intertwingly

Sam, I haven't said it before so I'll say it now.  You're doing a great job.  I appreciate your determination and focus.

I heartily agree. Don't let the tantrums of highly visible people derail the good work going on with Echo.

Thanks for the opportunity to comment on Aaron's post. I cc'd Larry Lessig on an earlier email to Aaron. What he did was awful -- he changed what I said and then posted it as an "honest question." Aaron has been doing this kind of very dishonest thing for too long. It doesn't matter that he's a cute kid anymore, he's a player and he's playing dirty. That you chose to pass it on Sam says you play dirty too. Watch it, or I'll start asking "honest questions" about you and your motives.

Um, Dave, Aaron cites the source of his confusion, by linking to it directly on your website.

How does cc'ing Larry Lessig have anything to do with Aaron asking you about something on ScriptingNews?

Sam this reputation-trashing stuff has to stop. Tim Bray started it with his Charles Goldfarb story. I'll repeat it here so you can read it, because clearly you missed it. This was the wanton destruction.

"Dave Winer has done a tremendous amount of work on RSS and invented important parts of it and deserves a huge amount of credit for getting us as far as we have. However, just looking around, I observe that there are many people and organizations who seem unable to maintain a good working relationship with Dave.

"I regularly get pissed-off at Dave but I really truly do think he’s trying to Do The Right Thing; but there are many people out there who can't get past being pissed off. This is what life is like.

"There’s an uncannny echo here, for me. The thing that came before XML was called SGML. SGML was largely invented, and its landscape dominated, by a burly, bearded, brilliant New Yorker, Charles Goldfarb, who is currently making a well-deserved killing bringing out the Definitive XML Series of books for Prentice-Hall. Charles is loquacious, persistent, smart, loud-voiced, and nearly always gets his way.

"There were a lot of people out there (still are, I guess) whom Charles drives completely nuts and just won’t work with him. Which is one of the reasons that, when we invented XML, we felt the need to give it a new name and a new acronym and so on. Mind you, Charles, who as I said is no dummy, climbed on board the XML bandwagon about fifteen seconds after it got rolling and was a major help in getting the thing finished and delivered.

"Anyhow, like I said, there’s an echo in here."

Lessig is a mutual friend of Aaron's and mine, and an endorser of Echo as Aaron and I both are. I thought perhaps he could mediate between us before this gets out of hand. No one wins when two people who are supposed to be on the same side start trashing each other in public.

BTW, how much you want to bet that this is where the name Echo came from, and Sam if you knew that, you should either retract any statement where you said I should work with you, or apologize for passing on such a nasty idea, or explain how the name Echo was just a coincidence. To me it seems obvious that right down to the name this was a personal thing with you and the others who launched it. And that says your professionalism was pretty far away when you hatched this thing. Interested in hearing what you have to say about this. Something to disclaim and clean up if you want this thing to work. I promise you that RSS, OPML, SOAP and XML-RPC weren't hatched with any idea of getting even with anyone.

http://scriptingnews.userland.com/backissues/2001/12/21#balderdash
http://scriptingnews.userland.com/backissues/2002/08/17#When:9:02:51AM
http://scriptingnews.userland.com/backissues/2001/12/22#btwTheresSomethingVeryAtlasShruggedAboutLessigsPitchLawyersOyLawyersUseSoftwareTooIWonderWhatSoftwareLessigUsesHeShouldHaveATalkWithThePeopleWhoWroteTheSoftwareAndExplainWhatFeaturesHeWantsAndWhatBugsHeWantsFixedAndThenTellThemAfterTheyDoAllThatWorkThatTheyHaveToGiveTheirSourceToTheirCompetitorsIHaveAFeelingHellLeaveTheMeetingWithoutGettingWhatHeWants
http://scriptingnews.userland.com/backissues/2002/08/19#When:7:49:07PM
http://scriptingnews.userland.com/backissues/2002/08/19#makingMoneyWithWeblogs

There has been a great deal of forward motion in the Echo project today. Looks like the discussion about escaping HTML has come to a conclusion. Other areas that have settled seem to be Author and PermLinks. Things are looking very good for Echo,...

http://www.intertwingly.net/wiki/pie/NameItEchoDiscussion

The record on the wiki is pretty clear, Matt suggests the name, not Sam, not Tim.  Whether he suggests it in reference to Tim's article is debatable, but the evidence certainly isn't there to suggest it.  We could ask him I suppose.

