So in playing around with RSS aggregators, I came across a tool that presents RSS feed information in the form of an NNTP connection. The package is called, unimaginatively NNTP//RSS.
To me it seems like a no-brainer solutioin to a real problem. How do you write software that lets you browse aggregated RSS feeds in a nice UI? It sure felt like Usenet all over again. But we all know that Usenet is Dead.
*beat*
Anyway, I tried out their test feed with KNode, the newsreader that comes with KDE (and by gosh and by gum, a damned good one it is), and lo, it works!
Now, of course, the next problem. Now that we’ve re-invented Usenet, how do you get RSS commentary to aggregate? Can the RSS feeds also feed in commentary / followups? I don’t think so, by gosh I miss the huge warning in ‘rn “Your posting will cost hundreds, perhaps thousands of dollars. Are you sure you want to do this?” This is probably my own ignorance here, so I’m always looking for other folks to clue me in on the current state of RSS. 🙂
I’ll probably be setting this up at homeport soon and giving it a whirl. I’ll keep ya’ll posted.
