Re: RFC: Clearing confusion for RSS, agreement for forward motion

[Aaron Swartz <aswartz@swartzfam.com>]

Alright, I now have the time to look over this proposal carefully. I see
some flaws, so I'm going to propose some corrections. Let me know what you
think. As others have said, let's keep talking.

Dave Winer <dave@userland.com> wrote:

> 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.

What do you mean by different names? I agree, things should have different
names -- that's why they do. One format is name RSS 0.9, another RSS 0.91,
another RSS 1.0. These are different names because the formats are
different. What kind of name would you like us to choose? Can it have RSS in
it?

> largest installed base. So if we're going to quote numbers we must get some
> agreeable way of surveying the installed base before making decisions based
> on this. Or we could stop quoting numbers. (Which is I think is the
> productive and forward-moving way.)

I agree -- let's quit it with the numbers. It's easy to lie with statistics.

> 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.

Does this mean we should change the name of 0.90? What does compatible mean?

> 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.

I agree, and I think this is how it currently is, for the most part.

> Clear up all the confusion. Authorship credit
> for 0.91 goes equally to Netscape and UserLand.

I'm not sure that this is correct. According to Netscape[1], they "included
several tags from the popular <scriptingNews> format." This is significantly
different from authoring the spec.

[1] http://my.netscape.com/publish/formats/rss-spec-0.91.html

> 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.

Again, that word "compatibility". Let me explain what compatibility means to
me. Compatibility for format X, with format Y, means that tools that support
X can also use Y. By this definition, RSS 1.0 is compatible (with RSS 0.90).
RSS 0.92 is not (with 0.9 or 0.91).

> 7. Both branches take new names. Neither format has the letters "SS" in
> their name.

This is not acceptable to me. RSS 1.0 works for Site Summary and Simple
Syndication, and I hope that it continues to work for that. It is very much
RSS, and I hope that it continues to be so. You may not be "knifing the
baby" but you're using white-out on her birth certificate.

> 8. Re the "simple" branch [...]
> It will not be called RSS. Then what RSS is is very simple,
> is no longer contested, in any way, now or in the future, it has a large
> installed base, is easily documented and evangelized, there's no need for
> further discussion since it's well-known what it is.

Except RSS will remain contested, since this apparently does not apply to
formats that are "compatible with RSS 0.91". Is 0.92 compatible with 0.91?
Is 1.0? If you're going to put a stop to the confusion, put in a full stop:
No more RSS-based formats, no more extensions, no more modifications. No new
"specifications", no new "owners". Is that what you want to do? It's not
what I want to.

> 11. When we've made similar offers in the past, some have said that we
> should just change the name and let the RDF people use the RSS name. That is
> not acceptable. The goal is to clear up confusion in what RSS means. I make
> this offer to show that we're willing to share the pain to help RSS
> re-establish a clear identity.

I'm glad you're willing to take this step.

While I agree with much of your proposal, I don't agree with other bits.
There seems to be an emerging consensus to let RSS split into different
branches. In a followup message I'll come up with a similar proposal with a
few modifications. I appreciate comments on it.
-- 
[ Aaron Swartz | me@aaronsw.com | http://www.aaronsw.com ]