David Nesting wrote:
Why isn't this requirement a "may" instead of a "must"? I can see having a link with rel=alternate if indeed a alternate version does exist. It does not make sense to put in some something misleading if an alternate does not exist.
I recently sought out and joined this list precisely because I wanted to see if this issue had been addressed. I don't think it's reasonable to assume there will always be an alternate version of a feed. If this remains a "MUST", I have no choice but to honor this by using a dummy value for an "alternate" page, since I may not have an alternate.
Without any background, it seems to me that the goal here is to "require" a link *back* to an HTML page that is presumed to have provided an "alternate" link to this Atom resource. This of course assumes that an HTML or non-Atom version actually exists, and that resource is independent of the Atom resource. (Consider that I may have an HTML version, but it could be derived from the Atom version using XSLT. It's not accurate to consider this an "alternate" when it's an XML style sheet involved.)
I couldn't find any reference to this issue in the mailing list, aside from this (thankfully recent) thread. If it's been addressed before, could someone point me to the thread in the list archives?
I can point you to the threads (yes, this has come up mutiple times).
Do you, today, produce an RSS feed? If so, what version of RSS? Is it valid?
I've run a feedvalidator for years. Every version of RSS has required this link. I've *never* heard anybody complain about this in the context of any version of RSS. It puzzles the bejeebers out of me why this issue is only brought up in the context of Atom.
- Sam Ruby
