Dear Dave

[Ken MacLeod <ken118@bitsko.slc.ut.us>]

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