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What exactly is RSS anyway?

Comments[5] by Dave in Feeds

Is it this http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/rss/rss.html, promoted by Dave Winer?

This http://www.rssboard.org/rss-specification, from the RSS advisory board?

Or one of the other dozen or so incompatible formats.

It doesn't really matter. There's only one Atom: RFC-4287.

Hat tip to Sam Ruby.



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Comments:

Actually, there are two versions of Atom and they are incompatible. All versions of RSS 0.9x and 2.0 are compatible with each other. Nice lie.

Posted by Randy Charles Morin on May 16, 2007 at 02:26 PM EDT #

I maintain that there is one version of Atom and that is RFC-4287. Some folks made the mistake of implementing Atom 0.3, which was clearly marked do not implement. As far as RSS compatibility is concerned, it depends on what your definition of compatible is. No lie.

Posted by Dave Johnson on May 16, 2007 at 03:15 PM EDT #

The spec we're publishing and the spec Dave Winer has archived contain zero differences in RSS elements and attributes and how they are described. I don't want to get into an Atom vs. RSS thing, because I like Atom. But when Atom 0.3 was published, it sparked a lot of implementations, including some by <a href="http://diveintomark.org/archives/2003/12/13/atom03">leaders</a> of the project. Was it really a mistake on their part, or was it an obvious consequence of how Atom 0.3 was released?

Posted by Rogers Cadenhead on May 17, 2007 at 09:18 AM EDT #

Dave, an RSS 0.91 still works with little problem in an RSS 2.0 parser. That's called compatibility. The fact you suggest otherwise indicates you can't get passed your biased.

Posted by Randy Charles Morin on May 17, 2007 at 09:52 AM EDT #

Where compatibility equals "works with little problem" I'll agree with you. I'll also agree with you on this: I am biased towards Atom.

Posted by Dave Johnson on May 17, 2007 at 09:58 AM EDT #

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