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by Bill de hÓra.
Original Post: A registry for one click feed subscription, anyone?
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You'd think we'd know by now that centralized registries are often a bigger problem than the one they puport to solve. The problem posed this time is One-Click Subscription, one I think whose solutions invloves getting the client browsers to dispatch on something. Almost all browsers have a plugin/dispatch architecture - that's how IE or Mozilla knows to pops up your mail client or run Acrobat Reader. Aside from the considerations that come with any centralized model, a registry for subscribing to feeds feels like overkill. The argument for a registry seems to be based on the notion that feeds are not served with the correct media-type so getting the browser to dispatch is a problem. This can be solved for most users by providing a right-click "subscribe to this" menu option for the use to use on a URL (we do it already for "blog-this"). It can be solved by creating a new URI scheme (feed://) - that seems to lack technical elegance in some quarters (including my own it should be said, but if a registry is coming down the pipe I might reconsider). It can be solved by getting ISPs to have Apache serve content correctly. It can be solved by providing an @rel attribute in the link. Yet, some people already want to figure out the business model for supporting a registry - that should be setting off alarm bells right there - central control points are not a sound basis for robust open architectures. Even then, getting a client browser to open up a client feed reader via one click doesn't like a basis for a business, not when existing infrastructure is good enough. Probably it'll be solved using a collection of techniques - feed:// URIs, media-type, right-click, content scanning for @rel and so on. A hybrid approach may lack technical purity but the user for the most part won't have to care about what's going on - and it beats the bejeesus out of a registry, which is only sustainable by conserving complexity for the benefit of the registry owner....
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