The existence of two similar but incompatible formats that call
themselves RSS is a persistent problem for everyone who supports these
formats, whether they're involved in RSS 1.0 or RSS 2.0.

As RSS adoption has grown, RSS 2.0 has built a huge lead on RSS 1.0,
from the looks of the version stats published at Syndic8. Here's the
numbers, based on today's page and pages archived by the Internet Archive:

Today: RSS 2.0 76.3%, RSS 1.0 11.3%

Feb. 2006: RSS 2.0 68.3%, RSS 1.0 17.6%

March 2005: RSS 2.0 62.1%, RSS 1.0 16.5%

December 2004: RSS 2.0 49.2%, RSS 1.0 20.6%

April 2004: RSS 2.0 24.6%, RSS 1.0 47.3%

We can debate the reasons why, but my guess is that the higher version
number is as much a factor as anything else. I anticipate that RSS 2.0
will continue to grow relative to RSS 1.0 because of Microsoft's
choice to normalize to RSS 2.0 in Windows Vista and MSIE.

When RSS 1.0 was launched, a vote to change the name to xRSS almost
had majority support here -- the final result was 11 yes, 11 no:

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/rss-dev/surveys?id=368260

I'm probably getting myself into trouble by asking this, but is there
any support for renaming RSS 1.0 as RSS-RDF, either through a simple
name change or a more involved process?

Although I'm on the RSS Advisory Board, I think that the three
syndication formats each has a strong selling point:

- RSS 2.0 is simple, loose and popular

- Atom is an Internet standard that's more adaptable to uses outside
site syndication

- RSS 1.0 builds on RDF

I'm not a member of the RSS-DEV Working Group, but I'd like to urge
you to consider renaming RSS 1.0 as RSS-RDF. The name change would
highlight the format's implementation of RDF and give the rival RSSes
some breathing room.

On a personal note, it would also make it considerably easier for me
to describe your format in various things I write for the RSS board.
It's tough for me to say anything about RSS 1.0 on our site because of
the potential for newbie confusion. People assume it's a previous
iteration of RSS 2.0, not a different format that shares a common
ancestor.

I've e-mailed the authors of the RSS 1.0 spec to see if there's an
opportunity here.