I think it is a pity that Dare should be unsubscribing just now. My feeling is that
we are just about to reach a historic resolution point in the debate between the various formats that will bring together the best of all the flavours of RSS. We are really close to having something that will be greater than all of the previous efforts combined. The beauty is that we are about to show that all sides were correct:
- Dare was right in emphasizing namespaces
- RDF people were right in emphasizing the combinatorial power of RDF
- Tim Bray, and other xml purist, are correct in emphasizing simplicityIf we can show how Atom can be extended into RDF-XML, without being by default RDF-XML, in such a way that a simple xml parser with no knowledge of RDF can read default RDF extensions correctly, then we will be on our way to explaining some of the power of the semantic web, but also in helping the semantic web folk perhaps come up with a better version of RDF-XML - call it RDF-XML-2 - such that Atom, as it currently stands really is RDF-XML-2.
It may be weird, but I think everyone here has been looking at different parts of a huge elephant, and we are just about to see the elephant.
All it requires is a little compromise, a little flexibility of mind, a little openness to the new, and we will have something that is truly great. The RSS wars will seem funny when looked at it from the other side.
Henry Story
On 12 Nov 2004, at 06:56, Dare Obasanjo wrote:
I'm not trying to convincing anyone of anything. Come to think of it I'm not even sure why I'm still bothering to read or post to this list.
*unsubscribed*
