Subject: NOTE TO OPERA STAFF : Problem with misrepresentation of Atom version number in Widget community

From: "M. David Peterson" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 2 May 2006 11:51:41 -0600

I can only assume that someone from Opera is on this list, and I'm not
even sure this is that big of a deal, but then again....

From: http://my.opera.com/community/customize/widgets/info/?id=4021

This feed allows subscribing to an unlimited number of news feeds.
Supported formats: RSS 2 and > Atom 2 <. Thus providing an advantage
over per-site news feed aggregators.
---

I realized Web2 is the hot "new" thing, but and RSS 2 is obviously not
an issue (well, not from the standpoint of improper promotion of the
so called version #) but if not mistaken, the Atom community will
never have the need for an Atom 2.0 spec, so it might be worth pinging
whomever developed the above widget to let them know they need to fix
this.

NOTE: Would have done so myself, but can't seem to find a place to
post a note other than through the ratings panel, and I can only
assume that, like the Fx community, the Opera community would prefer
that bug reports don't come through the ratings channel.

Thanks in advance!

--
<M:D/>

M. David Peterson
http://www.xsltblog.com/

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From: "Mihai Sucan" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 02 May 2006 23:34:39 +0300

> that bug reports don't come through the ratings channel.

Hello!

I happend to be subscribed to this mailing list. Just joined this week.

I am the author of the widget. Yes, my mistake. Appologies.

I'll update the widget and I'll ask the editors of My Opera community site  
to fix that.

I must make myself very clear, it was *not* my intention to use improper  
version number and to falsely promote Atom 2 support.

Thank you very much for posting this, yet I would have been glad if you  
would've contacted me first via my site.

-- 
http://www.robodesign.ro
ROBO Design - We bring you the future

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From: "M. David Peterson" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 2 May 2006 14:41:10 -0600

Very cool!  Thanks for the prompt reply :)

re: I must make myself very clear, it was *not* my intention to use improper
version number and to falsely promote Atom 2 support.

My apologies if I came across the wrong way... I wasn't meaning to call you
out and suggest something evil had taken place... I have just seen things
like this be taken to mean "There's a version two on its way?" or even
something as simple as assuming that in fact, Atom 2 is the current version
and simply accept, to then propograte this information.  I simply wanted to
make sure that this didn't take place.

Thanks again for the response and for taking the steps to get it fixed! :)

--
<M:D/>

M. David Peterson
http://www.xsltblog.com/

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From: "Mihai Sucan" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 03 May 2006 11:50:09 +0300

Hello!

I'm glad this widget description wasn't considered something of an evil  
nature :). I consider I made the mistake because of a typo on my behalf  
and/or at the moment of writing the description I forgot the Atom version  
number (this is because I don't work with feeds too often). I was hurried  
to release the widget for their competition.

Yes, I will take the steps to get that fixed, ASAP.

Thanks for the nice reply :).

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From: "M. David Peterson" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 May 2006 03:11:41 -0600

Right on... Good luck!  The reason the widget caught my eye in the first
place was because of the lead-in suggesting its generic approach (e.g. not
tied to any specific feed.)  If I'm going to have a widget feedreader its
needs to be able to access and make available more than one feed...  I'm
amazed that other widget developers find justification in developing
one-feed widgets > I can see from a markleting perspective folks might see
the widget craze in similar light to the Google toolbar or the similar where
they can drive people to their site by providing them direct-browser access
to simple utilities that make browsing more enjoyable/easier to find
things.  I'm amazed, however, that folks either make this type of
comparison, and therefore justify one-off feed reader widgets, or they have
enough of a customer base that doesn't care about any other feed and
therefore justifies such a centralized focus.

With all of the above, its nice to see that someone has realized a generic
feed-reader was MANDATORY if they want any level of mass adoption.  This is
the first one I have seen in the Opera widget library, so best of luck to
you... you deserve some definite extra-credit points for (as far as I know
anyway) for being the first off-the-line...  If nothing else, theres reward
in such knowledge in and of itself, but I hope you win either way :)

--
<M:D/>

M. David Peterson
http://www.xsltblog.com/

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From: "Mihai Sucan" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 03 May 2006 15:32:41 +0300

Hello!

Yes, true. I also don't see the justification to make a single per-site  
feed reader widget. It's ... uhm ... useless since (almost) nobody is  
interested only in, say, slashdot.org. Having many widgets for all sites  
I'm interested is *way* too much. The only advantage for such widgets are  
marketing advantages.

Yes, I also see it important to have a generic feed reader.

Thank you for your appreciation. The widget does much better parsing of  
Atom and RSS 2 feeds than what you see graphically. In the interface I had  
no time to add all the features and things I wanted. The second version of  
the widget will try to provide as many features as possible. The only  
problem I have is ... not enough spare time. I have the knowledge I need  
to make the Raggregator widget as powerful as dedicated feed readers  
(podcasting, photocasting, feed grouping, etc). If you look into the  
source code of the widget, you see I've tried to make it as clean as  
possible, commented and easy to read.

As for the contest. I lost. Maybe I lost because I sent the widget too  
late (not sure).

In regards to the Atom 2 problem. I have updated my blog post and sent a  
message to a guy from Opera Software to update the description of the  
widget. He has already answered me: problem fixed.

Thanks again.