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5 RSS V1.0

Within this section:
5.1 What is RSS?
5.2 Where does RSS come from?
5.3 How does RSS work?
5.4 Standards and specifications

5.1 What is RSS?

RSS is a format for syndicating news and the content of news-like sites, including major news sites like Wired, news-oriented community sites like Slashdot, and personal weblogs. But it's not just for news. Pretty much anything that can be broken down into discrete items can be syndicated via RSS: the "recent changes" page of a wiki, a change log of CVS check-ins, even the revision history of a book...A news aggregator can help you keep up with all your favourite weblogs by checking their RSS feeds and displaying new items from each of them - Mark Pilgrim O'Reilly XML.com 18December 2002.

Essentially, an RSS file is a document describing a "channel" consisting of URL-retrievable items. Each item consists of a title, link, and brief description. While it is best known as the de-facto standard for syndicating news, it can also be used for vacancies, changes to a website, book, database or almost any publication that can be broken down into discrete items.

For a description of the practical application of RSS go to: http://idg.net.nz/news.nsf/UNID/2309A7756976ABF0CC256E320063F880?OpenDocument&Highlight=2,RSS

5.2 Where does RSS come from?

Netscape developed the original RSS 0.91 standard for building its portals. After Netscape's demise, two separate strands of development took place resulting in RSS V1.0 and RSS V2.0.

5.2.1 RSS V1.0

The RSS DEV working group base continued to develop the original RSS 0.91 standard, continuing with RDF but adding the Dublin Core and namespace functionality to achieve a common vocabulary for identifying the schema elements.

The result is RSS V1.0 - a lightweight multipurpose extensible metadata description and syndication format that is human and machine-readable. RSS is an XML application that conforms to the W3C's RDF specification and is extensible via XML-namespace and/or RDF based modularisation.

5.2.2 RSS V2.0

In late 2002, as the result of continued development of the RSS 0.9x versions by UserLand Software Inc, RSS V2.0 was released superseding the RSS 0.9x. It is not recommended for adoption by the New Zealand government as it does not use XML Namespaces, or RDF and the Dublin Core compliance with which government agencies are so familiar through NZGLS metalogue.

For a full comparison of RSS V1.0 and RSS V2.0 go to: http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2002/12/18/dive-into-xml.html?page=1 .

5.3 How does RSS work?

Syndication using RSS is achieved by agencies making an RSS feed available on a website at a specific URL address. The feed can be requested just like any other file or resource on the server, which is normally done at regular intervals to get the most recent items on the list. In practice, several feeds are made available by an aggregator, which is a website or program that manages a number of lists and presents them in a single interface.

In this proposal, participating government agencies provide their news content as a feed, which the central server (managed by the SSC EGU) regularly downloads. The central server acts as an aggregator, displaying the news in a single interface. The central server then makes an aggregated feed available for further consumption. The initial consumer of all news published in this way is the government web portal at http://www.govt.nz/.