Subject: application/rss+xml

From: Randy Charles Morin <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 22:37:06 -0500

k, let's start by admitting my true goal is to get application/rss+xml
into the registered IANA media types [1]. I'm thinking this could be
done by describing the <atom:link rel='self'> mechanism extension to
RSS in an IETF draft, along with the required media types registration
mumbo and passing it thru the Atom WG. Is this as simple (famous last
words) as rephrasing my USM specification [2] in IETF form and getting
Robert, Joe, mnot, Normal, Graham, Henry, Bob, Danny, Sam and Tim on
board?
Thanks and please CC me on responses,

Randy Charles Morin
http://www.kbcafe.com

P.S. Sorry that I've been away for awhile. Robert's protocol draft
brought me back.

[1] - http://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/
[2] - http://www.kbcafe.com/rss/usm.html

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From: Tim Bray <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 20:38:25 -0800

On Mar 29, 2005, at 7:37 PM, Randy Charles Morin wrote:

> into the registered IANA media types [1].

Uh, I think we can register it as a side-effect of getting the format 
draft through the process with an RFC number. Right, Paul? -Tim

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From: Bjoern Hoehrmann <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 06:55:00 +0200

>draft through the process with an RFC number. Right, Paul? -Tim

IESG approval of an Internet-Draft with a media type registration would
register the type, yes. Whether we should try to register application/
rss+xml is a different question though.
-- 
Björn Höhrmann · mailto:[email-masked] · http://bjoern.hoehrmann.de
Weinh. Str. 22 · Telefon: +49(0)621/4309674 · http://www.bjoernsworld.de
68309 Mannheim · PGP Pub. KeyID: 0xA4357E78 · http://www.websitedev.de/

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From: Tim Bray <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 21:05:14 -0800

> rss+xml is a different question though.

D'oh, Randy wanted rss+xml, not atom+xml.  Missed the point. -Tim

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From: Randy Charles Morin <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 00:34:10 -0500

Do-over. Can this be done thru the Atom WG and how? Could I use USM,
as an Atom extension to RSS as the vehicle?
Thanks,

Randy

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From: Tim Bray <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 21:52:12 -0800

On Mar 29, 2005, at 9:47 PM, Mark Nottingham wrote:

> I tried; the official response [1] was that the IESG wanted to see an 
> stable and available spec -- by their standards -- for RSS before 
> putting it in the standards tree. Just doing a registration doesn't 
> cut it.
>
> I worked on an RSS 2.0 I-D [2] for a while and then stopped when I got 
> nervous about change control and copyright issues. Given that RSS 2.0 
> is now hosted at Harvard, it may be that the IESG will consider that a 
> stable enough ref; if not, I'm not nearly as nervous now that it's 
> under a CC license, and I think I could take a crack at the I-D 
> again...

Should that perhaps be "application/rss2+xml"?  There are lots of RSSes.

  -Tim

---

From: Mark Nottingham <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 21:47:26 -0800

I tried; the official response [1] was that the IESG wanted to see an  
stable and available spec -- by their standards -- for RSS before  
putting it in the standards tree. Just doing a registration doesn't cut  
it.

I'll do a bit of asking around...

1.  
https://datatracker.ietf.org/public/pidtracker.cgi? 
command=view_id&dTag=7792&rfc_flag=0
2. http://www.mnot.net/drafts/draft-nottingham-rss2-00.txt

--
Mark Nottingham     http://www.mnot.net/

---

From: Mark Nottingham <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 22:00:59 -0800

I was going for a single media type for all of RSS, with (IIRC) an 
optional "version" parameter.

Generally, having a media type identify a particular version of a 
format is frowned upon; think about HTML, XML, etc. It's for 
coarse-grained identification of the format.

Of course, given that RSS has separate change controllers, it might be 
argued that it would be better to have different ones, but I'm not yet 
convinced; generally, you've got one app that can handle all of the 
formats; there's no meaningful difference between them.

If I did it again, I'd have encouraged Dave to register 
'application/vnd.scripting.rss+xml' or 'application/prs.winer.rss+xml'.

Oh, well.

On Mar 29, 2005, at 9:52 PM, Tim Bray wrote:

>> I worked on an RSS 2.0 I-D [2] for a while and then stopped when I 
>> got nervous about change control and copyright issues. Given that RSS 
>> 2.0 is now hosted at Harvard, it may be that the IESG will consider 
>> that a stable enough ref; if not, I'm not nearly as nervous now that 
>> it's under a CC license, and I think I could take a crack at the I-D 
>> again...
>

---

From: Robert Sayre <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 01:01:56 -0500

Mark Nottingham wrote:
> under a CC license, and I think I could take a crack at the I-D  again...

"Share Alike. If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may 
distribute the resulting work only under a license identical to this one."

Are IETF drafts compatible with these terms?

Robert Sayre

---

From: Robert Sayre <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 01:09:50 -0500

Mark Nottingham wrote:
> 
> it's more an issue of whether the CC Attribution + ShareAlike 1.0 
> license terms are satisified by the I-D boilerplate. I've just asked CC 
> that very question...

Not really. It says "identical". If it were identical, there wouldn't be 
a question.

Seems like you'd have to talk to Harvard (the copyright holder). It 
would be good, of course.

