Why do people keep listening to this man? Sam wants to know why Dave said MT’s RSS support “was funky”. Its obvious why, because Dave sees Moveable Type as a competitor, how deep do we need to look?

A man who claimed to invent RSS but doesn’t even understand the basic technologies or standards involved. He querulously wants to know what version of RSS MT supports, because he can’t conceive of someone supporting multiple formats transparently. He makes wildly uninformed statements like “they produce RDF where RSS is called for”, um Dave, that is called X-M-L. He follows that up with snide comments implying it is somehow Ben & Mena’s fault for RSS development being stalled, when an even cursory scan of the history of RSS will show that MT is largely a latecomer to RSS development, and very neutral, and that real problem lies somewhere else. (today stopped implying it and came out and said it, proving either he has no scruples in his FUD campaign or his memory is really starting to go [nice picasso though])

People are “chickenshit” for not kowtowing to his lousy design sense, Microsoft’s embrace and extend is something we should aspire to in our standards, and his critics are beating up on an old man on one the 1yr anniversary of his heart attack becausle we all secretly want him dead. An old man who can take the time to insult a product that apparently he can’t even install, despite the fact that immense amounts of work were obviously but into making MT’s installation brain dead simple. (before they gave it away for free)

Dave is as welcome to his opinions as the next crazy old man you pass on the street, and if you reject the idea that his entire public persona is just the napalm equipped marketting campaign of a rentless, unscrupulous competitor then crazy is the only sense it makes. So why do people keep treating him like some 800lb gorilla? Well, I’ll admit he certainly has got something special, I can’t think of any stranger who frustrates me nearly as much on such a regular basis.

[2003/06/30]
Aaron asks Dave to explain 2 statements made on his website, Dave responds with a vicious attack.

Tim Bray seems to me to bend over backwards to be fair and flattering, but Dave feels this is trashing his reputation. I guess you could make the arguement that someone saying you “want to do the right thing”, and comparing you to a genius is trashing your reputation, but are you sure you want to draw attention to that reputation?

Ben writes a technical, and neutrally worded statement on why Echo might be a good idea. Dave responds with a ridiculous and very personal retort.