Rss Standards

Unfortunately, there are three lines of specifications for RssFeeds (the files used in RssSyndication). Actively developed RssReaders generally handle all three. Hopefully the near future will unify them, or somehow simplify things from the users' perspective. We're probably at the point where it won't get any worse before it gets better.

RSS 0.9x/2.0 - from DaveWiner? and UserLand mainly, started with NetScape; 2.0 is backward-compatible and is frozen
RSS 1.0 - rssdev mailing list and O'Reilly; uses ResourceDescriptionFramework; no active development as far as i know
Atom - independent group that morphed into an Atom IETF working group; designed from the ground up with archiving and AutoBlogging in mind; Atom wiki; essentially finished, no intent to change it further - technically, this one shouldn't be referred to as RSS, which is why the name of this page will change; see RssReadersNameDiscussion

The feed validator - http://www.feedvalidator.org/ - handles all three flavors, and gives error messages to help developers get their software generating good feeds. (argument about validators: http://www.karchner.com/update/archives/000487.html )

Some services (notably GoogleGroups and BlogGer?) are providing only Atom. This is annoying, but fortunately, you can convert AtomFeeds into 2.0 RssFeeds using http://2rss.com/software.php?page=atom2rss for example, http://www.2rss.com/atom2rss.php?atom=http://www.2rss.com/blog/atom.xml Another option is http://www.feedburner.com/ but it requires an account If you prefer RSS 1.0, there's http://cavedoni.com/2004/02/rss1 You can even go the other way, RSS to Atom, see http://www.tnl.net/blog/entry/RSS2Necho_is_now_RSS2Atom

Mark Pilgrim on the nine versions of RSS - http://diveintomark.org/archives/2004/02/04/incompatible-rss | Dave Winer's correction: http://archive.scripting.com/2004/02/05

Dave Winer's history of RSS: http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rssVersionHistory (goes back to Userland's scriptingNews formats Dec 1997)

Relevant early MetaData? work includes Microsoft's Channel Definition Format (March 1997, see http://www.w3.org/TR/NOTE-CDFsubmit.html ), Apple's Meta Content Framework (late 1996 / early 1997, see http://www.xspace.net/hotsauce/ ) and of course the still-developing ResourceDescriptionFramework, which can do graph (as distinguished from simpler tree-structure) MetaData?, to get us to the SemanticWeb. RSS 1.0 is RDF, the others are not.

Sam Ruby's excellent chart of the elements in various RSS specs (pre-Atom).

RSS Profile wiki - attempt to clarify the RSS 0.9x/2.0 line of RSS

eXtremely Simple Syndication (XSS) offers several mixed "profiles" (subsets of specifications) that might help bring the 1.0 and 0.9x/2.0 lines together.

The LiSA API approaches the split from another direction.

There have even been a few joke formats in use. When you get sick of crying...

Meatball:UseMod - an extension used by some wikis to produce RssFeeds

See RssForums, and OpenWiki:RDFSiteSummary , TWikiCodev:RichSiteSummary , Meatball:RichSiteSummary ,