Monday, 30 June 2003

Something funky going on

There’s a big brou-ha-ha going on over the future of syndication on the web, (basically) with a lot of sensible people on one side and Dave Winer (and a few other people) on the other. The way I see it, Dave had the chance to make RSS 2.0 a proper specification by fleshing out all of the corner cases and promulgating a complete spec. Instead, he went off on rants about “funkiness” and namespaces, and decided to flip out and spew paranoid FUD after Tim Bray and a few others suggested he wasn’t the easiest person in the universe to work with (in other words, he basically decided to prove their point).

Anyway, whenever the dust settles (which may be fairly soon), LSblog will support the new specification in addition to the multitude of RSS variants already supported—some “funky,” some not-so-funky. More importantly, we’ll have a specification we can point at that more than one person alive can definitively say is being adhered to (or not).

Kate has more:

Note to Dave: Yes, you created an amazing technology. Now shut up before you alienate anyone who might be interested in using it and appreciating your work for what it is.