I spent some time reading and thinking before responding, and have an
idea.

There are just a few people who are dug in on positions that actually
are quite close, and the majority of people are not dug in, and want
to help the syndication community do better work. I'm not saying that
the people who are dug in don't want the same thing.

First, please Sam Ruby, stop casting everything I do, and others, in
such a negative light. We aren't so stupid, or conflicted, and it's
preventing discourse. I will not respond in the same manner to you, I
tune out when you do it. Just today you did it on your blog, in
trying to revive an old disagreement that you don't really understand.

Second, Rogers and Randy, you have to give up the belief that you're
running the same advisory board that existed before Rogers joined it.
That group never had the charter that you've assumed, and it stopped
functioning a long time before your attempt to revive it. Further, I
never envisioned that refinement work would be taking place on the RSS
2.0 spec almost five years after its publication. The goal was to
reserve a few *months* to debug it after it moved from the UserLand
server to the Harvard server, for link breakage, typos, and possible
catastrophic mistakes that needed correction (which thankfully,
never surfaced). You are way past the time for that kind of work. I
know you can find an exception, but that doesn't change my belief that
you can't be contemplating these kinds of changes this late in the
game, even if you were on the advisory board, and it continued to
exist, which I don't believe it does.

You keep asking me for answers, and I keep giving them to you, they're
just not the answers you want to hear. I've consistently been saying
"hands off" to your request that you or anyone else be permitted to
change the RSS 2.0 spec.

Third, if there are other people actively participating in the group
you're running, it would be helpful if you could ask them to
participate in this discussion and consider the things I'm asking you
to consider. I don't mean vote on it, I mean participate in the
discussion.

One of the things that really sparked my attention is Randy's advice
here a few days ago, where he said something about item order that is
absolutely not true. At that point I got an idea of how dangerous this
work you're doing actually is. With only two people actively working
on your board, and no real discussion taking place, you're going to
make serious mistakes. You can do that if you're working off on the
side, but to the extent that people believe that you're working on the
real spec, well, you can see how scary that is.

Now, if we can get your group to do two things, I will offer a
compromise of my own.

I will join as a member, if you want me to, to help give it
legitimacy. At that point these time-wasting discussions can end. I
would also suggest that you offer Sam Ruby a position, esp if he takes
the first item here to heart.

The two things:

1. Recognize that the RSS 2.0 spec is on the Harvard server, and it is
not going to change.

2. Change the mission of this group to working on a profile. Let's
come up with a memorable name for the profile that doesn't sound
official or mandatory, and let's get to work on solving problems, and
then promoting the result to the users.

If there are pragmatic reasons why you can't do these things, I'd like
to know what they are.

And please give this some thought before you reject it, or argue
against it. Think about what you want to do with your time, work on
technology and help the community, or argue about your right to do it.

Sincerely,

Dave Winer