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The plumbers union may be reuniting. Dave Winer, inventor of RSS 2.0, has offered to re-join the RSS Advisory Board, albeit with a firm caveat: The board will make no changes to the specification, just clarifications via a profile.
I will join as a member, if you want me to, to help give it legitimacy. At that point these time-wasting discussions can end. I would also suggest that you offer Sam Ruby a position, esp if he takes the first item here to heart.
The two things:
1. Recognize that the RSS 2.0 spec is on the Harvard server, and it is not going to change.
2. Change the mission of this group to working on a profile. Let’s come up with a memorable name for the profile that doesn’t sound official or mandatory, and let’s get to work on solving problems, and then promoting the result to the users.
All things considered, I think this is a great offer. It is one that might finally produce the clarifications to the spec that people have been seeking for years. If Dave is finally willing to answer those clarifications, even in a “non-official profile”, it would be good for everybody.
1 response so far ↓
1 Randy Charles Morin // May 27, 2007 at 7:15 pm
Well, I have many concerns about this. But here are a few.
First, it’s not a compromise. Here’s a definition of the word compromise.
A settlement of differences in which each side makes concessions.
http://www.answers.com/compromise&r=67
What does Dave conceed? Nothing. Therefore it’s not a compromise.
Second, this would be a return to the way things were two years ago. Dave quit the RSS board for a reason. People said it was not independent, since Dave controlled it. A return, would only bring out the same suggestions. The board two years ago, did next to nothing. One member (Zellers) was secretly added to the RSS board and never did anything at all while appointed. The only reason the world found out he was on the board is because I announced it [http://www.kbcafe.com/rss/?guid=20040705092359].
Further, the board ran a mostly spam infested mailing list where the board members were rarely present.
Third, the compromise would involve me lying. You may not mind if I lie, but I do. I try to avoid lying as much as possible. I don’t mind the occasional white lie, but for us to say that the current board is not the same as the one Dave created is beyond my ability to deceive people. I would feel like an asshole who abandoned all that is good.
Understand, once we say that this isn’t the board that Dave created, then he’ll simply spit on our face, quit the board and use that against us to discredit us. He needs this, because even his own blog confirms that we are the same board. He announced Rogers as a member on his board. He announced he quit. He conceded the power to clarify the spec to the board.
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