RSS Wins, Signals Atom's Death Toll? 249
S. Housley writes "
RSS appears to have conquered the last hurdle in
becoming the industry syndication standard.
Microsoft's inclusion of RSS into the newest version
of Internet Explorer and reports that RSS will be
in Longhorn's coming release appears to be the final
nail in the coffin of the Atom specification. Even
Atom's steadfast supporter Google, appears to have
seen the light. Google had previously acquired Blogger,
a popular blogging tool that uses the Atom specification
to syndicate the contents of blogs created on the
Blogger platform. In the past Google had strategically
steered clear of endorsing the RSS specification
hoping that Atom, would take hold.
Google's recent new service that allows web surfers
to monitor Google News using either RSS or
Atom feeds, appears to be an acknowledgment that
perhaps in purchasing Blogger, they chose the wrong
specification. "
Atom's Death Toll (Score:5, Funny)
Now if only RSS could sound Atom's death knell...
(In case the editors have seen fit to correct it, the original title was "Developers: RSS' Win, Signals Atom's Death Toll".)
Re:Atom's Death Toll (Score:4, Funny)
"RSS' Win, Signals Atom's Death Toll" could really be an article about Orcs on the rampage after receiving the fiery signal of RSS' victory on the glorious battlefield.
Re:Atom's Death Toll (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Atom's Death Toll (Score:3)
Re:Atom's Death Toll (Score:4, Funny)
"no fewer than"
Greenrd's Law (Score:3, Interesting)
"Evey post disparaging someone else's spelling or grammar, or lauding one's own spelling or grammar, will inevitably contain a spelling or grammatical error."
Re:Atom's Death Toll (Score:3, Interesting)
It's not so bad that this story was approved as an ad, but rather it's so poorly written and poorly understood by the author. After announcing support for RSS, MS's Longhorn team bent over backwards [msdn.com] to explain that they were supporting Atom too. The res
Re:Atom's Death Toll (Score:2)
Re:Atom's Death Toll (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Atom's Death Toll (Score:2)
It's almost as bad as people finding their "nitch" (AHHH!! It's "niche"!)
Re:Atom's Death Toll (Score:5, Informative)
We're not talking about individual words here, for one, we're talking about phrases.
"Death toll" is the total number of people who die as a result of a disaster or other adverse event.
"Death knell" is a bell rung to announce death, or an omen of death or destruction.
So to say "death toll" in this context is completely and utterly wrong, and the fact that "toll", on its own, also can mean to ring a bell is actually completely unrelated and incidental.
But even if we do, for a moment, accept your assertion that "death toll" is an acceptable use here, the use of "signals" in conjunction with it as also meaningless.
Let's face it: the author meant to say "sounds the death knell" or "rings the death knell" or something to that effect, and just got it horribly, horribly wrong in his mind, likely using the same logic you did ("Hmm, I've heard about a bell tolling before, so "death toll" must be what I'm looking for.").
Re:Atom's Death Toll (Score:2)
In fact, both "toll" and "knell" can be defined as something like, "the ringing of bells, especially when marking the time of someone's death." They're pretty synonymous. It's a small mistake, in that they said "death toll" instead of "funeral toll". (At least, I
Re:Atom's Death Toll (Score:3, Insightful)
For what it's worth (ie nothing), I've never heard the phrase "funeral toll"
Re:Atom's Death Toll (Score:2)
Re:Atom's Death Toll (Score:5, Insightful)
When a bell tolls a death knell
Each knell's for one body
The death toll is the sum of knells
But only one's for thee.
Re:Atom's Death Toll (Score:2)
Of course if this goes on were going to be rephrased as simply trolling.
Article from a biased company (Score:5, Insightful)
"Google's recent new service that allows web surfers to monitor Google News using either RSS or Atom feeds, appears to be an acknowledgment that perhaps in purchasing Blogger, they chose the wrong specification."
Re:Article from a biased company (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Article from a biased company (Score:3, Insightful)
You thinking about the same MS? (Score:2)
Are you thinking of the same Microsft that I am? Apple has always been ahead of Microsoft. MS doesn't really care. They won't lose customers to Apple over RSS vs. Atom, and users who don't use IE anyways won't care what MS supports.
