RSS 2.0 Specification

Here's where the RSS 2.0
specification is kept:

RSS 2.0 at Harvard Law

As you can see, the RSS
2.0 specification appears
to be kept on a web server
hosted by Harvard Law School.

Apparently, the creator of
the specification, Dave Winer,
worded there at the time.

The date on the specification
appears to be July 15, 2003.

An interesting aspect of the
specification is that it is
frozen. It is frozen with
the intent that other people
will build on top of it.

This is not such a bad idea
as it is hard to chase a moving
target.

I suspect the intent of freezing
the specification was for people
to start using the specification
rather than to continue to put
their creative energies into innovation
of the specification itself.

From reading the document, it appears
to be that all future innovation
is to take place using the RSS 2.0
specification but by a different name.

In other words, go ahead and add
to the spec but please come up with
your own name.

I see several advantages to this
approach:

1. A specification by a different
   name has to build its own reputation.
2. A specification with its own name
   lives or dies by its own reputation
3. A specification by its own name
   will never reach critical mass or
   mass acceptance until it is worthy of it.

In other words, it would seem that Dave
Winer did not want other people riding
his coattails. Rather, he wanted these
people, and their specification, to build
their own reputation.

Ed Abbott