On Tuesday, October 29, 2002, at 05:49 PM, burton@... wrote:
> One common misconception is that RDF and RSS already provide link
> mechanisms.

It's not a misconception, it's a fact.

> The main difference with mod_link is that it provides a mechanism to
> provide
> discovery of external resources by user agents without having to
> explicitly
> enable new link types within an implementing application.

That's a key feature of RDF.

> Also, instead of just defining a way to represent links we also go
> ahead and
> define new link relationships such as permalink [5], print [6], and
> service [7].

That's a key feature of RDF.

> Since I was the main developer I made some design decisions which I
> felt were
> appropriate. I didn't take advantage of RDF as I felt that it needed
> to remain
> simple since it was such a core format. I only used *one* XML
> namespace for the
> same reason.

But instead you made the format more complicated. Those who want to
deal with such things simply, by using RDF tools no longer can. They
have to use XML tools which make everything complicated. And even with
XML tools it's a confusing task to figure out what your XML bits mean.

> I would like to officially receive commentary now with regard to the
> actual
> representation of the format.

Please recast it as RDF. Your example:

<l:link l:rel="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/link/#alternate"
l:type="application/rss+xml"
l:title="What's New on Example (French)"
l:lang="fr"
rdf:resource="http://www.example.org/index-fr.rss"/>

should be:

<l:alternate rdf:resource="http://www.example.org/index-fr.rss"
dc:format="application/rss+xml"
dc:title="What's New on Example (French)"
dc:language="fr" />

This is easier to parse, read, and use with RDF tools. I can't find any
disadvantages over your proposal.

--
Aaron Swartz [http://www.aaronsw.com] "Curb your consumption," he said.