<co-chair-mode>We observe a significant amount of discomfort with the
current one-author/multiple-contributors model in atom-format.
Despite the mentions that Rob dug up, nobody can claim this has had
serious in-depth discussion in the IETF context.
On the other hand, we note that the current setup does have a
coherent logical grounding, namely adopting Dublin Core semantics by
identifying a singular primary-creator role and a plural contributor
role. If we leave things the way they are, a pointer to this
derivation would improve the draft.
However, aside from Rob Sayre, nobody has been particularly militant
in defending the current setup. Personally I don't think any of the
alternatives proposed are going to have fewer corner cases, but quite
likely they won't have more either.
Unfortunately, among those who want to change the current setup, we
do not observe consensus on the subject of what to change them to.
Near as we can tell, people want to make atom:author plural, some
want to nuke atom:contributor and others don't.
If, in the next couple of days, a large number of people can coalesce
behind ONE SPECIFIC change to the spec in this area, and there is no
significant body of resistance to this change, Paul and I are
prepared to be convinced that rough consensus exists for such a
change.</co-chair-mode>
- Author and contributor Tim Bray
-