However, the popular support for the name comes, as people on the wiki clearly state, because its a good name the for the project.  Matt says he chose it because he wants "EchoEnabled" tools.  Pharses like "nicely evocative", and "nice ring and some semantical meaning", seem to be the driving force.

Sam notably makes no comment one way or another, while Tim states, "I prefer Pie".

All of which is irrelevant in the long run, because it's not going to be called Echo.

So can we go back to calling it pie? I like the phrases 'handing out slices of PIE' and 'sending some PIE'.

Mark,

But there are conflicts with Pie, and Reverb, and just about every other decent name suggested.  (None of  which are nearly as popular as the other RSS.)

kellan,
  Is there a project named PIE in the same space? Echo is particularly unsuitable because the project is related in a broad sense.

Reason for this note is: I swear to god that I didn't catch the possible linkage between my "echo in here" and Matt Haughey's proposed Pie replacement until this moment, 12:01 AM Pacific Time Monday June 30th.

I don't know Matt in the slightest so I can't say it's impossible but it does seem highly unlikely.

Dare: When I see "Pie" or "PIE" in a web context, I instantly think of Pocket Internet Explorer. Sue me... I love my iPaqs and Axims. :)

A little experimenting with the Project Formerly Known As Echo:

a NotEcho feed for this blog

a NotEcho feed for this entry

I liked the sound of echo when Matt proposed it and never connected it to Tim's analogy. There are clearly personality conflicts in this arena but let's not magnify them.

I want to bet all the money I have. Absurdity. Who cares what it's named. That's really the point.

Onward.

Stay above it all, Sam, that's the only way through the storms.

I did not propose the name Echo, nor have I ever endorsed it.  Like Tim, I never saw the potential connection to Tim's reference to Charles Goldfarb.

The name Echo is off the table.

I personally thought Tim Bray's piece came across as rather complementary, though admittedly I've never met Goldfarb. 

But whatever, I think most reasonable people would see the statements Aaron quoted as being contradictory. The response to Aaron's post is pure reputation-trashing. I must admit one line did make me giggle though :

"He's gotten a rep for being a software genius, but that's mostly with lawyers, not software people."

(http://scriptingnews.userland.com/2003/06/29)

Danny, the post about Aaron on Scripting News was the response to Aaron's post, and Sam's link-and-lecture here. Like I said, if you bite me, I'm going to bite back.

Bray, what you did is inexcusable, trashing my rep the way you did. So selfish, so destructive. You should be ashamed of yourself, a man of your stature resorting to such ad hominems. You will lose your charter to lead if that's the way you do it.

Sam, whether you knew it or not, now you're a leader, and you're responsible for what this group does. You indulge in lecturing me using Aaron's attack as your knife, I suppose you're going to tell me that it's his fault that he changed what I said, that you didn't know and aren't responsible. Well that doesn't wash. You don't get to be innocent now, you get examined and poked, the way you examine and poke, so be careful.

Best thing for all of you to do is to get busy writing specs. You've bit off a big one. If you don't deliver something usable soon, this wound you created is going to get infected and fester. Get busy. You asked for the ball, you got it. Now show us what your technology looks like, and how you can work together to create something. You've already demonstrated how you can destroy. I'm still here by the way.

Dave: No offence intended, but do you really think that the damage to your reputation was caused by Tim? Do you forget the whole Winer number thing and, more importantly, the reasons that Mark created them?

More to the point, I think Tim's piece put you in a positive light. He was saying that you're a smart guy, albeit one whom some people don't like too much. Is that honestly untrue?