Robert Sayre

---

From: Mark Nottingham <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 22:16:00 -0800

Yeah, I know. I *think* I have a better chance by getting some sort of 
meaningful answer from CC first, and taking that to Harvard to confirm 
(or just tell them ;) -- such a query directed to Harvard itself mind 
wind its way through the halls aimlessly for quite some time, if indeed 
it ever made it out...

On Mar 29, 2005, at 10:09 PM, Robert Sayre wrote:

>> license terms are satisified by the I-D boilerplate. I've just asked 
>> CC that very question...
>
> Not really. It says "identical". If it were identical, there wouldn't 
> be a question.
>

---

From: Mark Nottingham <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 22:04:22 -0800

On Mar 29, 2005, at 10:01 PM, Robert Sayre wrote:

>> got  nervous about change control and copyright issues. Given that 
>> RSS 2.0  is now hosted at Harvard, it may be that the IESG will 
>> consider that a  stable enough ref; if not, I'm not nearly as nervous 
>> now that it's  under a CC license, and I think I could take a crack 
>> at the I-D  again...
>
> "Share Alike. If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you 
> may distribute the resulting work only under a license identical to 
> this one."
>

---

From: "Scott Hollenbeck" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 07:28:51 -0500

It might help if the people interested in this question would read the RFC
that describes the registration process:

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2048.txt

2048 will soon be obsoleted by two other documents:

http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-freed-mime-p4-06.txt
(which is in the RFC Editor queue)

http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-freed-media-type-reg-02.txt
(which is in last call)

Short synopsis:
- Community review on the ietf-types list is a "good idea".  I require it
for types in the standards tree.

- The details have to be documented in either an I-D or some other document
produced by a "standards body".  What defines a "standards body" is open to
interpretation by the IESG.

- The rules are less stringent for types in the non-standards trees.

-Scott-

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mark Nottingham [mailto:[email-masked]] 
> Sent: Wednesday, March 30, 2005 12:47 AM
> To: Tim Bray
> Cc: Bjoern Hoehrmann; [email-masked]; Atomlist
> Subject: Re: application/rss+xml
> 
> 
>

---

From: Antone Roundy <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 07:53:35 -0700

> formats; there's no meaningful difference between them.

But of course web browsers can handle GIF, JPEG, HTML,...  Is the fact 
that RSS readers can handle both 1.X and 2.X feeds a result of lack of 
meaningful difference, or a result of user requirements to support both 
formats in one app?  Not all RSS processors support both.  Certainly 
the fact that there are major similarities makes it much easier to 
support both.

If we do go for a separate subtype for each, it might be good to do 
something to ensure that they're unambiguous.  For example, 
"application/rss+xml" wouldn't do much to help a person recognize that 
it applied to one and not the other.  "application/rss2+xml" makes that 
clear, but would become confusing if a hypothetical RSS 3.0 were 
released based on 2.X and a new MIME type were not registered for the 
new version.

...of course, contemplating using the same type for 2.X on 3.X might be 
an argument for using the same one for 1.X and 2.X.  How similar would 
2.X and 3.X need to be to justify using the same MIME type?  This isn't 
a question I've pondered or heard discussion of enough to comment 
further.

---

From: Paul Hoffman <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 07:28:02 -0800

[[ Co-chair hat on ]]

At 12:34 AM -0500 3/30/05, Randy Charles Morin wrote:
>Do-over. Can this be done thru the Atom WG and how?

It's not in our charter, and it is not useful to our chartered work. 
The current registration in our WG document serves our purposes. You 
can certainly pursue this as an individual, as others have suggested.

--Paul Hoffman, Director
--Internet Mail Consortium

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From: Tim Bray <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 10:35:55 -0800

> optional "version" parameter.

Well, if someone wanted to strive for descriptiveness, they should  
register, for 0.9, 1.0, and 2.0

application/the-rss-that-grew-in-a-neglected-netscape-closet-with-dust- 
bunnies+xml
application/the-rss-that-makes-you-feel-better-using-because-you-are- 
part-of-the-glorious-semantic-web-future+xml
application/the-rss-that-was-invented-by-dave-winer-and-dont-you-dare- 
forget-it+xml

then we'd do

application/atom-the-output-of-months-of-boring-committee-work- 
enlivened-by-occasional-flaming+xml

---

From: Robert Sayre <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 13:46:52 -0500

> register, for 0.9, 1.0, and 2.0

I suggest we register a new top-level:

ultraliberal/...

where the subtype can be anything MarkP's parser groks.

Robert Sayre

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From: Bill de hÓra <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 21:05:43 +0100

Robert Sayre wrote:

> ultraliberal/..

Huge +1 to this:

   ultraliberal/+pimpmyfeed
   ultraliberal/+worksforme
   ultraliberal/+diveintoaggregatorshite
   ultraliberal/+halfassedwebdav

Perhaps we could get this through the IETF mincer by April 1st?

(...so... why are we having this thread again... ?)

cheers
Bill

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From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 23:18:37 +0200

Bill de hÓra wrote:
> ...
> ...

I guess I need you to explain that joke.

Julian (confused)

-- 
<green/>bytes GmbH -- http://www.greenbytes.de -- tel:+492512807760