Subject: Atom discussed at IPTC Annual General Meeting in Hong Kong, 25-28 June 2004

From: "Bob Wyman" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2004 21:59:00 -0400

Atom was discussed at the recent IPTC Standards Groups Annual
General Meeting. Some concern was expressed that Atom might be a competitor
to NewsML... It would probably make sense for us to put some effort into
figuring out how to work better with the IPTC. After all, based on
considerable experience in this field, they define the standards that are
used by the traditional "news syndicators"...

The following notes are taken from the "IPTC Mirror" the IPTC's
newsletter.[1]

	"Some concern was expressed over the news that the Atom group were
working with the W3C to adopt Atom as a standard for news content transfer,
and this could be considered to be a direct competitor to NewsML.
	"The Standards Committe chairman told delegates that the matter had
been considered during the Management Committee Meeting and the view was
that Atom was a Business-to-Consumer model while NewsML was
Business-to-Business. However the Management Committee were aware that
adoption by W3C could give a standard considerable momentum and were
considering approaching the W3C to present NewsML 2 as a news exchange
standard."

		bob wyman

[1] See Page 7, column three, upper right of the page in:
http://www.iptc.org/download/mirror/IPTCmirror121-print.pdf

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From: "Bill Kearney" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 21 Aug 2004 00:51:06 -0400

All I can say is "and if you thing RDF is verbose..." 

> -----Original Message-----
> 	Atom was discussed at the recent IPTC Standards Groups 
> Annual General Meeting. Some concern was expressed that Atom 
> might be a competitor to NewsML...

---

From: Bill de hÓra <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 21 Aug 2004 11:05:31 +0100

> used by the traditional "news syndicators"...

The experts in that area should have no problems making informed 
decisions about the respective technologies. In the meantime they 
should be aware that 'simpler' technologies have a tendency to 
undercut other ones, esepcially where high adoption rates are a 
criteria.

I don't we need to do anything to liaise with the IPTC. If they or 
their members want to contribute to this WG, they can show up here.

> and this could be considered to be a direct competitor to NewsML.

That opinion would be very much in the eye of the beholder I think.

> Business-to-Business. 

I'd suggest that's not always a useful distinction to make.

> However the Management Committee were aware that

Good for them; there's some interesting stuff in NewsML. The biggest 
problem with it seems to have been an inability to say no to 
requirements.  And as the saying goes, if you don't like change, 
you'll like being irrelevant even less.

cheers
Bill

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From: Dan Brickley <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 21 Aug 2004 06:25:47 -0400

* Bob Wyman <[email-masked]> [2004-08-20 21:59-0400]
> used by the traditional "news syndicators"...

Maybe someone could let them know the work is happening at IETF?

Dan

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From: "Laurent Le Meur" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2004 10:46:31 +0200

> Maybe someone could let them know the work is happening at IETF?

The IPTC meeting was in June, when the Atom WG and the W3C were discussing
the matter. The move to the IETF has the same result. Atom still targets
some part of the B2B news exchange (i.e. the main target for NewsML), even
if it is "on the side", the main Atom target being "editing Web resources
such as Weblogs, online journals, Wikis, and similar content".

  > Bill Kearney
Yes, NewsML 1 is verbose (it was the first shot, 4 years ago). The future
NewsML 2 is something else, or so we hope.

  > If they or their members want to contribute to this WG, 
  > they can show up here.
  > Bill de hÓra
Thanks for the invitation. But it is not so easy, given the previous comment
(any contribution from a news provider working outside of the blog domain
can be easily discarded by the Atom WG, as the charters of the WGs are not
equivalent). 

  > The biggest problem with it [NewsML] seems to have been an inability to
  > say no to requirements.
  > Bill de hÓra 
Ok there are many. But 1/ B2B news exchange is not a tiny domain and 2/ a
large set of requirements does not always mean a bulky structure. Here is
the current draft for NewsML 2:
http://www.newsml.org/dl.php?fn=NewsML/2.0-draft/specification/NewsML_2.0_sp
ec_BusinessRequirements_14.pdf 

cheers

Laurent Le Meur
Agence France Presse
IPTC member

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From: Henry Story <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2004 14:07:22 +0200

I know I am going to get flamed and burned by the fanatical anti crowd 
out there, but someone has to. So might as well be me. :-( Some clever 
dude will probably then find a nice compromise way of putting things 
later.

This is part of the extensibility debate going on here.

Consider the set of physically possible worlds in which the following 
is true:
	- NewsML publishes their data structure as some OWL libraries
	- Atom is specified as an OWL library

Of the above set of possibilities the following existential question is 
of interest:

	- are there worlds in which the NewsML library can be a seamlessly
  extension to the above specified Atom library, so that people who know 
Atom just need to learn some of the additional NewsML libraries, to be 
able to get the added functionality they want?

In those worlds Atom would probably get out of the door much quicker, 
since any functionality that is part of NewsML would have a clear home 
to turn to.

The value of the work of both groups would clearly be enhanced, to the 
benefit of all.

Henry

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From: Paul Hoffman / IMC <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2004 07:34:51 -0700

>can be easily discarded by the Atom WG, as the charters of the WGs are not

Any comment from anybody who comes from any community can be easily 
discarded or easily embraced in the Working Group. Both happen often; 
that's the advantage of open standards work. Anyone can come to the 
WG with proposals that might make it into the core, or discussions 
that might make good extensions.

--Paul Hoffman, Director
--Internet Mail Consortium