RSS 3 Lite Specifications

In this page the RSS 3 Lite Specifications are detailed as a stand-alone part of the RSS Version 3 Standard.

This version:

• Initial Draft (Published August 6, 2005)

Latest verion:

• The latest version can always be found at the following link

Intermediate versions:
(Intermediate versions are edited specifications on their way to become a certain draft)

• See the Intermediate Versions directory

Previous versions:

• None.
  For further archived versions, see the Archive section or the Archive directory.

Editor and contributors:

• Jonathan Avidan

Sections in this document:

1. Requirements and Terminology
2. Abstract
3. Status Of This Document
4. Table of Contents
5. Specification
6. Appendices

See the Errata appendix for corrections in the current and previous versions.

This specification is in normative XHTML form, best viewed in Mozilla Firefox 1.0+ (or any Gecko 1.7+ based browser), Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0+, Opera 7.0+ and Apple Safari 1.0+. A non-normative PDF form is available here.

Please note that any content on this page or any other page linked here is subject to change (until finalized upon publication of the Final Specification).

Finally, please review the Terminology and Requirements pages before reading this document.

©2005 Jonathan Avidan - distributed under the Attribution/Share Alike Common License. This is a derivative work based on RSS 2.0.1 by Dave Winer and others, and to their work and efforts we are indebted.

Requirements and Terminology

This section is normative.

It is imperative for anyone who wishes to read the following specification to read the Terminology page which describes the terms used in this document.

It is also highly recommended to read the Requirements page, upon which the current document is based and to which it complies.

Further notice the normative application of the following semantics in this specification:

• [Definition: "informative"] Anything marked as "informative" is presented for the sake of further detail or general knowledge and does not stand to describe applicable features or suggested behaviors
• [Definition: "normative"] Anything marked as "normative" presents a section to whose rules and descriptions implementors have to adhere (whether optionally or obligatorily is marked using words described below in this list)
• [Definition: "non-normative"] Anything marked as "non-normative" presents a section which is not informative but descriptive of either "recommending" nature or changing nature; Take notice that all "comment" and "note" sections are non-normative unless pointed otherwise
• [Definition: "required"] A "required" feature of the format is one that must be present at any time within the RSS document, unless it is a feature of another one which is optional, in which case it must appear as long as the optional feature appears as wel
• [Definition: "optional"] An "optional" feature of the format is one that may be present when needed thus supplying further metadata
• The key words (normally, but not always, appearing in italic) "must", "must not", "required", "shall", "shall not", "should", "should not", "recommended", "may", "may not" and "optional" are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119
• When discussing a feature or behavior, the word "should" implies that the feature or behavior in discussion is basically optional but very warmly suggested for the sake of usability (especially when discussing implementor behavior)
• Also notice that though the word "section" is used to refer to several measures of text (from the smallest sub-section such as "the isEmpty Attribute" below to the greatest section such as "Specification"; However, the words "this section" or "the current section" will always refer to the smallest part of the document from its title to (and not including) the next section

Abstract

This section is informative.

The following section describes the abstract purpose of the format in general and this specification in particular. It is divided into three parts: "General" describing the theoretical purpose of the format; "Unique" describing the RSS format throughout its stages and "Specific" describing the current format and specification in particular.

General: RSS, which stands for Really Simple Syndication, is a standardized way to broadcast metadata via the Internet. Its purpose is to create easily understandable pieces of written information for processing into human-readable form by "Aggregators" and other applications of the sort.

Unique: The RSS Version 3 Class of Standards (which includes the RSS Category Declaration Language (RCDL) 1.0, RSS Rating Description Language (RRDL) 1.0, RSS 3 Full and the one of this specification: RSS 3 Lite) is hereby proposed in order to standardize the different available versions and formats of RSS (namely, the 0.9x class [where x is a number between and including 1 to 4] and the 2.0 class - other standards being irrelevant). The deprecated 0.90 format is disregarded here. The RSS format is similar in purpose and manner to the currently in progress Atom standard and the RSS 1.0 standard, both of which are outside of this specification's scope. RSS Version 3, the version proposed here to replace the 2.0 format (due to its under-documented and outdated state) is designed to be comprehensive, efficient and backwards-compatible when possible. For a full set of requirements to which the standards must comply, see the Requirements page. In conclusion: RSS Version 3 is meant to completely replace the outdated 0.9x and 2.0 classes of standards, while politely competing with or complimenting others such as RSS 1.0 and Atom.

Specific: RSS 3 Lite is a reduced form of the RSS Version 3 standard, intended to be used by low-end aggregators or similar applications. Its purpose is to be an efficiently succinct form of RSS 3, engulfing new useful features even to aggregators who only require a handful of metadata, while disposing of features irrelevant to low-end clients by either removing them entirely or placing them under the RSS 3 Full Specification. For example, a software which only needs to receive basic information about a certain link will use the RSS 3 Lite standard for its analysis of the RSS feed. A full-featured aggregator would be able to process most or all of the features described in the RSS 3 Full standard. As a result of complete interoperability, an RSS feed in Lite type could be processed by a RSS 3 Full-compatible processor as the Full type features are not obligatory, while a Lite-type processor is still perfectly capable of processing a Full-type feed by simply ignoring the Full-type features. RSS 3 Full is a highly expanded version of this specifications which consists of features intended for use by high-end aggregators or any processor which requires further metadata.

On further note: The RSS Category Declaration Language (RCDL) 1.0 is an XML-based standard specifically designed to declare the different categories used in an RSS feed or channel and its support is only required in the RSS 3 Full specification, thus irrelevant to the current document, as is the RSS Rating Description Language (RRDL) Version 1.0 which depicts the rating given to an item.

Status of this Document

This section is non-normative.

This document is in Initial Draft status, meaning it is the pre-public version of the specifications, meant for review by a select number or readers before revision into the First Draft version, after which the First Call for Comments stage will take place.

It is not to be considered as a finalized standard nor it is to be implemented in any public manner, excluding research and experiment purposes.

This document may be withdrawn at any given moment without notice; Though it is distributed under the Attribution/Share Alike Common Licence, it is strongly urged not to make derivative works of it yet and not implement it in any way until its final version is published. The content of this document is subject to change or removal. The right to refuse any suggestion of any form is reserved.

Table of Contents

This section is non-normative.

This is this document's table of contents. In order to skip to a desired section, simply click on the link below:

Specification:

1. Introduction
2. The RSS Document
   1. XML Structure
   3. Generic RSS Design
3. RSS Version 3.0 Lite-type Specifications
   1. Cascading Elements
   2. Common Elements and Attributes
      1. Common Attributes
         1. The "isEmpty" Attribute
         2. The "isUpdated" and "updateNum" Attributes
      2. Common Required Elements
         1. The
                  http://www.some-fake.url
                  This is an empty channel
                  
                     
                     
                     
                  
               
            

            A full-fledged features feed:

            D. Errata

            None.

             

            End of document.

            
            

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