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

Christopher Schmidt wrote:

>
>>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.
>  
>
A good point. However the only use of newer RDF features I can see is in 
the payload module not in the core. You do use new RDF/XML features:
-parseType="Resource": nice!
-parseType="Collection": good,but doesn't solve the problems with items
-omit rdf:RDF: makes it impossible to add arbitrary triples to the 
RSS-Document

>>- 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.
>  
>
So you gave up backward compatibility in an attempt to be revolutionary. 
Now you postponed revolution and that's the time to reconsider 
compatibility. I think the ability to deprecate properties is a nice 
feature and renders -in this case - a new namespace obsolete. on 
http://esw.w3.org/topic/RSS I've fixed the RSS bugs my way, but you 
could go much closer to the model you propose, the only exception is the 
image property, where I don't think it's possible to deprecate its class 
usage but not its property usage.

We'll its hard to be compatible on a xml-level when dropping the rdf:RDF 
root element, but as I said I doubt this is a good idea anyway.

>>- 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.
>  
>
Take my experiments on a backward compatible evolution, I've considered 
editing your document, I saw the license so I took the 1.0 spec. What's 
your motivation for "NoDerivs", "it doesn't seem to harm to much" 
doesn't convince me.

reto


 
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