Gary, like I said, get busy writing specs.

BTW, to anonymous -- an important lesson. Lessig and I are friends, and the friendship is stronger for our past differences, which were not personal, but professional.

That's what happens when you become an adult, you start to appreciate the value of people who disagree with you. Lessig, for example, likes to debate Jack Valenti, his arch-enemy, because it helps highlight his argument because Valenti is so extremely different. I imagine he even likes Valenti at a personal level (I have no idea whether he does or not).

It's one of life's little ironies that you learn to appreciate once you've done a little living. It's amazing to me sometimes how immature programmers are about things like this. The world is not black and white. At the same time I think that Mark Pilgrim is being an asshole, I also know that he's smart and capable of great things. Sure I can be an asshole too. That's the mark of people who create stuff, they irritate people, because the world resists change. Look for the guy who's making waves and it's likely you've found a true innovator, not one who reinvents, but someone who creates new stuff. Occasionally Mark does that (since someone raised Mark and his personal issues with me). Lessig is also an innovator in the same way, in his own field, the law.

However, when the differences get personal, as with Bray's piece about me, all collegiality breaks down. I wanted to engage Lessig in conversation, and guess what it worked. Now the world is a better place, imho. I can't engage with Bray when he doesn't give me the right to exist. I have to fight that, as I am, until he comes to his senses and recants, which I hope he does.

Also to anonymous, next time tell us a little about yourself. It makes conversation more interesting.

Dare,

I did a quick due diligence on Pie when the name was first suggested, and added the notes to NameIePieDiscussion.

"Private Information Exchange (PIE) is a JAVA client that adds user controlled privacy to Peer-to-Peer network filesharing, instant messaging and email."

Which seems to be at least as much in the same space as the Echo webapp framework.

Now as p2p Pie is a little under a month old, without substantial activity it didn't seem like a big deal.

However, I think that describes NetApp's Echo as well.

My point is not that we can't use Pie, but that we've set the standard so high almost nothing will be acceptable.  And there I'll drop it.

Dave, I withdraw what I said about reputation-trashing. You're making a fine job of trashing your own reputation, so I guess it balances out.

I'm an end user and generator of RSS, I'll admit I have a limited understanding of current debate for the new API, expect for the fact that some people would like a new one for the reasons of flexibility, neutrality and embracing international standards. A good idea. Whether a new spec or API is necessary is beyond this discussion, technology has to move forward and from my cursory view roadblocks and name calling to stall this progress has to be ignored, consider them a compliment.

I can understand Mr. Winer's comments and feelings of being threatened because he feels this new spec will force his control over syndication into a minority, clearly the answer lies in Mr. Winer opening up his own Wiki discussion on RSS 2.0.1 to show how serious he is about changing and adapting to new ideas, less funk. Barring that unlikely outcome I suggest discussions about where the name Echo came from -- with its meaning, who said what to whom and 'taking bites out of people' are beneath the ultimate idea of creating technologies that everyone can use. It looks very amateurish.

From the perspective of a professional researcher this distraction is a good reason to adopt a benevolent dictatorship in construction of this new spec and move forward, in complete disregard for those who use public sounding boards to cause arrested development. Perhaps my limited knowledge of this debate should exclude me from the discussion, I acknowledge that type of reaction. From an outsiders point of view the FUD being created looks nothing short of professional jealousy or a catastrophic failure in communication. Adopt the personality of a Tank and move forward.

Gummi, regarding a 2.0.1 wiki, is this close enough:

http://www.cadenhead.org/workbench/2003/06/28.html#a771

take a simple thing like a file format, add a few intelligent people, fold in a large helping of fear, uncertainty, and doubt, and you have the recipie for silly antics in the technical world, particularly when it comes to RSS.

take a simple thing like a file format, add a few intelligent people, fold in a large helping of fear, uncertainty, and doubt, and you have the recipie for silly antics in the technical world, particularly when it comes to RSS.

