From: Sam Roberts <sroberts@...>
Date: 2004-11-14T16:00:13+09:00
Subject: Re: bug: rss/maker is requiring <image> for rss/0.9

RSS standards are an endless debate I don't want to really be a big
part of.

For the rss/maker API I would like to give the feedback that it is not
useful for the RSS API to force me to generate a <image>. Luckily it
doesn't enforce content of the tag. I can put anything I want in, and
I'm putting garbage in because I don't have a server to publish an image
on. So, this API hasn't made the quality of the generated RSS any
better, if that was the goal.



Userland didn't publish RSS 0.91, and doesn't claim to:

  In July 1999, Netscape introduced RSS 0.91, incorporating most of the
  features of <scriptingNews> 2.0b1. At the same time My.UserLand.Com
  supported RSS 0.91.

They link to Netscape's specification from their page.

They did publish 2.0, or course, where <image> is optional:

  http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss#requiredChannelElements

Incompatibilities between RSS standards isn't something you can fix, but
it seems to be making the matter worse to be choosing a fairly informal
description of "RSS 0.91" from Userland. They don't call it a
specification, they say:

  Therefore, this document is explains RSS as it's currently practiced. 

Requireing <image> is going to make it hard to convert rss2.0 to 0.91,
too, since its optional in 2.0.

Quoteing kou@cozmixng.org, on Sun, Nov 14, 2004 at 03:02:17PM +0900:
> > It says it is optional here:
> >   http://backend.userland.com/rss091
> 
> Really?
> 
> | Required <channel> sub-elements 
> |
> | Following are the required elements of a <channel>.
> | <image> -- ...

My apologies, I didn't notice that.  Is this why you made it mandatory?

> > Also, please refer to the DTD here:
> >   http://my.netscape.com/publish/formats/rss-0.91.dtd
> 
> Is it available?

I can resolve that URL.

> http://backend.userland.com/rss091 doesn't have *direct*
> link to it. And its domain is my.netscape.com. (It's old,
> isn't it???)

http://backend.userland.com/rss091 has a direct link to:

  http://my.netscape.com/publish/formats/rss-spec-0.91.html

which documents image as optional.

That page links to the DTD, where it is also optional.

And yes, RSS 0.91 is old, but even if its old, isn't it still RSS 0.91?

Cheers,
Sam