RSS: it's not just for syndication anymore
RSS 2.0 is a great format for syndication. It also is a great format for archiving. It is the basis for a comment API. It is the basis for the RESTLog API . It would make a great weblog ping API. Etc.
What makes it great for all these uses is that it is extendable.
Given all this, what more could be desired?
I'll tell you what. It would be nice if RSS items were explicitly designed to be embeddable. By that, I mean able to be included inside of other formats which are designed to be extensible in exactly the manner that RSS 2.0 is. Quid pro quo.
What does this require? It requires the ability to place RSS item information into a namespace. This does not mean that all of the previous RSS feeds out there suddenly become invalid. To the contrary, it just means that a namespace needs to be identified and that there be general agreement that elements in this namespace in RSS feeds are to be interpreted identically to the way that unqualified elements are today.
In short, all feeds which are valid today will continue to be valid. Some feeds which were not previously considered valid would now also be valid under this proposal.
Who will use this namespace? When used strictly for syndication, I'll readily admit that not many will at first. Perhaps some of us who have multiple feeds will explore using this namespace in one of them. That alone will be enough to spur authors of RSS parsers and aggregators to support the namespace.
The support will typically not require much in terms of lines of code. Some aggregators will not need to change at all.
So, why is this important? Why all the fuss? Simple. I foresee a future in which there are many, many more applications of RSS than there are today. Some will be standalone. Some will be embedded. It is my hope that by making this simple change today, the future users of such parsers and aggregators will be pleasantly surprised to find that they are already enabled