There it is, The Atom Syndication Format 0.4.
[Changes from 0.3][changes]:
* Update URI terms for 2396bis.
* Add Category construct (PaceCategoryRevised).
* Insert paranoid XHTML interpretation guidelines.
* Adjust atom:copyright, per chairs’ instruction.
* Add atom:host as child element of atom:entry, per chairs’ direction (PacePersonConstruct).
* Add link/content co-constraint (PaceContentOrLink).
* Remove atom:origin as a side effect of adding atom:head to atom:entry (PaceHeadInEntry).
* Add optional length attribute to atom:link (PaceLinkRelated).
* Add Link registry to Link Construct, IANA Considerations placeholder (PaceFieldingLinks).
* Change definition of atom:updated (PaceUpdatedDefinition).
[changes]: http://www.atompub.org/2005/01/10/draft-ietf-atompub-format-04.html#rfc.section.B
Personally I find the handling of a document’s dates is well done. We have [atom:updated][upd] and [atom:published][pub] to indicate the most important dates describing documents: when was it originally published and when took the last update place.
[Originally we discussed][orig] five dates:
* Created: the date the entry was originally created
* [Dateline][dl]:the date the publisher wishes visibly to assign to the entry (note RFC3339 problems on this one)
* [Issued][iss]([¹][pub]): the date the entry was first made available
* [Modified][mod]: the most recent date on which any aspect of the entry’s content changed
* [Updated][upd]([²][upd2]): the most recent date on which the publisher wishes to draw attention to the entry’s having changed
[dl]: http://intertwingly.net/wiki/pie/PaceDateline
[iss]: http://intertwingly.net/wiki/pie/IssuedElement
[pub]: http://intertwingly.net/wiki/pie/PaceDatePublished
[mod]: http://intertwingly.net/wiki/pie/PaceDateModified
[upd]: http://intertwingly.net/wiki/pie/PaceDateUpdated
[upd2]: http://intertwingly.net/wiki/pie/PaceDateUpdated2
Created never made it into a pace, Dateline died rather quickly, Issued became Published, Modified was dropped and Updated is now THE date in an Atom element.
[upd]: http://www.atompub.org/2005/01/10/draft-ietf-atompub-format-04.html#rfc.section.5.9
[pub]: http://www.atompub.org/2005/01/10/draft-ietf-atompub-format-04.html#rfc.section.5.10
[orig]: http://intertwingly.net/wiki/pie/DateSurvey
This looks like a solid solution to me — but only time and usage will tell whether it really is or not ;)