Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments
Search

News for nerds, stuff that matters

Slashdot Log In

Log In

Create Account  |  Retrieve Password

RSS Version 3 Specs Up for Review

Posted by CmdrTaco on Thu Aug 18, 2005 10:22 AM
from the we'll-be-supporting-atom-in-a-few-weeks dept.
The Internet
Jonathan Avidan writes "The RSS 3 Homepage now offers its first publicly available specification, the RSS 3 Lite-type Specification First Draft, intended for review and commenting for revision. RSS 3 is a reworking of RSS 2.0, filling the gaps and removing unnecessary features and is fully backwards-compatible, rather than a new format."
+ -
story
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

RSS Version 3 Specs Up for Review 50 Comments More /

 Full
 Abbreviated
 Hidden
More
Loading... please wait.

  • Unnecessary features (Score:5, Insightful)

    by kevin_conaway (585204) on Thursday August 18 2005, @10:23AM (#13347868) Homepage
    How does one remove features and still remain backwards compatible?

    • Re:Unnecessary features (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 18 2005, @10:33AM (#13347958)
      You remove features for which support was optional. Old implementations should discover that you're not using the options, new implementations no longer even check for them.
      • The fact remains, software that relies on these features will cease to work. It may well be that RSS 3 is sufficiently backward compatible to support 99% of the software out there. That's still not the same thing as fully backward compatible.
        • If software is relying on optional features in order to work, the software is buggy and it's not the job of the protocol to support buggy implementations. There are two types of RSS software; publishing software and reader software. The publishing software is either going to use RSS 1,2, or 3 and should be to spec on whatever version it's publishing. Reader software should be able to read _at least_ the basic forms of RSS 1 and 2, in which case it will have no problem reading RSS 3.

  • durnit (Score:4, Funny)

    by B3ryllium (571199) on Thursday August 18 2005, @10:25AM (#13347878) Homepage
    Damn, and I *just* got around to implementing RSS1 in my CMS ... ah well. :)

  • While we're on the subject... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by gowen (141411) <gwowen@gmail.com> on Thursday August 18 2005, @10:26AM (#13347890) Homepage Journal
    ... plans are afoot for Microsoft to co-opt RSS and rename it "web feeds" [theregister.co.uk][from El Reg, so take it with a pinch of snuff]. Now, that is a better name, but it wouldn't be the first time that some incompatible variations got added to an open standard during this process (*cough* Kerberos).
    • It'll be an application octet/stream with a signed key that you need to decrypt it. They key will be available in the new Microsoft Web feeds viewer only, or on hacker sites two days before official launch. The actual feed will be the equivalent of `cat /dev/mem > newsfeed.web`, and subscribing to more than one feed will require a separate high speed connection installed on your computer.
    • "Web feeds?" Are those flies or spiders?

    • Re:While we're on the subject... (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      ... plans are afoot for Microsoft to co-opt RSS and rename it "web feeds".

      Huh?

      They're choosing "web feeds" as the user interface text to mean RSS, Atom et al. The article says nothing about them modifying the feed schema.
    • So what? The RSS guys managed to release several incompatible versions, and this even without Microsoft's help.

    • Re:While we're on the subject... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Zeinfeld (263942) on Thursday August 18 2005, @10:55AM (#13348132) Homepage
      ... plans are afoot for Microsoft to co-opt RSS and rename it "web feeds"

      That is more likely to be based on the IETF ATOM standard though than RSS 3.0. But it really does not matter which one Microsoft picks, just that they pick one and only one. Google made a good choice when they went with ATOM.

      RSS is a mess, it became a mess because people refused to go to a standards forum and the result was a whole slew of incompatible ad-hoc extensions. There should be one syndication format and that should be a standard maintained by W3C or IETF.

      Renaming RSS Web feeds makes a lot of sense, just as renaming the 802.11b WiFi made sense. RSS is underspecified and fragmented, just like 802.11b was. The point of WiFi was you knew stuff would work together. So renaming RSS Web Feeds makes a great deal of sense.

    • Why wouldn't they just dust off their "push" standard and try pushing it on us again?

    • plans are afoot for Microsoft to co-opt RSS and rename it "web feeds"[from El Reg, so take it with a pinch of snuff]

      It is a better name, but Microsoft sure didn't come up with it; people in usability have been recommending the "feed" name for quite some time now in order to make feeds more accessible to the general public. The reasoning, of course, is the same as in calling your browser a "web browser" and not an "HTML/XHTML viewer".

