If I had one RSS wish...

Don Box: My only ask is that you namespace-qualify RSS elements with a well-known namespace. It would help modularity a bunch (see RESTlog).

If I could only make one change to RSS, that too would be my wish.

 Alas, how we've tried!

Posted by James Snell at

It's simple. RSS in a namespace isn't compatible with RSS without namespace.

If a namespace is so important, create a new standard. But don't call it RSS.

Posted by Sjoerd Visscher at

I couldn't figure out how to search correctly, but I'm nearly certain it was on this site that Dave Winer posted a comment regarding changing the RSS 2.0 spec:

To Sam and others telling that RSS 2.0 was "not going to evolve".  Anybody recall that comment?  Which implied, to me, that it's a dead-end.  (Hard-ta imagine though.)

At any rate..  So I wondered if a lotta what was and is being discussed along these various lines, here and elsewhere, could be more properly thought of as RDF 0.5...??

Just a thought.

Posted by jt at

But RSS 2.0 DOES have a namespace - it's just that it is "" (ie. elements are unqualified). 
Granted it does not have it's own namespace, but that's just the history of RSS, and not something that is going to change any time soon I suspect (and many, many people have tried!)
There will not be anything else in an RSS feed file using the "" namespace, so there is effective separation of core and extension data, even if it's not completely aesthetically clean by some people's definiton.

The RSS 2.0 specification is already cast in stone - reading from the spec at http://backend.userland.com/rss :
"Therefore, the RSS spec is, for all practical purposes, frozen at version 2.0.1. ... Subsequent work should happen in modules, using namespaces, and in completely new syndication formats, with new names."

Nothing in Dave's current RSS 2.0 spec, nor the Internet Draft (which is just a direct translation of Dave's spec, BTW) prevent anyone (Don included) from making additions or extensions to an RSS feed so long as namespaces are used. 
Given that this is how Don and Sam have been doing all their recent innovations, then it is no change whatsoever to the rules of the "innovation game" for anyone!

The only real effect of Mark's submission is that RSS can become a first-class citizen among all the other ubiquitous standards we rely on to keep the Internet working, with it's own format media type [which can't happen without an "official spec" incidentally].

Don't forget, the modern Internet was built through innovations using IETF RFCs/I-Ds, rather than despite them!

Don't worry, Don (and Sam), you will still be ably to innovate on top of exactly the same base as you could last week.  Nothing has changed.

Posted by Jorgen Thelin at

Sjoerd, Jorgen: the use of unqualified names is the one reason that I prefer RSS 1.0 over RSS 2.0.

This is why.

Posted by Sam Ruby at

Metadiscussion

Winer ranted.  Pilgrim parodied.  I admired. Winer napalmed.  The results were predictable. Results: One blog entry's comment thread become useless.  No problem, I can create more.  ;-) Useful discussion continued on other ...

Pingback from Sam Ruby: Metadiscussion at

Sam: In Radio, the methodNamespace and methodNamespaceURI parameters are optional.

But nevertheless I agree that adding namespaces is helpful. But that's not backwards compatible, so you're creating a new syndication format. And then you could just as well make some more fixes.

Posted by Sjoerd Visscher at

Sjoerd: no problem.  I have what I need with RSS 1.0.  And I'm very patient.

Meanwhile, I have nothing more I wish to add to RSS 2.0.

Posted by Sam Ruby at

RSS 2.0 + proper namespace? Here you go:

RSS 1.0 wins hands down on extensibility/modularity, due in no small part to using namespaces in a useful fashion. But... [more]

Trackback from Raw Blog at

Name me the reader program that breaks because of a namespace being applied, as xmlns="" style.  Now tell me, is that reader using what could be consider bad parsing anyway?

The /theory/ of impact vs those based on FUD often delay many smart ideas.

Seeing the 14k+ feeds from syndic8 gives me a bit more insight into the realities of RSS instead of just Winer's hype.

Posted by Bill Kearney at

Bill, the problem comes in the the last line of this paragraph.

<foo:bar xmlns:foo=""> is not valid.

Posted by Sam Ruby at

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