Is Atom 1.0 almost ready for prime time? Tim Bray seems to think so. Today, he posted a proposal to the Atom wiki suggesting that we incorporate one more proposal (for a category element), clean up the draft, and submit it. I must admit, I was surprised to see someone make the suggestion, and even more surprised when I found out it was Tim. Then I reviewed the list of outstanding proposals, and my reason for surprise changed: we really are getting close.

Looking over the issues list, the most significant outstanding format-related proposals have to do with extensibility and links. I personally will be a bit disappointed if we punt on nailing down links a little more tightly (though as far as we are from consensus, I can understand people wanting to), and I think PaceHeadInEntry would be a good proposal to roll in before we call it 1.0, but other than that, I must admit, to my surprise, that I think we really are ready to move on.

I'd thought this wasn't going to happen till mid-2005.