The IETF approves the Atom 1.0 data format, an alternative format to RSS for publishing an XML-based syndication feed, as a "proposed standard."
Rising above the bickering of competing syndication format loyalists, the IETF on Wednesday approved the Atom 1.0 data format as a "proposed standard."
Atom is an alternative format to RSS for publishing an XML-based syndication feed.
Weblogs and news Web sites commonly use these feeds to send instantaneous headlines and summaries of news postings and stories.
Both RSS and Atom provide a similar format for syndicating Web content in XML feeds to other sites and aggregation software called readers.
While the formats grew in popularity with the rise of Web logging in recent years, they also have gained converts among major Web publishers.
For example, Yahoo Inc. in January 2004 began adding features for searching and aggregating the XML feeds.
In spite of quarreling amongst proponents of either format, major publishers have started to embrace both.
After having decided early on to support Atom rather than RSS in its acquired Blogger Web logging software, Google Inc. recently reversed its snub and is now offering users both RSS and Atom.
Microsoft Corp., for its part, is incorporating RSS into its upcoming IE 7 and Windows Vista.
Beyond the sniping that's gone on between format loyalists, the IETF's (Internet Engineering Task Force) working group summary shows that the group experienced its own bickering to arrive at an approved standard.
Read the full story on eWEEK.com: IETF Signs Off on Atom
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