As The RSS Turns: What's Wrong with RSS 2.0?

Jon Hanna gives his admittedly late comments on Shelley Powers' questions.

The Internet and the Web both have current uses quite different to those, and many of their parts are used in manners further removed from their origins (e.g. the use of HTML in many Windows technologies doesn't even make use of the Web's distributed nature).

I maintain that RSS is such a technology. It's designed purpose is the syndication of "news" items from individual websites to a portal website, to be more specific to the MyNetscape portal website. It was *not* designed to be of any particular use to bloggers, aggregators, or metadata providers, but it *does* serve them and others.

Morbus Iff asked "Why is RSS 2.0 bad?"

Dan Brickley replied:

My concern: it introduces the ability to use XML namespaces for future extensions, whilst simultaneously failing to use it for the extensions introduced in 2.0. If those extensions were folded into an extension module, 2.0 and 1.0 would be both technically and conceptually a lot closer. The core of RSS doesn't need much more than 'item', 'channel', 'link', 'title', 'description'. A simple common core could represent that.

Ben Hammersley replied:

...my major concern is also with the namespaces. There appears to be no indication as to how modules should work. With RSS 1.0 there is, more or less (whoa there), a 'grammar' of sorts that tell us how to relate the data within, and how to describe the vocabulary with a schema. With 2.0, there is no guidance, and no thought as to how to deal with the world when there are 50+ modules. Without blathering on semanticwebbaly, I really really like the potential for schema-aware readers that comes with RDF, and the discipline it imposes. I'm lacking that cosy feeling with 2.0.

Morbus replied to Ben:

Ok. Well, if you want, I can take the 1.0 Module Building doc, turn it into a 2.0 Module Building doc, and then that "2.0 roadblock" will be removed.

He later announced that he had begun drafting up "Extending RSS 2.0 With Namespaces"

Sean Palmer posted a detailed (read: long) list of issues. Dave Winer replied on his web site.

Phil Ringnalda writes:

I am not a developer. I am not a professional. I am an interested amateur publisher. I am your audience.

Dave Winer: "I'm going to start posting to this list as long as personal comments about me don't dominate."

Morten Frederiksen notes:

The "simplicity" of HTML was great for its quick widespread production, but as mentioned elsewhere, it's a pain to consume.

This is, I believe, because simplicity is confused with "optional" and other lax definitions, either in the definition or the use.

I would have thought that a lesson was learned there, that what is really needed is *strict* definitions, at least if it is in any way meant to be consumed by machines.

I.e. a <description> element that is not defined as to its contents, and a <link> element that can point anywhere, is useless in practice, even though it's easy to produce.

This is why I like vocabularies like the Dublin Core, which provide precise definitions for syntax and semantics. They may be somewhat more difficult to produce, perhaps needing date format conversion, but they are easily used.

This is also why I dislike RSS 0.9x - it's too loose, it is unusable for anything *but* "the display of headlines in a browser for human consumption", and why I think that the path of RSS 1.0 is better.

The discussion continues.