  • Yay, XHTML in RSS (Score:5, Informative)

    by Gopal.V (532678) on Thursday August 18 2005, @10:29AM (#13347914) Homepage Journal
    They removed

    <clouds>
    <skipHours>
    <skipDays>
    <textInput>
    <source> element
    <pics> element
    <guid> element's optional "isPemraLink" attribute

    And added

    The <comments> element's optional "type" attribute
    The <pubDate> element's optional "type" attribute
    The <ttl> element's optional "span" attribute

    Looks like good news for bloggers and God knows what for stuff like GeoRSS or BlogTorrents :)

    I've been waiting for that a long time now
    • Agreed. As a web developer, who created a hosted RSS reader (for the PHP5 developer contest), the current implementation of RSS was maddening.

      I mean, it's fairly obvious from what they removed that the specification was never terribly well thought-out in the first place, so this can only help. Oh, and incidentally - I was going to chastize your spelling on "isPemraLink" - only to find that that's how it's spelled in the article. Who knew that the original specification was so flawed ;-)

  • Gzip RSS (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Why isn't gzip compression of RSS feeds part of the specification? I'd have thought it'd be a natural thing to include for a format designed for minimizing bandwidth usage.

    • Re:Gzip RSS (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Bogtha (906264) on Thursday August 18 2005, @10:33AM (#13347957)

      Why isn't gzip compression of RSS feeds part of the specification?

      It is. It's part of the HTTP specification, RFC 2616 [ietf.org]. Every data format transmitted over HTTP can take advantage of it. There's no need to treat RSS as a special case.

    • Wouldn't bzip2 do an even better job.
      It can read the whole document and notice
      that <item> occurs alot and replace it with one bit.

  • blech, versioning quagmire in feed formats. who needs the hassle? just use Atom 1.0 [feedvalidator.org] from IETF, no less.

  • An implementing client should support everything (Score:3, Insightful)

    by hritcu (871613) on Thursday August 18 2005, @10:31AM (#13347941) Homepage
    Also worth mentioning is that the Atom syndication standard, currently in development, is out of this standard's scope and does not concern it. Due to contradiction in structure, the standards cannot rely on one another, yet an implementing client should support both standards.

    How about all five RSS 0.92, RSS 1.0, RSS 2.0, RSS 3.0 and of course ATOM. This will be really a joy for implementers.

  • Is it an accident.... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by hta (7593) on Thursday August 18 2005, @10:37AM (#13347992) Homepage Journal
    that this happens on the day after the IETF announces that it's approved the ATOM syndication format?

    Announcement reproduced below:

    The IESG has approved the following document:

    - 'The Atom Syndication Format' as a Proposed Standard

    This document is the product of the Atom Publishing Format and Protocol Working Group.

    The IESG contact persons are Scott Hollenbeck and Ted Hardie.

    A URL of this Internet-Draft is:
    http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-ato mpub-format-11.txt [ietf.org]

    Technical Summary:

    This document describes the Atom format for syndication. It is XML-based and is considered to be the successor to the earlier RSS formats. Its primary use is for web-based content, but is expected to be used for non-web content as well, such as personal news feeds.

    Working Group Summary:

    Some members of the working group remain unenthusiastic about some sections of the document, but the chairs strongly believe that there is rough (or better) consensus in support of the document as a whole.
    For some of the parts with the most contention, there cannot be more than very rough consensus due to basic differences in the way people would design parts of the format, particularly given that we have many models in existence with the different flavors of RSS. For some parts of the document, there is contention about whether or not a particular item should or should not be in the Atom core versus being an extension. For some parts, there is contention whether there should be MUST/SHOULD/MAY leeway for content creators in the presence or absence of an element, or the semantic content of an element; the
    group really pushed RFC 2119 around during the past few months.

    Protocol Quality

    Scott Hollenbeck and the XML Directorate have reviewed the specification for the IESG. Test implementations have confirmed basic protocol soundness.
    • The thing about RSS is, anyone can decide to make the next version. I doubt Dave had anything to do with this.

      Besides, RSS 3.0 is already taken:
      http://www.aaronsw.com/2002/rss30 [aaronsw.com]

      Robert Sayre
    • I'll swear in court if necessary (though if necessary, then we've gone too far, haven't we?) that I had no idea the IETF approved Atom until reading the comments here. It was published today because it got finished today, simple as that.

      • So basically, you'd swear, under penalty of perjury, that you were completely unaware of a development of major significance for your #1 competitor, that's been pending for months?

        If that's not true, then you are dishonest. If it is true, then you are out of touch with the communiity that you claim to serve. Either way, it's not good.

        And what's up with this? [rss3.org]

        Once the requirements page is set, the creation of the standard, complying to the Requirements stated below, will start with producing the

  • Sorry Jonathan, but... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 18 2005, @10:37AM (#13347994)
    RSS 2 was the one whose development "contradicts all other standards", not RSS 1.0 as you would claim.