It doesn't seem like a big win to me either, but neither does becoming an IETF standard seem lik
Re:Article from a biased company (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Article from a biased company (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Article from a biased company (Score:3, Informative)
From Wikipedia: [wikipedia.org]
Re:Article from a biased company (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Article from a biased company (Score:4, Insightful)
No kidding, given the rest of the facts:
Microsoft already stated that they would be using xml namespaces to add to RSS. Which is exactly what Dave Winer who published RSS 2.0 [wikipedia.org] intended. Microsoft actually consulted Dave before getting very far too. Quote: [reallysimp...cation.com] "Anyway, there's a lot more to what they're doing, but I wanted to say in advance that I think what they're doing is cool. "
Additionally, Microsoft has stated support for Atom as well. [msdn.com]
Heh.
Re:Article from a biased company (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Article from a biased company (Score:2)
Re:Article from a biased company (Score:2)
Yes, and he obviously spoke truthfully, just as truthfully as GWB when he explained that Iraq had WMDs and that the war there would be done within 6 month...
Re:Article from a biased company (Score:2)
This shouldn't really be too surprising, however, since Atom came from some one who knows a lot about markup, and RSS came from a group of people who hadn't a clue.
MSRSS (Score:5, Interesting)
RSS extensions (Score:2)
Don't you mean embraced&extended RSS (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Don't you mean embraced&extended RSS (Score:2, Funny)
Why, but thats impossible, that has never happened before and could never happen !
Re:Don't you mean embraced&extended RSS (Score:3, Interesting)
Err...
This just seem to be a rebranding like Firefox and "Live Bookmarks".
Numerous hints at it in the article too:
Because of this, its renaming of RSS is not a sign the company is trying to remake the technology for its own purposes but rather a way to make a distinction between RSS and a feature of IE.
Microsoft is adding RSS functionality to the next version of Windows, Wind
Re:Don't you mean embraced&extended RSS (Score:4, Interesting)
How To Publish a Podcast on the iTunes Music Store [apple.com]
Re:Don't you mean embraced&extended RSS (Score:3, Informative)
Conventional RSS tags in Podcasts without these namespace tags work fine, just don't give the extra useful information.
The namespace allows delineation of info voluntarily added for the user's benefit. It hasn't altered the RSS 2.0 spec at all.
Does netcraft confirm it? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Does netcraft confirm it? (Score:2)
Which RSS did Microsoft embrace? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Which RSS did Microsoft embrace? (Score:2, Informative)
FUD, FUD, and more FUD (Score:5, Interesting)
About the Author: Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll http://www.feedforall.com/ [feedforall.com] software for creating, editing, publishing RSS feeds and podcasts.
Wow. It's a marketing plant trumpeting that RSS is now the standard, made by a company that specialises in RSS feeds.
Re:FUD, FUD, and more FUD (Score:3, Insightful)
This was pure spam, published to sway public opinion in the Atom vs RSS debate, and despite the fact that they've been called out in the comments, their plan is going to work unless slashdot removes the story or substantially edits it to point out the fraud. It will appear in countless syndicated news feeds (in RSS or Atom, ha), in blogs referencing the post (by people who didn't read the comments and were therefore fooled). Google searches about At
Re:FUD, FUD, and more FUD (Score:2)
Re:FUD, FUD, and more FUD (Score:2)
Wow, slashdot sucks. Good for the PR firm that got this posted - it should improve their site ranking.
microsoft is going to support ATOM too (Score:5, Informative)
http://blogs.msdn.com/rssteam/ [msdn.com]
"
Beta 1 of Windows Vista and IE 7 for XP currently supports the web feed formats RSS
"
What's with the bias? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What's with the bias? (Score:2, Interesting)
Regards,
Steve
Re:What's with the bias? (Score:2)
WTF????
Crack monkey (Score:5, Insightful)
IMO, atom is a far better protocol. The creators obviously tried to integrate the protocol with existing XML standards, v. RSS which basically gets as far as tag>. Its far more clear about its payload and is way better suited towards XML delivery. But, decide for yourself [tbray.org].
I see no problem with the current duality. I do wish Atom were available more places, but I can still live with RSS where I need to.