Dave,
The mark of an innovator is not that he pisses people off. That is the mark of someone who likes to piss people off. The mark of an innovator is innovation. I can innovate without pissing people off, and I can piss people off without innovating. Surely you can see the logic in that. Nothing in this post is sarcastic or intended as flamebait, I assure you. I must admit, however, that wounded as your pride may be at Tim's (or anyone's) comments (even though you seem to be the only one who took it in a purely negative light), perpetuating the situation is clearly something which no one, especially someone clearly as intelligent as you are, should be engaging in. My post above, for the record, is not intended as a personal attack on you. In fact, I hope you and others can see that this infighting is purposeless and, imho, beneath all of us. By your comments above, however, I am saddened to think that you feel you must now wage a war of vengeance against this project or those working on it. I respectfully challenge you to look into your heart and ask yourself if it is not you who is fighting change. See the RSS 2.0.1 Roadmap for an example. Lastly, I believe you challenged this community to produce evidence that the Echo name did not arise out of Tim's essay. That has been clearly answered, yet you haven't seen fit to acknowledge that. I have always believed that the hallmark of integrity is to admit and/or apologize when one is wrong. The question before all of us, you and I included, is whether or not we live by that code.

More than close, that was fast! It looks like a reaction to Echo, so maybe this new API has started some self-reflection. I see Mr. Winer has tentatively endorsed this project as well. I suppose a wait and see attitude is prevalent in that mailing list, since the new modifications have three avenues.

There's no pledge that this development will lead to unification, final endorsement or adoption by Mr. Winer. And, does this negate the need to develop a new API/format, genuinely started from scratch, which is 'guaranteed' adoption by some content management systems? From my understanding 'Echo' is more than syndication and competition -- in this case -- is a Good Thing.

It seems that Sam should somehow publicly assure the group (and interested bystanders) that IBM will not ultimately be the ruling party.

http://jrobb.userland.com/2003/06/28.html#a3307

Also, Mr. Winer seems to spend more time defending his personal credibility and working for Userland than he does in his role here....

http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/

I wish this role was evangelized with the vigor he puts into trying to get people to believe he is a good person.  Perhaps a little sefl reflection would help in understanding that the "flames" are not because of his good deeds.

Perhaps this petty squabbling is a good sign that the notEchoProject is being taken seriously.

This baby that Sam has brought into the world now has dozens of very clever aunts and uncles working feverishly to make it work, demonstrating how cool these collaborative efforts can be. The way this thing is going, notEcho will have Must Support status with all the blog tool vendors. It has become a force of nature. I am astounded at the creativity, ingenuity, and attention to detail that takes place on Sam's wiki. It makes me very happy to see so many clever people working together with so much enthusiasm.

RSS is a mess. Several versions exist, but don't necessarily coexist. The version-of-the-moment is pretty much under the control of someone who seems to have a penchant for annoying everyone, although I have no personal experience to corroborate this. The need is here, right now, for a syndication, archiving, and communication format that can succeed RSS. It MUST NOT be burdened with politics, ownership, and ambiguity.

Please moved forward, and leave the bitching in the wake.

I can innovate without pissing people off ...

Example?

I respectfully challenge you to look into your heart and ask yourself if it is not you who is fighting change. See the RSS 2.0.1 Roadmap for an example.

The roadmap doesn't fight change; it channels it into namespaces: "Subsequent work should happen in modules, using namespaces ..."

Rogers,
Excerpt the previous sentence as well.
"Therefore, the RSS spec is, for all practical purposes, frozen at version 2.0.1. We anticipate possible 2.0.2 or 2.0.3 versions, etc. only for the purpose of clarifying the specification, not for adding new features to the format." I don't see how you can honestly say that doesn't resist change.

