I've checked with the Freenet people; the XML-RPC support is defunct,
created by a now-gone developer. Apparently, they are fairly anti-XML.
Instead, they rolled their own (damned) protocol which you have to
actually write support for, instead of just grabbing an XML-RPC
implementation and going. There's not a damned thing in the protocol
that couldn't have been handled with XML-RPC, but there you have it.

My impression is that explaining the difference between building a
library to use their protocol vs. using a standard XML-RPC library (if
it's a matter of "effort" vs. "no effort", "no effort" will win every
time) is going to run up against the usual open source "*your* time is
free" ideology, where they'd rather re-invent the wheel and write their
own non-standard protocol then actually interoperate with anything else.

I wasn't quite this harsh on *their* mailing list, but I was definately
thinking this. Freenet is written in Java; it would have been *easier*
for them to pick up any of several XML-RPC implementations and write a
few API functions then do their own from-scratch network protocol! *sigh*

My time is *not* free of course, and the project has passed my threshold
of pain for the level of interest I have in it. Initially, I had
expected to be done in one night; it is now clear it is more like a week
of part-time work. So, my question is, would anybody actually *use*
Freenet syndication? Does anyone seriously think it would have any sort
of success?

My personal answers to both of those questions are "No, not likely, even
if it's the best possible solution to the RSS problem." A day I can
write off as an interesting technical exploration, a week is a too much,
especially given the other fascinating (to me) projects I'm working on
right now. Unless someone replies and expresses interest, or convinces
me that people might actually use this on a large scale, I'm not a
week's worth of interested.

Apologies, this message is a little vent-y. But damn, it's frustrating
to be blocked because someone went out of their way (in terms of net
effort) to not interoperate with you...