Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: Asking Tim

Author:Tim O'Reilly
Posted:9/20/2000; 7:56:18 AM
Topic:Asking Tim
Msg #:21537 (In response to 21524)
Prev/Next:21536 / 21538

You described the situation exactly, John. I'll add a further note, though. I was really torn about whether to invite Dave or not. I would have loved to have his input, but worried that he'd be disruptive.

What's more, when I was in the throes of trying to decide, Dave sent me the following message:

From: "Dave Winer" <dave@userland.com>
To: "Rael Dornfest" <rael@oreilly.com>
Cc: "Dale Dougherty" <dale@oreilly.com>, "Tim O'Reilly" <tim@oreilly.com>
Subject: Good luck with RSS
(Wed, 13 Sep 2000)


PS: To Tim, no need to invite me to speak at your conf or write chapters for
your books. We're not working with O'Reilly in any way. I don't want to have
anything to do with your company, or you. No more email. Thanks

Speaking of RSS, here's my read on what happened. (I wasn't directly involved.) A group of people involved in RSS got together to start thinking about its future evolution. Dave was part of the group. When the consensus of the group turned in a direction he didn't like, Dave stopped participating, and characterized it as a plot by O'Reilly to take over RSS from him, despite the fact that Rael Dornfest of O'Reilly was only one of about a dozen authors of the proposed RSS 1.0 spec, and that many of those who were part of its development had at least as long a history with RSS as Dave had. The only connection I can see is that the O'Reilly Network ran a series of ads on our sites promoting its stories about the RSS 1.0 spec (just as it promotes other stories on O'Reilly Network sites). Dave never approached me directly to express a point of view such as "I think the RSS spec is going in the wrong direction. Is there anything you can do to help get my point of view across to the other developers?" Instead, the first I heard of it was a series of public accusations that my company was leading a conspiracy to steal "Dave's" standard.

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