Well it seems that News.com can't get the facts straight. David Becker in "RSS gets down to business" writes:
Blogging pioneer Dave Winer developed RSS several years ago as a way to automatically receive new chunks of frequently updated content. The format has caught on primarily for keeping track of Web logs and news sites, but developers see applications for many other types of dynamic content, from e-mail to server status reports.
Eh? I seem to remember Netscape developing RSS. In fact, when I check the RSS History page (that Dave wrote) it confirms this theory.
And, David, it's "weblog" not "web log." My web server produces logs all day log. Some folks refer to them as "access logs" or "web server logs" or even "web logs" for short. But they have little to do with the larger notions of weblog. I know, it's confusing. But getting it right is your job, mmmkay?
Posted by jzawodn at August 16, 2004 01:21 PM
For all the times people got it wrong and gave credit for RSS to other people it's refreshing to see someone err the other way.
Ah, no. Use "web log" not "weblog", "web site" not "website", etc. Stop making up "new" words by joining together two existing words. It's lame, dumb, and bad English.
Nice bit of ultra-anal, self-important, narcissistic, condescending nitpicking by the way.
Uh, okay.
I guess I should have said "a web server" instead of "my web server."
Silly me and my "self-important" posts.
Dave, you confuse me.
The "other" way?
Isn't this binary? Either you give credit to the (1) right folks or (2) the wrong folks. How are you in neither group?
We both seem to agree that Netscape created RSS.
Not exactly right, but I sure don't want to get into an argument with you. I guess I've put in more time arguing with people who want to split hairs over who did what with RSS, than I have actually working on RSS.
Webster's New Millennium™ Dictionary of English accepts it as 'weblog' and allows an alternative spelling of 'web log'. I tend to take the side of common sense. A 'web log' is generated by apache.
If what's-his-name wants to be pedantic, then it should be 'blog for the short version. But it's not. And we move on.
Can I call somebody a Nazi and make these blog posts go away?
my god - only a few posts and already we've activated Godwins law
There must be some other law stating that as soon as someone mentions Dave Winer in a blog he pops up and comments. I opened the link to see if it held true in this case and -- poof! -- there he was!
Actually:
Godwin's Law may not be invoked deliberately and so any attempt to use it purely to kill a thread should be ignored.
As the intent of the Nazi post was clearly stated to violate the above clause of Godwin's Law, Godwin's law has not been violated.
Just to set the record straight once-and-for-all (since I actually worked at Netscape on this particular project and had the original discussion w/ Dave that gave rise to public release of RSS). Dave and Netscape were both working independently on a light-weight syndication format for news content. After some discussion with David, we decided that it made sense to merge the functionality of the two formats, so really David and Netscape were co-inventors of the original format.
The name RSS and a lot of the original syntax came from Netscape (RV Guha and Dan Libby), but Dave was certainly involved in both the original functionality and instrumental in the success of RSS since Netscape never promoted the format.
Yes you have stated your position quite clearly in my opinion
You can disagree with the style, but that's currently approved AP style for web log.
