The RSS Blog

News and commentary from the RSS and OPML community.

I get this question a lot, so here's my formal answer. Point everybody here, from now on. Let me elaborate on the question first. The question arises from the fact that USM uses an Atom element in RSS to enable one-click subscriptions to RSS feeds.

The short answer is Why Not?

The long answer is What's the alternate? There is no equivalent RSS element, so it's not funky. This seems to fall into the category of extending RSS thru namespaces. I could have re-used the RSS Link module, but I've been told by a member of the RSS working group that it's deprecated. I could have created my own vocabulary, but why create another wheel when I can simply re-use Atom? I would be the ultimate hypocrit to criticize Atom, iTunes RSS and mRSS for not re-using, instead of re-inventing and do the same mistake myself. Last, shortly after I released USM, the Atom working group implemented the same element in their format, which give us the added benefit of one solution to both Atom and RSS one-click subscription.

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