Technical Summary:
This document describes the Atom format for syndication. It is
XML-based and is considered to be the successor to the earlier RSS
formats. Its primary use is for web-based content, but is expected to
be used for non-web content as well, such as personal news feeds.
Working Group Summary:
Some members of the working group remain unenthusiastic about some
sections of the document, but the chairs strongly believe that there
is rough (or better) consensus in support of the document as a whole.
For some of the parts with the most contention, there cannot be more
than very rough consensus due to basic differences in the way people
would design parts of the format, particularly given that we have many
models in existence with the different flavors of RSS. For some parts
of the document, there is contention about whether or not a
particular item should or should not be in the Atom core versus being
an extension. For some parts, there is contention whether there
should be MUST/SHOULD/MAY leeway for content creators in the presence
or absence of an element, or the semantic content of an element; the
group really pushed RFC 2119 around during the past few months.
Protocol Quality
Scott Hollenbeck and the XML Directorate have reviewed the specification
for the IESG. Test implementations have confirmed basic protocol
soundness.