Ken MacLeod

A member of the Advisory Board for Really Simple Syndication, Dave Winer, made a statement on John Palfrey's weblog, "RSS is what it is. No one can change it. I can't, you can't." Similar statements have been made in the past and the context of this statement sits as one of the principle issues in the support and development of Really Simple Syndication and related alternate specifications, RDF Site Summary and the project currently referred to as Pie/Echo/Atom.

The change history for Really Simple Syndication, from UserLand's restatement of Netscape RSS 0.91 in June 2000 through the transfer of Really Simple Syndication to the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School in July 2003 is available here.

Changes to Really Simple Syndication are now governed by an Advisory Board. The advisory board's change history is available here.

As is clear from the change notes, Really Simple Syndication has changed names, added several new elements, made backward incompatible changes, allowed the use of extensions through XML Namespaces, and transferred ownership and governance. It has evolved and changed, clearly and unequivocally, and it is clear that it can continue to evolve and change as the advisory board chooses.

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Update: footnote deleted.