Re: Input on request for link relation [ w/ proposed modifications to link draft ]

> Then why are you only bringing it to the attention of the wider world now?
> I don't mean to pick on you, but it seems like there are lots of developers these days
> who are writing protocols in secret, and then expecting the world to come along for the ride,
> no matter how badly they interact with the infrastructure.

I don't think these developers, or anyone else, are under an
obligation to share a proposal with the world before they think it's
ready. It can feel a little like taking dictation when something
rather fully-formed emerges from some company's intranet, but
successful protocols can emerge in many ways, and these developers
appear quite willing to make reasonable changes to their spec (they
had already added RSS before this thread began, iirc).

> As such, I think there's more value in something more capable than specific,
> lest we all drown in a sea of special-purpose, needlessly application-specific protocols.

One example of an unreasonable request would be to suggest that
developers are required to solve a much bigger problem then they've
set out to. In this case, I don't see a reason to apply stop energy.
The PubSubHubbub effort is clearly not going to hurt the Web or the
Internet in general, the link relation namespace is not especially
crowded, and the IETF is free to modify or expand the definition of
the hub relation over time. With that in mind, I don't think the text
of the registration should or will stop people if the proposed
relation turns out to be useful for non-feed media types.

-- 

Robert Sayre

"I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time."

Received on Sunday, 20 September 2009 16:31:16 UTC