This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Agile Buzz by James Robertson. Original Post: Why Atom? Feed Title: Cincom Smalltalk Blog - Smalltalk with Rants Feed URL: http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/rssBlog/rssBlogView.xml Feed Description: James Robertson comments on Cincom Smalltalk, the Smalltalk development community, and IT trends and issues in general. Latest Agile Buzz Posts Latest Agile Buzz Posts by James Robertson Latest Posts From Cincom Smalltalk Blog - Smalltalk with Rants

Danny Ayers lets slip the real reason for Atom:

From the start I've thought of the benefits of Atom as including getting away from the messy politics, and having a format that includes most of the best bits of RSS 2.0 and RSS 1.0.

Translated: "We all hate Dave Winer". The supposed reason:

Both RSS 1.0 and RSS 2.0 are pretty weak when it comes to inline content handling (1.0 largely because of its origins from the early RDF specs, 2.0 because of ambiguity about escaping). A lot of effort has gone into sorting that out in Atom. Errm, that actually contradicts Tim's argument a little - it is doing something new

This "ambiguity over escaping" is a hardy chestnut that keeps popping up. In theory, it's an objection. In actual practice, it's mostly a non-problem. So ultimately, IMHO, Atom exists because a bunch of people interested in syndication hate Dave Winer. Yeah, there's a great reason to create a code tax for the rest of us...