Dave Winer's Insightful Reply

Like a lot of other geeks, I subscribe to a blog called The Scripting News, created and updated by Dave Winer. Dave Winer is often (incorrectly) attributed with the creation of the RSS standard for web syndication, which was in fact created by Dan Libby of Netscape. It would be unfair to say that Dave isn't one of the largest advocates and movers and shakers of the brand, though.

However, RSS isn't the only popular standard for syndication on the web. There's another standard, Atom which is quite popular as well. Most blogs (including this one) offer both.

For some reason, Winer thinks that people should call support for web feeds RSS, regardless of their support for both standards. I can understand wanting to call RSS feeds RSS feeds, but calling Atom feeds RSS? That's more than just a little bit stupid.

He hasn't addressed why people should call Atom feeds RSS on his blog, so I sent him an email yesterday:

I find it ridiculous that you're on this rampage about getting people to call all of their XML feeds RSS. Microsoft supports both Atom and RSS, so why exactly should they call it RSS? Can you address this please? I'm honestly really curious.

About an hour later, he replied with this:

Looks like you're on a rampage yourself! ;->

http://trinja.cryptek.org/robin/archives/001738.php

(Note that the link he pasted was to my most recent entry about starting a new job.)

What kind of reply is that? Is the emoticon an admission of guilt? Or is it a condescending acknowledgement that he doesn't have to explain himself to the community whose respect he feels is fleeting?