Yesterday: “I will recommend to UserLand that they support [the roadmap]” (cite)
Today: [Tim Bray] is “wantonly destructive” and probably will cause “control of RSS [to] go to the BigCo’s, probably Microsoft, possibly a battle between IBM, Microsoft and Google.” (cite)
Honest question: What changed?
Update: Dave Winer responds: “Now, imho, Aaron’s question is probably not very honest. He’s a young guy who likes to flame. He’s gotten a rep for being a software genius, but that’s mostly with lawyers, not software people. He’s a politician, and not a good one, and not a very nice person. He’s treated me like crap for years, and child or not, I’m tired of it, and I’m not taking it anymore. When he bites, I’m going to bite back, so watch out Aaron.”
It’s true that I got in an argument with Dave about RSS 1.0 a long time ago, but I’ve since backed down and have tried to be friendly to Dave ever since.
My question was honest. I wanted to know if something happened in between that I could fix, to regain Dave’s support. I was trying to help. Instead I got flamed.
The irony is that the thing that got Dave so upset in the first place (the thing I wanted to know about so I could fix it) was exactly this! He complains that Tim Bray said some awful stuff, and links to where he says: “I observe that there are many people and organizations who seem unable to maintain a good working relationship with Dave.”
I don’t want to flame anyone, least of all Dave. But I do feel that to keep my integrity I need to occasionally publicly question folks decisions and statements when I strongly disagree. Dave, I want to be your ally, not your enemy. Can I do that and still dissent?
[I certainly don’t condone personal attacks. I’m talking specifically about questioning ideas, as I always do on my weblog.]