Sunday, June 29, 2003

Reboot video is online Reboot video is online. The videos from the talks at Reboot have been posted, including my talk on DRM, copyright and the net, along with Meg Hourihan, Scott Heiferman, and so forth. Link Discuss (Thanks, Nikolaj!) [Boing Boing Blog]   Marc Canter  Quicktime (ca. 56Mb) Meg Hourihan Quicktime (ca. 58Mb) I'm watching Marc's presentation from Reboot.  Meg's next.  Only took about 10 minutes to dowload each.  The cable modem was rocking. Wish I had one of those ONEbox Media Centers to watch Marc's and Meg's presentations.  Now that would be cool.   9:09:25 PM  comment []       Ben Trott: Why We Need Echo. [Scripting News] 2:21:16 PM  comment []       The difference between RSS and Echo The difference between RSS and Echo. In the recent heated debates about Echo (I'll call it that for now) the prevailing comment is that Echo is a replacement of RSS because of political issues. While this is not entirely untrue, there are actually big differences between Echo and RSS. I'm going to address the main difference for each version of RSS. … [Sjoerd Visscher's weblog] 2:00:36 PM  comment []       I'll B.O.G.U. for Blogger I'll B.O.G.U. for Blogger. One of the many things the Echo folk want to reinvent is the MetaWeblog API. Of course this makes my teeth grind, because I know how much time and energy went into making it work, not just for UserLand's tools, but for many others. The only major holdout so far has been Blogger. Now, when the API was in development I asked Evan for feedback several times, directly, and he never responded. Now, over a year later, I hear that the API is inadequate for his purposes, because it doesn't have an element called appkey in its parameter lists. So the obvious question is, if we add appkey to a new version of the API, just for Blogger, and deprecate the old API, would that be enough, or are there other things he wants? Is Evan's goal to set back our work, or move his work forward? If it's the former, let's smoke that out into the open. I'm willing to accomodate you Evan. I'm willing to break the MetaWeblog API to get your support. I'm willing to convince other developers that it's worth changing their tools to get you on board. So now that we're going to bend over and grease up for you Evan, is that good enough, or do you want more? Another data point. Over on Sam Ruby's weblog, an engineer at Google who's working on Blogger volunteers that the reason they don't use RSS 2.0 is that it supposedly doesn't have a feature that it has had since version 0.90, for over four years. If they had looked at the any of the BBC feeds they would have seen how to use it. Or the feeds Radio generates. If they had asked me I would have shown them. Instead they are switching their users to RDF, and then switching them to Echo, when RSS 2.0 would be perfectly good for their purposes. I am so confused by how they navigate through formats and protocols. If I were a suspicious man I'd think they want me to be confused. [Scripting News] 12:34:56 PM  comment []       RSS Survey Survey: "Based on everything you've read in the last week or so, do you feel a need to change what RSS is, or is it good enough the way it is?" [Scripting News] 12:26:34 PM  comment []       My Take on Echo's Future My Take on Echo's Future. The question of whether Echo will succeed in replacing RSS seems to be on many bloggers' mind just now.  Scoble thinks Echo has no chance.  Many people on the Echo supporters list think otherwise.  I put my name on that list as well, but I don't think the chance of Echo replacing RSS is very good. RSS is far more than just a spec as Scoble explained, but engineers tend to focus only on technical side of things so it is no wonder most Echo supporters don't see it that way.  Just looking at the process of picking a name shows clearly how naive most of them are.  I meant naive in a good way so I hope they don't take this comment as an insult. Although I don't think there is an optimistic future for Echo, I signed up as a supporter because, as I wrote before, I think it is a Good Thing.  There has been pent-up energies among developers that demanded something like Echo.  I don't mean Echo the spec.  I mean Echo the project.  Echo project is a good outlet for all that creative energy which could be destructive and chaotic if applied wrongly.  In my opinion, funky RSS was an example how destructive and chaotic creative energy can be. I am happy that the funky RSS storm seems to have passed for the most part and creative energy has been released toward more constructive path via the Echo project.  Just as I think Dave is trying to Do The Right Thing, I believe everyone working on Echo are trying to Do The Right Thing.  Even if Echo the spec end up a dud, I think the effort is worth doing and was inevitable in one form or another. History will happen as it does and not as it should.  Questions, discussions, and predictions are, in the end, no more than memories of turning pages.  So there is no point of asking who will win nor whether it should go on.  Besides, good ideas from Echo can be incorporated into RSS eventually so the users will win no matter which format wins. [Don Park's Blog] 8:46:11 AM  comment []

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