What is Atom for?

[Svgdeveloper@xxxxxxx]

The question in this post's title says it all, I guess. And, No, it isn't intended as a flame. I would prefer answers that illuminate, not simply raise the temperature. :)

I have been asking myself the question in this post's title recently and failing to come up with a totally compelling answer. I guess the Nature article on RSS in Science tipped me from the wondering mode to the asking mode. :)

I went back to the Atom Charter, http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/atompub-charter.html, to see if it provided clarity of purpose. In my view, it didn't.

And, looking back at Tim Bray's blog post, "The Atom End-Game", http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2004/11/11/AtomInnovation , it didn't seem to be referring to the process that the Charter describes.

Hence my fairly fundamental question.

If the answer is clear it shouldn't take long to dispose of the question. If the answers are not clear then, in my view, that is an interesting situation in itself.

Andrew Watt