[georss] Georss extension

[Marc]

Hi Carl

xAL is a fantastic specification, no doubt about it. I just have the 
feeling it is too complicated for 'Really Simple Syndication' and it is 
addressing an other problem. I am not speaking about addresses since 
lat/lng are already covering this granularity. What I have in mind is 
the higher level granularity where lat/lng does not make sense.

I would like to illustrate the complexity of xAL with one single line of 
the example you provided.

> <CountryNameCode>US</CountryNameCode> 

You could also have written :
<CountryNameCode>USA</CountryNameCode>

The xAL specification does not say which country code is contained in 
the element (at least I am not able to find it, please correct me if I 
am wrong). What about this :
<CountryNameCode>AU</CountryNameCode>

Does AU refer to Australia or Austria?

There is absolutely no way for you to know, as both are perfectly legal 
and widely used country codes. In ISO 'AU' stands for Australia and in 
FIPS 'AU' stands for Austria. To make unequivocally sure which country 
you mean you have to write :

<CountryNameCode Scheme=iso.3166-2>AU</CountryNameCode>

The point I am trying to make is : 'How does Joe Average Programmer know 
this?' Don't we need a simple and bulletproof specification 
understandable also for non gis-specialists?
Maybe we can agree on a subset of xAL, a kind of "Simple xAL". The xAL 
specification clearly says : "Important: Use only elements and 
attributes that make sense to you. Ignore the rest that are needless for 
you. "

Cheers

Marc