Myren
Much ado about nothing (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Much ado about nothing (Score:2)
Re:Crack monkey (Score:2)
RSS. Just say it to yourself over and over again. It rolls off the tongue. Next to a well designed acronym such as that, Atom just seems really simple.
Irony... (Score:2)
I also like the GP's suggestion that an acronym like RSS sounds complex: really simple syndication. Complex and simple wouldn't happen to be antonyms, would they?
And I love the way the GGP called the submitter a "crack rock smoking monkey" and got modded +4: insightful. Not that it was a bad post. It seems the nazi mods missed it, is all.
Re:Crack monkey (Score:2)
I'd say that's also true with RSS 1.0 with its RDF base.
Formats don't die (Score:5, Insightful)
Saying one format or another has won is always premature. The only time it's safe to say that a format is dead is when they have to build new equipment to read it because the hardware is missing. And even then you never know.
This article is obviously biased. It's like when Netscape said "the desktop is dead" when the Java plugin was first released.
Formats don't die ... they get upgraded (Score:2)
Is that so? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Is that so? (Score:2)
AFAIK RSS/ATOM is already a religious war being fought right now.
Articles, with extra, commas (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Articles, with extra, commas (Score:4, Funny)
RSS vs. ATOM (Score:4, Interesting)
I've implemented RSS before, never bothered with ATOM, since RSS seems to be better supported client side.
What are the advantages/disadvantages of each standard?
Re:RSS vs. ATOM (Score:5, Informative)
RSS 1.0 has a way to include HTML in the feed. RSS 2.0 doesn't. Atom does, and also supports XHTML.
RSS 1.0 is extensible in a standard way via namespaces. RSS 2.0 is extended via ad-hoc additions. Atom is extensible via namespaces.
Atom is more complicated than RSS 1.0, which is more complicated than RSS 2.0.
Re:RSS vs. ATOM (Score:2)
People include HTML in RSS 2.0 feeds all the time. Escaped markup may be gross, but people use it.
Likewise, most RSS 2.0 extensions seem to use namespaces.
Re:RSS vs. ATOM (Score:2)
The backbone on RSS1.0 extensibility [resource.org] is namespaces _and_ RDF, in that it can be merged with any other RDF vocabularies.
RSS2.0 is extensible via namespaces [harvard.edu]. For example, Microsoft's Simple List Extension [microsoft.com] to RSS 2.0.
I don't know how you've come to the conclusion that Atom is more complicated
Re:RSS vs. ATOM (Score:2)
Really, it doesn't. It's like picking what color wire you want.
That said: ATOM specifies a bunch of stuff about how to publish entries and stuff.
It's working it's way through the IETF, if I understand right.
Basically, serious net work is going into Atom. I strongly suspect I'll be using it in the near future.
But again, it hardly matters at all. There are tons of tools that accept and publish everything.
Re:RSS vs. ATOM (Score:2)
The Atom Syndication Format - the feed format - got signed off as a Proposed Standard [eweek.com] last week. That means the RFC number is on the way. Its here. The publishing protocol still has some way to go yet.
Re:RSS vs. ATOM (Score:2)
well... (Score:2, Funny)
Who Cares? (Score:5, Informative)
To be honest, the RSS vs. Atom thing is a lot like DVD+R and DVD-R - at this point they might as well be interchangeable.
Just about every feed parser handles both Atom and RSS feeds. Using a tool like Magpie RSS [sourceforge.net] (PHP) or the Universal Feed Parser [feedparser.org] (Python) the format of any given feed is entirely transparent to application developers. RSS 1.0? RSS 2.0? Atom 0.3? It all gets processed by the parser in a nearly identical way.
Already tools like Movable Type/Typepad [sixapart.com] or WordPress [wordpress.org] generate both RSS and Atom feeds by default. The vast majority of users don't know and don't care which feed format they're reading so long as it works. Both the toolkits and the applications use both formats and there's really little reason why they can't continue to support both.
There doesn't have to be a single "winner" in the syndication feed wars. Atom and RSS can exist together for some time, and arguing that this is a zero-sum game in which one and only one feed format can exist is ridiculous. As long as the difference is transparent to end users, and relatively transparent to developers, neither format will totally conquer the other.
Re:Who Cares? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Who Cares? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Who Cares? (Score:2)
I sure am glad you told us or I might never have noticed it!
