* Update as of February 16, 2004
IMHO, the window of opportunity for my proposal has closed now and proliferation of feed formats including variations of both RSS and Atom as well as other formats is inevitable. Thanks to everyone for adding to this page and I apologize to anyone whom I might have caused anguish. I had to do what I had to do and so did you. Let us shake the mud off our faces and move forward. [DonPark]
If you agree with what I wrote in "Making Atom Happen", please add your voice of support below. [DonPark]
NOTE: If you are new to Wiki, just press "EditText" link at the bottom of the page and then either mimic what others have written or just add your name and press the 'Save Changes' button.
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I would like to see RSS 2.0 be used as the core syntax [DonPark]
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I would too as RSS 2.0 has become the de-facto standard for syndication. Incompatibility with it would mean a divergence that can only hurt in terms of acceptance rates. I'm afraid that if this proposal is not taken seriously, ATOM will remain an interesting but not heavily supported effort, joining other proposals like ICE. [Tristan Louis]
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I would like to see RSS 2.0 be used as the core syntax. As a person making a living by selling people on weblog technology, I can't ask my installed base of customers to switch to the flavor of the month in syndication formats. As a user and a business person, I don't care about the API, just make the file format the same so my existing customer won't break. Don't split hairs on this--the same is the same, not 'it will work the same' or 'you won't notice any difference' same. [SteveKirks]
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If the seven versions of RSS work for you and make you money, use them. Any of them. All of them. Why do you care if some random people on the Internet make up a new format? Ignore it. RSS wasn't the first syndication format, and it won't be the last. Neither will Atom, I suspect.
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The whole point of XML based things such as RSS is for maximum support from as many people as possible. A new format must solve big, interesting problems to be worthy of consideration. Atom doesn't offer anything (that I can see) that can't be solved with RSS 2.0, at a hugely lower cost. Anyone who says XML with namespaces offers simplicity needs to stop lying, or learn what the word "simple" actually means. The Atom promoters should spend their time writing interesting software features instead of trying to force all interesting features into their XML format. - SmugCanadian
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I would like to see RSS 2.0 be used as the core syntax. It's a good format. It's got great adoption by the minority that appreciates syndication. Let's keep it simple for the not-yet-converted and focus on building great apps. If you happen to find a use case for which RSS 2.0 can't be extended (and from what I understand, this should be pretty unlikely), please, please consider adding changes as a delta instead of a wholesale replacement. [AndrewGrumet]
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It is (im)possible to add new required elements to RSS, since the core is frozen and namespaced elements are always optional.
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I support Don's proposal, but there's no need to "hijack" it. There's no copyright on the spec, it's licensed under the Creative Commons. Call Larry Lessig and ask him to explain. Basically you can freely create derivative works for any purpose, without special permission (it's already been granted) and all you have to do is credit me with writing the original document. If you don't want to use the spec I wrote, you don't owe me anything, except in a karmic sense. Go forth and innovate, but do it with moderation. There's already a lot of good stuff in RSS 2.0, why not use it? [DaveWiner]
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I would like to see RSS 2.0 be used as the core syntax [DaveKopper]
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Nobody has explained to me how Atom will make things better for my users of Bloglines, and I can only see it making things worse. It offers no new functionality, nor does it provide any sort of future expandability that isn't already available. What it does do is confuse the situation even more. It's already a challenge to explain to people what syndication and aggregation is. Our users already get confused because some people feel the need to publish feeds in the different formats already available. Our users don't know which feed to subscribe to. Atom, besides adding yet another confusing noun to the discussion, will add even more confusion to the mix. RSS is already established and will not go away, regardless of the adoption rate of Atom. Convince me that Atom will make things better for my users, because I'm not seeing it. [MarkFletcher]
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Look lets stop messing about here, ATOM has turned into all ego and not much delivery, Don's suggestion is about the only step I can see that will make ATOM relevant again to the development community, if we dont do this we run the risk of 100% failure. From our aggregator development viewpoint this is the last gasp solution, fail to take it and we'll be waving ATOM goodbye for good [LindonParker]
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I agree with Don's idea, and here are my reasons. [DiegoDoval]
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I believe there are times to use what is good enough and not re-invent the wheel. That said, use RSS 2.0 as the core and get on with it. DennisRadio
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I never understood why we had to start over. RSS 0.9 was good, RSS 2.0 is better. Blogger API was good, MetaWebLog API was better. Learn and evolve. I don't see any advantage of Atom over RSS for feeds, and whatever deficiencies there are in the MetaWebLog API can surely be fixed by enhancements and extensions rather than starting over. As someone who has a roll-your-own blog with an RSS feed which supports the MetaWebLog API, I don't want to reinvent any wheels. [ OleEichhorn ]
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I never understood why we had to start over. CDF was good. RSS is just CDF with different tag names.
