The thing about RSS vs Atom is that, if not for dave, Atom would not exist. Atom was created to liberate feed users from the capricious whims of dave and his “standard.” dave created this situation all by himself, if he wasn’t such an asshole, people might have been able to work with him.

We all know that RSS support will have to be built into aggregators for the foreseeable future and I think most of us have no problem with people using RSS 2.0 feeds if it works for them. In fact, I can remember several occasions when I heard an Atom supporter specifically tell someone that it probably wasn’t worth the effort to change their feed right now

The issue for Dave and the sycophants though is that Atom is superior to RSS and everyone with half a brain knows it. Ask an RSS 2.0 supporter to name one advantage that RSS has over Atom and they can’t do it. So eventually, if market forces are allowed to progress as they normally would, Atom will win because people will pick Atom for their new projects and those new products will eventually supplant what we currently use.

Its simple logic, if both products are free and one has superior features that product will be the one that people choose in a free society.

So again, Atom supporters have no reason to fight we just need to sit back and let nature take its course. But the RSS side, if it is to keep their inferior format alive must turn this into a religious war where the question is “who side are you on?” not “which format makes more sense?”

Which is where this most recent rant comes in because, as in any religious war one of Dave’s main goals is to erase the competition from existence so no one can make the choice for themselves. “If Atom is never mentioned people will never find out about it and it will eventually disappear”

As always Dave is all for choice as long as you are sure to choose what he wants you to choose.