RE: [syndication] Re: RFC 2: Branching RSS

["Rael Dornfest" <rael@oreilly.com>]

Howdy,

> From: Aaron Swartz [mailto:aswartz@swartzfam.com]

> > : ** Freezing RSS
> > :
> > : RSS is declared frozen at 0.91. Everyone is asked not to
> develop any new
> > : formats with the RSS name. RSS 0.91 is documented through a
> collaborative
> > : effort on behalf of the Syndication list, based on Dave Winer's
> > : version. It
> > : will be put at a neutral address such as
> <http://purl.org/rss/0.91/>. The
> > : specification will maintain a copyright notice that allows it
> to be copied
> > : in whole or in part. It can include pointers to other branches of RSS
> > And this _must_ be done for 0.9 as well; there is a lineage here and to
> > ignore it is to leave lots of dangling wobbly bits.
>
> Yes, sorry if this wasn't clear. What I meant is that RSS 0.9 and
> 0.91 both
> live on as RSS. Everything else, however, must take a different (but
> potentially similar) name.

Ay, there's the rub.  The name game seems to be about the only thing that's
left to figure out.

> > : UserLand will rename the format used in their software as well as the
> >
> > I will once again reiterate the importance of having this come
> from the 0.9x
> > community.  The members of reallySimpleSyndication are a
> perfect start; drop
> > in some governance to afford ordered decision-making, and we have a
> > situation where both sides' interests are decently represented.
>
> Yes, I'd love to see this as an agreement between two communities.
> Unfortunately, I see no way of getting a response from the 0.9x
> community so
> I didn't want to place restrictions on them. However, if they
> have a way of
> "ratifying" the proposal, I'd love to include them in it.

While this is obviously not my territory, being primarily on an RSS-DEV'er,
might I suggest utilizing realSimpleSyndication as a community starting
point for the 0.9x branch and either putting a good governance procedure in
place or at the very least use polling as a way to move toward ratification
of any kind of agreement that is struck.

> > : No party will extend RSS 0.90/1 with new features (new elements, etc.)
> > : without using a new name. Changes currently in use (such as
> > : removing element
> > : length restrictions, etc.) will continue to be allowed.
> >
> > I'm assuming you mean that 0.91 is frozen per Dave's spec rather than
> > Netscape's.  While I'm not sure how clean a break with the past
> this is, I
> > leave this to the 0.91 developers (Userland and Netscape) to
> figure that bit
> > out.  There's more on this and credit in my other posting.
>
> No, I'm not saying this at all. All I'm saying is that people shouldn't
> start extending 0.91 without coming up with a new spec. However, I don't
> want to prevent people from using 0.91 with, say, 20 items or a
> description
> of longer than 5000. I don't see that as extending the spec
> really, I see it
> as a legitimate use of the format. Thus, I didn't want it to be a
> violation
> of the agreement.

I have no problem with that.  We've all toyed with throwing out those
restrictions since the get-go.

> > : All parties agree to put the past fully behind us. Discussion of
> > : events that
> > : took place before agreement was reached will be off-topic on all
> > : three mail
> > : lists.
> >
> > Save for learning purposes :-)
>
> Uh oh, I smell an RSS-History branch! ;-) Just kidding.

Um, no, but I think we do have a co-chair for RSS-Pedantic ;-)

RAel