    Between that and Dave Winer's sheer craziness (and the craziness of those like you who drank too much of Dave's cool-aid), the future lies in the open standard called Atom, not in RSS 2 or RSS 3.

    Heck, at this point even RSS 1.0 has a far better chance of success than RSS 2, with more and more people picking it as a base for extensible microformats after realizing that RSS 1.0 got a lot of things right years before most people even realized why they were needed.

  • How about a "Next"/"Back" option (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 18 2005, @10:40AM (#13348024)
    Since a lot of search engines are starting to provide results in RSS, why not a "Next", "Back" option? It seems rather useless to be able to get only five results in my favorite aggregator, and I would love to be able to go "forward" within a certain result set. This might also work for sites that provide news stories as well, such as Slashdot, in terms of getting older articles from the past week or two.

  • Awful, awful idea (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Bogtha (906264) on Thursday August 18 2005, @10:42AM (#13348032)

    I get the feeling that this is a practical joke/troll by Jonathan Avidan - the person who is editing this new specification, the person who maintains the website linked to, and who submitted this article to Slashdot.

    Yeah, the RSS 2 specification could do with cleaning up and clarification. No, it's not feasible because of too many people doing stupid things like announcing new versions of RSS all on their own and fragmenting the community.

    From the FAQ: [rss3.org]

    Who designs the RSS Version 3 standard?

    Jonathan Avidan managers this site and edits the specifications according to common requests and open debates held in the Message Board and via email.

    Follow the link. It's a new message board with no posts.

    There is zero community behind this "standard", it's just a spec some guy decided to write of his own accord. In contrast, a real community effort, Atom, has just reached 1.0 and is standardized by the IETF. Nobody should take this "RSS 3.0" seriously.

    • Re:Awful, awful idea (Score:4, Interesting)

      by hritcu (871613) on Thursday August 18 2005, @10:51AM (#13348109) Homepage
      For what purpose is the RSS Version 3 standard necessary? [rss3.org]

      The 0.9x class of standards is outdated and underdocumented. The 2.0 class is highly underdocumented, filled with unnecessary features though lacking others which could be useful. The RSS 3 standard is supposed to extensively document the standard, to expand where expansion is needed and to remove unnecessary features.

      Is any of you satisfied with the explanation that the world needs a new RSS standard because the other versions are not well documented? What on earth stops him (Jonathan Avidan) from documenting them properly?
    • I see nothing wrong with Jonathan making an honest effort to create a good standard, even if he is going it alone at the moment.

      Of course, his PHP mail() configuration is hosed. Yeah, I take it seriously when a guy writing RSS standards can't configure his server. Sure. Whatever. But it can happen to anyone, so I won't pass judgement on that alone.

      I read the standard, went to the forum, and pointed out some valid concerns about one of its sections.

      The response to those concerns will tell me just how serious

      • Re:Awful, awful idea (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Bogtha (906264) on Thursday August 18 2005, @11:26AM (#13348366)

        Yeah, that was my first thought, but he mentions Dave "RSS 2" as an editor and says he's had a period of private review in his process list.

        Where? I see Dave mentioned a lot on that website, but nothing so far that indicates Dave even knows about this. For example:

        The current standard, RSS 3 Class (which engulfs RSS 3 Lite, RSS 3 Full, RCDL and RRDL), is based on RSS 2.0, which was offered by the Berkmen Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School under the License, authored by Dave Winer (other accredited authors: Roger Cadenhead, Adam Curry and Steve Zellers). This is a derivative work which is meant to replace the 2.0 version.

        This sounds like Dave's got something to do with RSS 3 at first glance, but in actual fact, it merely says that he co-authored the RSS 2.0 specification, and that this guy, Jonathan Avidan, wrote a specification that is based on that specification. Dave's listed as "a relevant link" [rss3.org], but only with respect to him authoring the RSS 2 specification. He's mentioned again [rss3.org], but once more, only that Jonathan Avidan is indebted to him for writing the RSS 2 specification:

        For informative purposes, the RSS Version 2.0.1 specification can be found here and is attributed to Dave Winer, amongst others. This is a derivative work and is indebted to their genius and efforts.

        The closest that website comes to claiming "Dave Winer approval", is in the FAQ [rss3.org]. However, that's a copy of Dave's history of RSS [harvard.edu], except for the fact that the original copy doesn't mention RSS 3.0 at all. It just looks like he copied that page, stuck "According to Dave Winer" at the beginning, and "RSS 3 begins development" at the end.