BFD (Score:3, Interesting)
Or does Atom have something to do with the way the data is stored internally? And I think Google did pretty well with Blogger-- it's like saying, "Google chose wrong when they bought Blogger, because Blogger used a different stylesheet on their home page than Google does."
Isn't this cute ... but it's wrong!!! (Score:5, Informative)
However, it is just wrong to say that the format war is over and RSS has won. Atom is a coherent standard now being finished under the umbrella of the IETF [ietf.org], and it is just now just starting to catch. And it will, because many of us have had enough RSS bullshit. We already had a disscussion [slashdot.org] with the guy behind RSS 3.0 which convinced me that with guys like him writing the RSS specs (just for the love of writing), RSS is REALLY DOOMED.
Information on the Author/Submitter. (Score:5, Informative)
About the Author: Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll http://www.feedforall.com/ [feedforall.com] software for creating, editing, publishing RSS feeds and podcasts. In addition Sharon manages marketing for FeedForDev http://www.feedfordev.com/ [feedfordev.com] an RSS component for developers. In addition Sharon manages marketing for NotePage http://www.notepage.net/ [notepage.net] a wireless text messaging software company.
Needless to say, submitting your own obviously biased, commercially inspired, and untrue article is a tad transparent, but what do I know?
Re:Information on the Author/Submitter. (Score:2, Insightful)
smartass (Score:2)
Yup, I have nothing more to add besides: smartass.
Ok, just one more thing: for such smartasses managed MS to be where it is by acting as it acted along the last two decades. Like "ms does it so it is the good thing, everything else sucks". Zealotry school.
RSS man (Score:5, Funny)
RSS man hates Atom man,
They have a fight, RSS wins.
RSS man.
Captain Obvious (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh, and by the way, we happen to produce software to manage your RSS needs!
"Now that Atom's attempt at replacing RSS has fallen flat, the syndication arena will likely see significant innovation and progress."
Yes, that's what competition does, it stifles innovation.
Seriously, though, uniform standards can be great, saving dev time for loads of people and companies.
But I'd say that, at the very least, this promotional material (that's what it is) is putting the cart before the horse, and is also poorly written. I'd like to read a detailed analysis by an industry expert (not a marketing department), who is qualified to project market share for the standards.
Also: Google's recent new service that allows web surfers to monitor Google News using either RSS or Atom feeds, appears to be an acknowledgment that perhaps in purchasing Blogger, they chose the wrong specification.
Actually, this appears to be an acknowledgement that (1) Google would like as many consumers as possible to use Google News and (2) Google is choosing not to use their market share to lock out competitors in related products.
Tim Bray: RSS 2.0 and Atom 1.0 Compared (Score:5, Informative)
Thus, I wouldn't be so quick to claim RSS' victory. Tim Bray is a big supporter of Atom, and here is recent report titled RSS 2.0 and Atom 1.0 Compared [tbray.org]. Over at Simpy [simpy.com] (feel free to use demo/demo [simpy.com] account if you don't have an account yet), I am happily supporting RSS and Atom (as well as RDF).
I believe Atom also has the "push" component, and not just "pull" that RSS has. That is, I believe Atom spec contains specification of Atom as a way for making requests to web services, while RSS, I think, only lets you publish the data passively, and have clients actively pull it.
I can't find good references to this now, but maybe somebody else can find them and reply to this thread.
Big win for RSS (Score:3, Interesting)
Microsoft view of "innovation"? (Score:3, Informative)
I suppose that's the usual Microsoft view, which means that we can only have innovation once Microsoft has moved and picked a standard that's substantially inferior to the state of the art.
I mean, the differences between RSS and Atom aren't that big (they are both XML), but within those constraints, RSS still manages to get a bunch of things wrong relative to Atom (see here [tbray.org] for a discussion).
Here's why RSS won (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, everything I said there is basically common sense, but said in a particularly fancy way. RSS wins because it was the first to become widely used, and for the huge majority of uses (millions of random users with their feed-readers), switching to Atom would just break compatibility and offer no technical merits. Why is it any wonder that RSS won?
