To people who want to know why I called Movable Type's support for RSS funky, here's why.

I want all blogging tools to produce the same RSS, modulo differences that are rooted in real differences between the products. There's a reason for this, because I want to lay a framework for universal support for the MetaWeblog API, which is intimately connected to RSS 2.0, not by accident.

In other words we have a vocabulary to describe the features of weblog posts and most of the vocabulary we need to describe a weblog. We should be at a point, as an industry, where we're ready to develop real interchange between products, so that users have choice. Vendors with small installed bases usually want this, and ones with larger bases, usually don't. But not enabling interop is a chicken-shit way to compete. It's a sure sign of a large installed base but an inadequate development team or codebase.

Now, I reasoned with both Blogger and Movable Type people offline. The MT people responded with some respect, at least now their support for 0.91 has been upgraded to 2.0, but they still, by default produce RDF where RSS is called for. I know some people claim that RSS is RDF, but a simple read of the archive of the Syndication list will illuminate. I'm not going to argue it anymore, tired of doing that. Just know that I have read the archive, and I know what it says, and I know what's right, and if you look, you'll know too.

One of my biggest critics, Mark Pilgrim bothered to look, so did Rogers Cadenhead, who is no pushover. At some point the discussion has to stop, and for me, that was the day I said publicly what I had been saying privately -- MT's support for RSS is funky, and guys and gals, I was being kind. I could have said it's wrong. It's as wrong as it would be for UserLand to implement Trackback that doesn't work with Movable Type, or implement the Blogger API and change the order of the parameters. As adults, we should be a little more respectful, the products should compete on the basis of features and performance, not on being incompatible. UserLand clearly moved first in RSS in blogging tools, and it's up to the people who are following, to do so with respect. That others say they shouldn't is no excuse. Sorry.

# Posted on 6/14/03; 6:48:18 AM