The net-net of the discussion this week with the W3C and their hosting or pointing to a modified RSS 2.0 spec is that at this time, before trusting any advice it gives based on RSS, you must be sure that it’s covered by the original spec.
In the discussion we had with the W3C, the sysop of their website said clearly and I believe innocently that the modified “version” of the spec is what they’re using to guide the validator.
But there are no versions of RSS 2.0. It’s frozen. It says it clearly in the roadmap, which explains why it’s frozen, developers need stability.
All that happened over twenty years ago. And it worked. RSS is one of the most broadly supported formats on the web. It’s the basis for podcasting. It’s widely supported by news orgs and blogging software. All kinds of systems have been built around RSS. Twenty