, and did not try to shoehorn it into RSS. However, it seems that OPML
> is in somewhat the same space as "1.0".
I think some of us see the future of RSS differently, but I would
agree that RSS 0.91 is for syndicating news headlines. It does a great
job of that, without trying to do too much.

> 6. Now, putting on my "what's the best thing for RSS" hat, and ignoring any
> difficulty that might be there for any person, company or group, I think the
> best thing is to do some renamimg. Let the RSS name be used only for the
> 0.90 and 0.91 formats. Declare 0.90 deprecated and document 0.91, do more
> tutorials, etc. Evangelize. Clear up all the confusion. Authorship credit
> for 0.91 goes equally to Netscape and UserLand. A final version of the 0.91
> spec is created derived from the one on backend.userland.com, and it will
> contain pointers, at the end of the document, to any websites that are
> created for subsequent formats that offer compatibility with 0.91. As a
> gesture of goodwill it will also include a pointer to the RDF fork. This
> specification will maintain a copyright notice that allows it to be copied
> in whole or in part.
I would agree with the above. I would also add that the intention is
that RSS 0.91 is not to be extended or changed and that any
advancement of the format should be done as part of one of the forks.


> 7. Both branches take new names. Neither format has the letters "SS" in
> their name. The RSS-DEV list changes its name to reflect the new name for
> the RDF-and-namespaces branch.
If RSS development is to cease then this makes sense.

Dave's proposal makes a lot of sense and want to publicly say thanks
to Dave for making this move. Please can we now use this as a basis
for moving forward with our various syndication and metadata projects.

Ian


-- 
Ian Davis
Chief Technology Officer, Calaba Ltd.
Tel: +44 20 7689 9238 | Fax: +44 20 7689 9239
4 Pear Tree, London, United Kingdom, EC1R 0DS