Paul Hoffman wrote: > Timing. If we change text other than because of an IESG note, > there is a strong chance we will have to delay being finalized by > two weeks, possibly more. I am aware of the issues with timing and I believe I am just as concerned as you are with these issues. I was rather stunned to be at Gnomedex recently and hear it said that after all the effort we've put into Atom we still have "nothing to show for it." An approved RFC would make such statements much less acceptable... However, I think that this can be positioned as part of the response to the IESG comments concerning canonicalization since including source elements in signed entries will tend to cause those entries to be more "canonical" or consistent in form. Also, given that the addition is merely a recommendation and is thus non-normative, it shouldn't raise any review issues.
Please remember that this isn't an issue that I just pulled out of the hat at the last moment. I first brought this up long ago -- long before last call... The problem, as has often been the case with the issues I raise, is that there aren't many people who seem to be terribly aware of or concerned with the aggregation issues even though we've got reasonable representation from those who build feed generators and clients. I'm trying hard to do the right thing for Atom and really wish that other intermediaries, search engines, etc. would participate more but for whatever reason, most have chosen to remain silent on these issues... bob wyman