Re: Setting up a purl for rss/1.1, was: Re: RSS 1.1

On Sun, Jan 23, 2005 at 12:39:59PM +0100, Reto Bachmann-Gmuer wrote:

> [email protected] wrote:

> >>I can do this but I'm cautious about doing it yet. Perhaps 
> >>something more explicit such as http://purl.org/rss/1.1DRAFT/ 
> >>would be better in the meantime?

> >I agree.  Perhaps now's the time to call for a vote among the rss-dev
> >committee members on it?

> I guess asking this now would mix up following questions:
> - is an update needed?

I think that this is a question that can be answered simply by looking 
over the history of RSS 1.0. There have been a number of evolutions in 
both RDF and syndication since the RSS 1.0 specification was released, 
which can be used to the advantage of the format.

> - is a change to version 1.1 with a change of namespace needed?

This question is far more up to debate in my opinion. The motivations 
behind this change haven't been very clearly explained (or at least not 
so clearly as some of our other motivations), so let me outline why this 
actually happened:

When we first started playing around with the idea of creating a 
specification like the one we released, we tested a series of changes in 
a bunch of different tools, in order to determine what would work and 
what wouldn't. What we found out is that it doesn't take changing much 
in order to break backwards compatibility in most tools: they're very 
specific to the exact XML format of RSS 1.0, and to ensure that the 
format be entirely backwards compatible would have required such 
marginal changes as to be almost completely useless.

When we realized that it was going to be practically impossible to 
achieve anything worthwhile with a 100% backwards compatibility line, we 
decided for a time to take a completely revolutionary approach: forget 
RSS 1.0, make a new RDF based syndication format. No more <link> as a 
literal: make it an rdf:resource! Change everything about RSS 1.0 that 
makes it an XML syndication format: it was built as RDF, it should be 
consumed as RDF. When we looked at it, however, we realized we were 
heading the way that Atom had gone. If a lot of really smart people have 
taken as much time as they have to create a syndication format that 
makes people happy, why would we be able to do better?

So, backwards compatibility was out. Complete revolution was out. 
Instead, we chose to walk a very thin line between the two: trying to 
fix bugs in RSS 1.0 while creating a specification that would have 
minimal impact on implementors, both producers and consumers.

I hope that we have succeeded, and changes to some aggregators and 
comments from the authors of such have made it seem that way to me. I 
know that I personally have looked into patching a couple of aggregation 
tools (XML::RSS and MagpieRSS) and neither one required more than a 
dozen lines of changes in code to consume RSS 1.1 properly. So, my 
experience seems to indicate that we did achieve that goal, at least to 
some extent.

> - is Sean's and Christopher's proposal a good starting point?

I think so, but I'm biased ;)

> - Is a NoDerivs-license usable for a community process?

The NoDerivs license covers only the prose of the Specification: the 
format itself is not under any license, and can be freely used by 
anyone. If someone wished to evolve the format further, they would 
certainly be free to, as the Status section outlines. 

I certainly don't think this is a major blocker for evolution of the 
format: RSS 1.1, for example, takes no prose from the RSS 1.0 
specification, so I don't understand why further evolution would need a 
more permissive license than the ND allows.

I hope I've addressed the concerns you've raised. I understand that in 
some cases, the answers I have aren't what you want to hear, but I've 
explained my thoughts on your concerns the best I can.

Thanks again,

-- 
Christopher Schmidt


 
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