        Remember, Dave considers RSS to be "finished". From the RSS 2.0 specification: [harvard.edu]

        Therefore, the RSS spec is, for all practical purposes, frozen at version 2.0.1. We anticipate possible 2.0.2 or 2.0.3 versions, etc. only for the purpose of clarifying the specification, not for adding new features to the format. Subsequent work should happen in modules, using namespaces, and in completely new syndication formats, with new names.

  • But it already exists! [aaronsw.com]. Has for almost three years!

    • I'm glad you posted that.

      I realise that Aaron was probably joking, in order to make fun of Dave Winer, but still, the XML crap is totally pwn3d by his version of RSS 3.

      Seriously. Which of these is more compact and easy to read:

      <?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>

      <rdf:RDF
      xmlns:rdf="ht tp://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"
      xmlns= "http://my.netscape.com/rdf/simple/0.9/">

      <chan nel>
      <title>Slashdot</title>
      <link>http://slashd ot.org/</link>
      <descript

      • Re:rss3? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Bogtha (906264) on Thursday August 18 2005, @12:10PM (#13348789)

        In fact, fuck XML altogether. The Internet got along just fine using custom text/binary based formats for three decades.

        Er, you do realise that XML is merely a simplified subset of SGML, on which HTML is based? Hard to agree that the Internet "got along just fine", when its killer app is based on something that is very similar to XML, only far more complicated

        But the tag-based syntax is optimised for specifying a tree-structured document and the attributes of text it contains.

        Sounds like RSS to me.

  • With Atom [atomenabled.org] all official and whatnot, why would anyone be working on RSS 3.0?

    Atom seems far superior to RSS 2.0 and much farther along than RSS 3.0.

    Is someone trying to give Dave Winer a heart attack?

  • This RSS3 spec is starting to be no longer really simple. Are they going to drop the 'R'? If so I think I might have to side with Microsoft and Google and opt for a name change.
    • While they're at it, they should drop the first 'S' as well. It's no longer simple at all.
      I dunno, calling it 'S' just doesn't seem to work, somehow.

  • why? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by polaar (564379)
    From the RSS 2 spec [harvard.edu]

    Roadmap

    RSS is by no means a perfect format, but it is very popular and widely supported. Having a settled spec is something RSS has needed for a long time. The purpose of this work is to help it become a unchanging thing, to foster growth in the market that is developing around it, and to clear the path for innovation in new syndication formats. Therefore, the RSS spec is, for all practical purposes, frozen at version 2.0.1. We anticipate possible 2.0.2 or 2.0.3 versions, etc. only fo

  • What's with all of the "This section is normative", "That section is non-normative", "This section is informative" crap in the document?
    • It's explained in the terminology [rss3.org] page and the terminology section [rss3.org] in the spec. In short - normative equals "for implementation", "non-normative" means "of recommendation or suggestion nature" and "informative" means, well, "for further details only".

    • Re:This question is inquisitive. (Score:4, Informative)

      by jericho4.0 (565125) on Thursday August 18 2005, @11:36AM (#13348451)
      1. The term "normative" describes sections (or comments/notes) which describes behaviors and feature to which implementors must adhere
      2. The term "informative" describes sections (or comments/notes) which give certain details for further knowledge and do not describe behavior to which implementors must adhere
      3. The term "non-normative" describes sections (or comments/notes) which describe behaviors or features of recommendation nature or changing nature
      4. The words "must", "must not", "required", "shall", "shall not", "should", "should not", "recommended", "may", "may not" and "optional" are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [faqs.org]
  • Looked at the spec. quickly. Did not see any support for authentication. It would be useful to be able to provide a subscription service to selected users with some degree of security. Did I miss this in the spec. (or previous versions)? I admit I'm somewhat new to RSS.

    • Re:Authentication? (Score:4, Informative)

      by Bogtha (906264) on Thursday August 18 2005, @11:36AM (#13348448)

      Looked at the spec. quickly. Did not see any support for authentication.

      You're looking at the wrong specification. RSS is transmitted over HTTP. HTTP provides authentication.

      It would be useful to be able to provide a subscription service to selected users with some degree of security.

      The thing preventing this is that common feed readers do not support enough of HTTP's features to be able to supply a username and password in a standard HTTP way.

      Like gzip compression, above, this isn't a problem that needs to be solved on a format-by-format basis. The transfer protocol handles it for all formats.

  • Wow you have put a lot of effort into this, but have you talked with anyone in the community? Why not participate in Atom discussions, why go off an implement yet another flavour of RSS. I call "practical joke" or lame attempt at getting "internet famous".
  • So I basically have to link this from here, maybe people will learn eventually.

    This whole mess is just not funny anymore.

    http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/11/10/122820/97 [kuro5hin.org]
  • Will the refresh banning behavior still apply?

All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2009 Geeknet, Inc.