And by technical merits, I mean those observable to normal users. If J. Random Blogger can't see how switching to Atom makes things better, then why would he do it? Maybe the underlying architecture of Atom is much better. (I don't know; I haven't actually read an explanation of its improvements, aside from being standardized.) But if the RSS feeds of the present work just fine, which they do, then nobody's going to switch. I mean, if the Internet community made their protocol/format choices solely on technical merit, then not only would JSON-RPC [json-rpc.org] have superseded XML-RPC, but I should also think thatwe'd be using a variant of Aaron Swartz's RSS 3.0 [aaronsw.com] instead of the XML-based formats by now. It would save bandwidth, make it easier for humans to read and write feeds, and make it easier to parse and generate. (Yes, to parse it you'll have to write a a few custom regexes or something, but you won't need to include a 3MB XML-parsing library.) And we wouldn't need to worry about internationalisation issues like encoding, because RSS 3.0 feeds are UTF-8 by definition. Unfortunately, this is not about technical merits, just like capitalistic competition is never entirely about offering higher-quality goods or services. It's all about marketing, really -- marketing just enough for your product to get a foothold.
Google didn't choose the "wrong" specification. They chose a doomed one, maybe, but that doesn't make it bad.
Re:Here's why RSS won (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's assume RSS "won" something. (Which in itself is baloney - Atom is still very much around and well-supported.)
Which RSS "won"? RSS 2.0? RSS 1.0? RSS 0.91? Any of the 9 different incompatible versions of RSS?
There's a reason why non-XML formats like JSON-RPC and RSS3.0 never caught on - it's because they're not based on XML. XML, for all its shortcomings, is supported by damn near everything under the sun. You can query it with XPath, transform it back into XHTML with XSTL, slice it, dice it, and tu
Re:Here's why RSS won (Score:2)
Which you usually don't do (unless you're writing a web-based feedreader), but the ability to create both the web page (XHTML) and feed (RSS/Atom) from the XML templating simply by applying a different XSL is, on the other hand, very pleasing.
Ask Slashdot: Easy RSS? (Score:3, Interesting)
I know RSS has forked, and I don't use it much myself but I know others have asked for an RSS feed...is there a simple guide to outputting my content in an RSS kind of way?
Also, if I wanted to mirror my content on an LJ, would it be easier to automate the LJ postings and get an RSS feed off of that, or vice versa, or are they completely indpendent tasks?
Bias (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, because there's absolutely no possibilty that someone will write a program for Longhorn(Vista) that will support Atom.
Longhorn's coming release appears to be the final nail in the coffin of the Atom specification
I guess because Microsoft declares something, that's it. Everyone else should just pack up and go home. (Someone should be sure to tell those Firefox people that Firefox isn't going to be on the Vista install CD!)
I don't have a dog in this fight, but this story seems to have a bias.
Re:Bias (Score:2)
(Picking up where the first set of sarcasm left off...)
None whatsoever. Not even Microsoft will touch it. Oh, wait! [msdn.com]
For those who'd rather not read the article, it's from the Longhorn RSS team blog, and it's titled "Longhorn (hearts) Atom, too."
Move along... nothing to see here. (Score:2)
http://www.feedblog.org/2005/08/long_live_atom.ht
What's this RSS' thing? (Score:2)
(Actually, this is clearly the regular possessive of RSS, which is, I suppose, plural)
Poor dying Google... (Score:5, Funny)
...and we all know that Google's poor, beleaguered programmers will be incapable of altering the source of the application they own to transmit two. different. formats! of syndication data. That'd be like expecting them to support multiple locales or offer some kind of an aggregated news service. Why, oh why, must we constantly demand the impossible of our heroes?
Or they could just let an intern hack something up one weekend. Either way.
Atom is more than a feed format (Score:5, Insightful)
What a troll (Score:3, Insightful)
Web Feeds vs. RSS (Score:2)
So I guess this means... (Score:2)
Advertisements to the right, please (Score:2, Informative)
Not only is this article factually incorrect, but it smacks of paid placement. If the Slashdot folks didn't get paid for this post, perhaps they should evaluate why they just gave away a bit of their brand value to pump one side of a religious war.
Implications of Vista Integration (Score:2)
Does that mean that the final nail in the coffic of Python is Vista's support for
AtomAPI (Score:4, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)