Here are some of Rael's musings on the week's flurry of RSS discussion:
Do I wish we could go back to 0.91 and further, moving all those imperfect elements into namespaces? Why sure. Who wouldn't? But the sheer number of tools and applications that rely upon what's in there (for better or for worse) makes that impossible -- not without considerable breakage and retooling. Am I content to have that simply be optional water under the bridge? Sure thing.
That said, I am concerned to see last minute stuffing of the core with elements that have yet to prove their worth. Of course they're all optional again, but that's just so much more baggage (remember skipHours?) to carry around. When the idea has been put forth to go the route of XML-Namespaces, why clutter a room with boxes from the basement just before building a shelving unit. Would I like to see those elements pushed out into namespaces? Sure thing. More toothpaste out of the tube? No more than some of the fiddling with RSS autodiscovery in its first few days of existence. [ raelity bytes ]
It's great to see this discussion opening up. As I've mentioned to a few people this week, Google's first result for "mission of RSS" is eerie:
The truth is one but can have plural manifestations. This plurality need not be in conflict with one another; it can be cooperative and complementary. To understand, appreciate and realize the unity in a tremendous vortex of diversities, should be the humanity's goal of life.
How does Google do that?
Former URL: http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/2002/09/06.html#a401