Re: Thoughts, questions, and issues.

[Aaron Swartz <aswartz@swartzfam.com>]

Gary Teter <bigdog@bulldogbeach.com> wrote:

> Right, I read that when the spec was introduced, and it made sense -- as
> long as you accept the idea that RDF is a necessary component of syndicating
> content. After thinking about it, from the perspective of a developer
> writing aggregator and publisher software, I don't think it is.

That's certainly a question. I don't know which is the right choice, but I'm
willing to give RDF a try, as long as it isn't _too_ harmful.

> Wellll..... speaking as an aggregator of aggregators :-),

URL?

> I'll read whatever
> I have to. What I'm way more concerned about is the sources -- the
> excitement of RSS is those thousands of little feeds created by
> god-knows-what kind of tools.

I don't quite follow. If people output RSS 1.0, and you can read it, why
does it matter what tool they used?

> If I'm going to say, "We made this decision for backwards compatibility,"
> I'd much prefer that I was thinking of the amount of effort involved in
> converting to the new version, not some abstract idea of which version was
> more useful for my goals.

For those that support 0.9, the amount of effort was designed to be zero. No
abstract ideas was involved. Rael was working with code every step of the
way. We wanted zero-effort for aggregators to support the new spec. It may
not be true for all of them, but it's certainly true for some.

> Right there, that's the issue, nail on the head, bulls-eye. I am not
> convinced that "everything else in 1.0" even needs to be there. Simply
> saying "RDF is more expressive" doesn't convince me.

Again, I'm not sold on RDF either, so I'm not qualified to answer this
point. Others?

-- 
        Aaron Swartz         |"This information is top security.
<http://swartzfam.com/aaron/>|     When you have read it, destroy yourself."
  <http://www.theinfo.org/>  |             - Marshall McLuhan