As for "I can innovate without pissing people off ...." This is a logical argument. Are you stating that pissing someone off is a prerequisite to innovation? If you were to construct an algorithm for creating something new (which is one form of innovation) at which step would you insert the call to PissSomeoneOff()? The fact that you may piss someone off does not mean that it is a logical requirement of the process. Innovation and pissing people of are not logically related. Pissing someone off in the process of innovating is a by-product of the context, not of the action.

Simon Jessey wrote:

Please moved forward, and leave the bitching in the wake.

Good call. To everyone contributing to Echo/Pie - thanks for all the hard work and thought you've poured in so far. Its great to see a large number of contributors working (feverishly) to produce a specification that us web developers and website authors can use to share, log and archive content.

We all have our reasons for participating in Echo/Pie - as long as we are working together to the same goal, those reasons do not matter, just the end product matters. If we get distracted in these irrelevant politics of RSS, that's less focus we put on Echo. The principle weapon of Stop Energy is being applied here - trolling and flaming. Remember, some people want Echo to fail or abort prematurely - and they will use a large variety of means to accomplish this, from the ongoing bickering, emotional blackmail, etc. Don't fall for it!

As for me. There's two main reasons (there are secondary reasons too) why I'm very interested in Echo: Sam Ruby and Tim Bray. I first discovered Sam Ruby over on the mono-mailing list - his advice and guidance impressed me then, and it still does now. Tim Bray is one of those guys you tend to read about, but never meet - but now we get to collaborate with him and learn a heck of a lot. If anyone ever need to question the motives behind these two - the answer lies in the plentiful and generous contributions (with no strings attached) they've made in a number of community or open-source related projects over the last few years. Lets just say there'd be a massive hole in the middle of the web if their contributions disappeared overnight. Yet, its not just their technical contributions and expertise we should acknowledge, but their encouragement of others to participate - a key aspect of successful and rewarding projects.

I don't see how you can honestly say that doesn't resist change.

It resists change in one area in favor of encouraging it in another.

That's a big deal -- the support for namespaces in RSS 2.0 was extremely well-received by many of the same people working today on "Echo."

Besides, even if it were completely frozen, "resisting change" is not a pejorative when deployed, popular protocols are concerned.

(Note: None of this is meant to reflect on Echo's viability. I'm looking forward to seeing what the project produces.)

Rogers,
  This is taken from the RSS 2.0 spec section on roadmap

  Subsequent work should happen in modules, using namespaces, and in completely new syndication formats, with new names

Echo/Pie/whatever is a new project which will consist of a new syndication format and have a different name from RSS. From where I sit there is no cause for complaint.  Secondly even if this part of the RSS 2.0 spec did not exist this does not mean that all the technology behind syndicating website information has been built or that all the specs have been written.

If you do not have anything constructive to add to this discussion, I'd suggest moving on to do something more productive with your day.

Re: "Subsequent work should happen in modules, using namespaces ..."

Yeah, we tried that.  Got flamed mercilessly.  Tried again.  Got flamed mercilessly.  Tried again.  Got flamed mercilessly.  Figured we'd try something else, like the second half of that sentence you quoted ("new formats with new names").  And lo and behold, we're getting flamed mercilessly ("ripping up the pavement", "bend over and grease up", etc).

Pattern recognition: it's what separates us from the animals.  It took me long enough, but I think I finally see the pattern here.

Everyone is working together here... except one or two people.  That's unfortunate, but not show-stopping.  The marvelous thing about wikis is that they (meaning the community) tend to correct for unproductive or intentionally disruptive behavior.

If you want to bitch or moan or thump your Bible (or equivalent), do it on your weblog; they're echo chambers, and they amplify that kind of thing.  If you want to be productive and work towards consensus, do it on the wiki.  I see just now that we're rapidly building consensus on a number of key issues with the physical model.  Yay!  This simply doesn't happen on weblogs; building consensus is not in their nature.

Dare: No complaints here. As I said, I'm looking forward to seeing what you produce.

Rogers,
Why don't you lend us a hand and help us to produce it? We could always use another intelligent mind. None of us have any pretenses that PI will be perfect, but I must say I'm impressed as to how much has been learned and gained from the contributions of so many experienced and well-intentioned folk.

