The Reason Dave Winer Is Not Invited

Buried in a long, long thread on David Weinberger's post at Joho about the pros and cons of attending FOO Camp, someone with a long memory named Jay provided a link to an interaction between Dave Winer and Tim O'Reilly which explains the antipathy between those two:

[from FoRK Archive: Re: Fw: http://www.egroups.com/message/decentrali]

On Wed, 13 Sep 2000, Dave Winer wrote:

This is the kind of threatening email I get from Tim O'Reilly. One of dozens I've received over the years. I've warned Tim over and over, that if he wants to make threats, make them in public for all to see.

They are serious integrity issues at O'Reilly. I've been emailing privately with Dave Sims and Andy Oram at O'Reilly about them. They are involved in a corporate way on RSS. They've run ads, had corporate officers doing "journalism" where only their side was presented. They worked in private on a public spec, and then presented it as a fait accompli, on their corporate website. The line betw journalism and corporate affairs at O'Reilly is pretty murky. That Tim claims that O'Reilly is not involved in RSS at a corporate level is a ludicrous thing.

I have no idea what's going on over there, but Tim is one of the most personally offensive people I've ever met in the software industry, in over 25 years. I'm tired of receiving these private threats. Tim, the ball's in your court, do your best to smear me. And at the same time let's take a deep hard look at exactly what O'Reilly is versus what you say it is.

Dave

From: "Tim O'Reilly"
To:
Cc: "tim"
Sent: Wednesday, September 13, 2000 7:43 AM
Subject: http://www.egroups.com/message/decentralization/326

Dave,

I've told you again and again that your conflict over RSS is not an O'Reilly thing, as have the participants, yet you keep making the accusation. When we exclude you from things in future, just make a note of this as the reason why. And be sure that I will do the same. I'm assembling a list of all the false claims you've made against us, and at some point, if you keep this up, it will be published as an expose. [Note: emphasis mine.]

When people see both sides, you will lose even more credibility than you have already. You're lucky that I haven't been waging the kind of PR campaign against you that you've been waging against us.

Now, you might say that O'Reilly wasn't mentioned by name here. But it's clear enough who you mean, and as a result, someone outside the conflict forwarded the message to me.

Please stop. Or I'll go public on what you're doing.

Tim O'Reilly @ O'Reilly & Associates, Inc.

So, it seems that way back in 2000, Dave Winer and Tim O'Reilly were sparring over Winer's claims about O'Reilly meddling in the RSS specification in some way or other. Old news, it seems, but some paranoid delusions never die. Dave's newest run at O'Reilly about FOO Camp is just more of the same. And of course, this demonstrates that Tim's memory is just as long as Dave's and Jay's.

tags: dave+winer, tim+oreilly, foo+camp, rss

Comments

[Tim O'Reilly]

Actually, I'd be happy to forget the past if Dave didn't keep dragging it up, and making all kinds of wild accusations about my motives. Just look at some of his recent comments on various blogs, and come to your own conclusion.

I recently saw Dave in person at an event, went over and said "hi," to see if he was willing to bury the hatchet, and he just grunted and looked away.

[Dave Winer]

Stowe, how "open" companies work with others is important.

Next time I see you I will grunt at you! :-)

Tim, I don't actually grunt (at least not when I'm awake). I was probably talking with someone else. If you don't mind me saying so -- you're way way too sensitive. Lighten up a bit. It's not really that serious. Sheez.