A few days ago, I read that Dave Winer had offered the W3C the keys to RSS if Atom goes to the IETF. Today, I'll indulge in wild speculations on the subject.

First, why would Dave make the offer? The source quoted Dave as saying:

1) He didn't expect they'd accept the offer.

2) He thought the offer would give W3C leverage in the tug-of-war between them and IETF (since the Atom community would presumably be worried about RSS posing stiffer competition if backed by W3C).

That's an odd combination of assertions. If the Atom community shares his doubts that W3C would accept, then they won't be worried about it, and thus, no leverage. I don't expect W3C would accept, so it gains no leverage with me.

And if he did feel it would really give W3C leverage, why do that? Is there some reason he'd rather Atom went to W3C? And again, why make the offer? And why make it now? Now the speculation gets wild. Did he see that the community was leaning toward IETF, which would likely get Atom to 1.0 a bit faster, and decide to try to slow them down either by moving it to W3C, or at least making the decision take longer? Was it a publicity stunt to make people think he was willing to reduce his influence on RSS, carrying little risk because either Atom would go to W3C or W3C would reject the offer of RSS? Or if W3C accepted, he felt confident he could either control it's direction there or derail it there if it started moving in the wrong direction? Wow, I sure sound cynical. I'm not going to claim that any of those were his motivations, but I will say that I'm having difficulty coming up with other answers.

But I should at least try. Perhaps he's concerned that if Atom gets backing from IETF or W3C, it will grow stronger vis-a-vis RSS, and thus wants similar backing for RSS. If that's the case, why not make the same offer to IETF? Because it's too open, and thus too likely to go in the wrong direction? I'd guess that's why, and I can respect that position. Dave values backwards compatibility highly, and if his influence is diminished too much, the risk that the next version of RSS wouldn't be backwards compatible is high. There are probably other similar risks.

Well, whatever the motivation, it sure made the day more interesting.