For the immediate future, my focus is on seeing if RSS 2.0 can address the perceived flaws that Mark, Sam, and others have explored as they worked towards Echo. I probably won't be able to get involved until a first draft of the spec is out and I can try it out in Radio UserLand.

Roger writes,

That's a big deal -- the support for namespaces in RSS 2.0 was extremely well-received by many of the same people working today on "Echo."

Namespaces were very well-received by many of the people working with RSS prior to the announcement of RSS 1.0.

You have to give the record industry some credit. Orrin Hatch recently spoke about destroying the computers of people who break copyright laws. The industry is way ahead of him on this; copies of Tubular Bells 2003 are reported to be destroying...

Dave, you are completely out of line.  I read Tim's postings several times, and for you to feel offended by them is, frankly, strange.  What do you disagree with?  He said:
  you're smart;
  you're persistent;
  you're "loud";
  you often get your way;
  some people have trouble working with you. Note carefully the wording of that last item!

And then he saw an historical parallel with XML.  Well hell Dave, your continuous and consistent reaction makes you look like a kid.  C'mon, stop.  Tim didn't say anything bad about you, and he didn't rip open the world for "BigCo's" to take over.

You can be a good writer, but writing specs is not your strong point.  If you were self-aware enough to recognize this, you'd have worked hard to support the effort to take this to the IETF, and PIE would have died stillborn.

INTERWINGLY net -- We are watching the power of blogging from the periphery....

INTERWINGLY net -- We are watching the power of blogging from the periphery....

Forward Motion. There has been a great deal of forward motion in the Echo project today. Looks like the discussion about escaping HTML has come to a conclusion. Other areas that have settled seem to be Author and PermLinks. Things are looking very...

During the last days I got a bit too much work to follow the Echo-RSS debate. But thanks to Sjoerd from Q42, I got some fairly agreeable resume;). Thanks Sjoerd. And thanks Lon for the Beta (hadn't had time to see it, will do after Tokyo). See also: ...

Pingback from Bitflux Blog :: Echo and RSS by Sjoerd

During the last days I got a bit too much work to follow the Echo-RSS debate. But thanks to Sjoerd from Q42, I got some fairly agreeable resume;). Thanks Sjoerd. And thanks Lon for the Beta (hadn't had time to see it, will do after Tokyo). See also:...

This thread of comments raises one question: should comments be moderated?

What is the level of acceptance in the weblog community for moderation? Moderation is inherently subjective and limiting, whereas comments are supposed to enhance a discussion. Yet as the French saying goes "there are ranges and there are limits, and when you get out the range there are no limits" (sorry for the poor translation)

Dave Whi(n)er has without question contributed a lot to the web and he deserves full recognition and respect for the contributions he has made.
Over the time he has also alienated many others and he has to learn that there are consequences for that too. We all know it and anyone who thinks otherwise is in for a hard fall.
Those are the facts of life.

I don't know the full history of this "debate", but this is arguing has to stop.

I think everyone should take a step back and look at the situation objectively, to the best of their ability. Just cut out the attacks from both sides and maintain some sanity. From what I can gather, the general goals of all parties are pretty much the same and all that is being argued over is semantics.

It's not about winning. It's about creating a good product for the users.

It's disconcerting for an end user to look and see this argument. We're all people here take the time to be considerate. Maybe I'm naive, but getting angry doesn't usually help a situation.

Can you hear it?. Ben Trott and Sjoerd Visscher explain changes that they see as necessary for forward motion.  Dave Winer links to both. This communication simply wasn't possible a month ago.  It wasn't possible two weeks ago.  It is...

I wonder how things would work if those posting comments wrote in E-Prime (English without the verb "to be").

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Prime

Doing so has helped me recognize times when I behave as if my opinion "is" fact.  Writing in E-Prime has also brought the realization that attributes seemingly bound to an object reside, rather, with me.