Incorrect use of atom:source element in aggregated content distribution

[GoogleCodeExporter]

SUMMARY:

Overloading the atom:source element as a means of identifying the topic
feed in aggregated content distribution can result in incorrect attribution
of the original source of the content.

RELEVANT SECTION: 7.5.  Aggregated Content Distribution

COMMENT/REQUEST:

If a feed entry already contains an atom:source element, as is common in
aggregated feeds, overwriting the contents of that atom:source element with
metadata from the aggregating feed would result in the entry being
incorrectly attributed. You would have misidentified the original source of
the entry, potentially even replacing the name and details of the author.

On the other hand, if you left the original atom:source unchanged (as you
should), there is no way for A subscriber to identify which topic a
particular entry is associated with (when the entry is part of a combined
payload in aggregated content distribution).

What is probably needed is a separate extension element or a new link
relation rather than overloading the atom:source element.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by j4ja...@gmail.com on 21 Feb 2010 at 8:29

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Yep. We're probably going to ditch aggregated delivery in a coming draft, and 
make it 
part of an extension instead. Thanks for the thorough description of the issue 
here.

Original comment by bslatkin on 22 Feb 2010 at 5:21