If you mostly agree, but don't want to stifle even potentially counter-productive innovation:
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If Atom were to become RSS 2.0 compatible, I would switch JournURL's default syndication templates over to Atom. Wouldn't even think twice. So I think it's definitely a worthy idea. But many of the folks working on Atom have a mission that is as political as it is technical, and arguing in favor of Atom+RSS undermines the former motivation even as it satisfies the latter. I'd rather just let Atom hurry-up-and-fail, so we can get on with something practical. [RogerBenningfield]
If you mostly agree, but have another suggestion;
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I believe Atom is DOA too, but I would like to see RSS 1.0 be used as the core syntax. I believe it was a mistake to reinvent the syntax, because it works against the strong network effects that RSS has going for it. RSS 1.0 has extensibility built-in (from RDF), and using it as a base would have leveraged the deployed support for 1.0 [MarkBaker]
If you disagree, add your voice here:
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Don, it's later *now*. Many problems can now only be worked around by replacing core elements with a better defined equivalent element, which is technically backward compatible, but 'funky'. Also, because of the looseness of the spec, backward compatibility with the spec is very far from being backward compatible with current clients (mainly news aggregators). The Atom project is sacrificing backward compatibility with RSS 2.0 for forward compatibility with future versions of itself (both the feed format and the API), mainly to avoid as much as possible these same problems going forward, once we've done the corner turn. [ MichaelBernstein ]
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RSS, with it's 7+ versions, unclear ownership/copyright and unclear extensibility needs to be retired in favor of something without those issues. Atom seems to be it. With Blogger and Moveable Type on board, it should gain the necessary critical mass that RSS currently enjoys. Then RSS can be retired.
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RSS itself is by far the weakest link in any advanced aggregator, and it also brings a lot of baggage to the table. I do not believe it can be fixed, for social rather than technical reasons. The only answer is a clean slate GrahamParks
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Concerned people are realizing the Atom community has created something interesting and are trying to stir the pot. Don't let FUD distract you from your plans. I don't think they are asking Atom to use RSS as its core for the good of Atom, rather for the good of RSS and to nullify Atom's uniqueness. Competition is healthy. When people ask "why Atom", Atom's answer should be "because we can". If Atom flops, so be it, at least this group can say they had the guts to try. [JimRoepcke]
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RSS 2.0 is floundering. See also Motivation [DannyAyers]
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No! I just did it That said, I would concur with [JimRoepcke]: competition is healthy and there is no reason to mangle RSS 2.0 and Atom together. Users, or more precisely developers, are grownup enough to choose what fit their needs best. "ZOE"
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Well as we say here; "laissons la chance au coureur". [EmmanuelDecarie]
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I disagree. RSS2 is good; Atom, as currently specified, will be better. Interesting things have happened because of RSS; more interesting things will happen as a result of Atom. [AdamRice]
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Blogging has come a long way since RSS. As pointed out in "The Mythical Man Month," you need to build things twice: the second time after you've had the experience of using your first attempt. RSS in all its forms is the first go at it, but now that blogging has gotten more sophisticated and we know what we're up against, why hang on to the first attempt at a standard? And as others have noted, RSS will still be there, and the marketplace will decide. If we're wrong about Atom, then it will flop. 'Nuff said. [PeterCripes]
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No [BillHumphries]
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The 0.3 feed spec demonstrates once again how wrongheaded and reactionary retreating to RSS 2.0 would be for Atom. -1 to conflating the feed formats. [DaveWalker]
If you are tired of the egos and just want to move forward:
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Atom is dragging out. Rss is not moving. Sigh. [DeveloperDude]
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Hear hear. Just write the bloody code and stop fighting. [JanneJalkanen]
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Can do! [MikeDavies]