[Feeds] Re: Should we standardize on a single URL path to RSS feeds?

[Mark <[e-mail]>]

Thanks for the clarification, Martin.

Hmm, "robots.txt" seems fine, despite the bad little bots that ignore it ;) 

Maybe I'm missing it. But I'd love to understand why IETF has concluded that fixed URLs are a bad idea, if possible. If anyone can link me to the rationale, that would be great!

Mark Kennedy
Engineer
openrss.org


On Thursday, December 26th, 2024 at 3:04 AM, Martin J. Dürst <[e-mail]> wrote:

> Hello Mark,
> 
> There are people on this list with more background knowledge in this
> area, but robots.txt was probably the earliest example of a fixed link.
> Then came favicon.ico. These are historic artefacts that are difficult
> to remove.
> 
> After favicon.ico, people in the IETF, the W3C, and elsewhere started to
> realize that this was a bad idea and created explanatory texts such as
> RFC 3205 (later updated to RFC 9205), and mechanisms such as .wellknown
> (RFC 5785, later updated to RFC 8615).
> 
> .wellkown essentially makes the mistake of defining a fixed link
> (prefix) for one last time, and then stuffs all future fixed links into
> the /.wellknown/ directory, governed by a registry at IANA to avoid
> collisions.
> 
> Regards, Martin.
> 
> On 2024-12-26 16:26, Mark wrote:
> 
> > Hey Martin,
> > 
> > Thanks for the link. I've taken a look at that and it says
> > 
> > "specifications for applications that use HTTP won't contain fixed application URLs or paths; while it is common practice [...], doing so in an IETF specification is inappropriate".
> > 
> > This suggests that my original question around a standard and fixed URL path for RSS feeds would be inappropriate for the IETF. However, it contradicts something like section 2.3 of RFC 9309 (https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9309.html#name-access-method) where a fixed URL path is clearly being used for a "robots.txt" file. Please correct me if I'm misunderstanding, but why is having a fixed URL path for something like "robots.txt" acceptable for the IETF, but not for a fixed URL path for RSS feeds?
> > 
> > Thanks for any clarification.
> > 
> > Mark Kennedy
> > Engineer
> > openrss.org
> > 
> > On Thursday, December 26th, 2024 at 1:36 AM, Martin J. Dürst [e-mail] wrote:
> > 
> > > Sorry for being so late, but when cleaning up my inbox, I found this and
> > > thought that for some people, a look at RFC 9205 (BCP 56), in particular
> > > Section 4.4
> > > (https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9205#name-specifying-urls) might
> > > provide some additional background.
> > > 
> > > Regards, Martin.
> > > 
> > > On 2024-12-18 06:41, Rob Sayre wrote:
> > > 
> > > > Oh, it's so much worse than you think. :)
> > > > 
> > > > Check this one out:
> > > > 
> > > > https://help.apple.com/itc/podcasts_connect/#/itcb54353390
> > > > 
> > > > Look at "itunes:new-feed-url" there. Apologies in advance, it's like
> > > > nails on a chalkboard.
> > > > 
> > > > thanks,
> > > > Rob
> > > 
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