"Why has my personality become the issue? They're using that to try to get me to shut up,"

Of course then we have the lie of him leaving UserLand. He's not left anything. He may well be living in Cambridge, tormenting the poor souls at Harvard, but he's certainly not left his ownership and management of UserLand. Those poor bastards (something like three people) still have to suffer his abuse.

Worse yet, the Harvard folks have gotten themselves further mired in the quagmire with bullshit claims over copyright tranferral. Thus far it's nothing more than window-dressing around Dave still being the dictator forcing his half-baked ideas on others. Now he's just doing it by trying to dress it up with Harvard's name. Unfortunately all that's going to do is end up tarnishing Harvard's good name. How long until Harvard fires Dave like Wired did?

Then we have Dave's usual, if it's succeeds I'll support it claptrap. All the while desperately seeking to obfuscate the issues and smother the development of it. Yeah, that's helpful... not! As has been seen countless times before Dave tries to play both sides.

What's really galling is Dave's absolute bullshit about small company participation. Dave's out-of-control narcissism depends on being able to suffocate anyone that dares raise criticism of his positions. He even tried getting people fired from jobs for daring to raise legitimate criticism. If a standards body was involved Dave wouldn't be able to bully them and push them around.

It gets worse. Dave tried mailing the various people mentioned in the article. Since they didn't immediately respond (unlike Dave they have other fish to fry) Dave posted to his weblog. Again, with that bully pulpit approach. Let's pick it apart...

Since it's not a complete suck-up piece Dave insults them.

Uh Dave, you are a lunatic, this is one part they got exactly right.

Of course! The old "that person must not have said that so I'll make myself sound smart and claim there must be some conspiracy afoot" ruse.

Winer's been abusing Pilgrim for ages so it's no surprise to see it again here. Likewise he's insulting Festa, drags a colleague into the fray for good measure and then presupposes to play editor on Festa's work.

Throw in a dash of "unrelated namedropping and folklore just to sound informed". That and rattle the whole "they picked SOAP over XML-RPC" bones. That Dave feels entitled to all sort of lunatic opinions is undeniable. That has little to do with what's being discussed here but Dave just wants to distract you.

Suck in their breath Dave? So it'd be easier for you to smother them? As for being diplomatic, Dave's following the whole "do as I say, not as I do" rule here. For Dave to put demands on anyone regarding diplomacy is the height of hypocrisy. Dave insists on his being able to abuse others but cries foul if they dare speak critically of anything he didn't come up with.

In short, it's yet another sad example in the long litany of reasons why people refuse to continue to try working with Winer. There's just nothing good that'll ever come of it. Dave will either usurp all credit for their hard work or spread such lies and FUD that it destroys forward motion.

The approach that Atom has taken is the right one. Listen to people, have open dialogs, share insights and experiences, sublimate the ego for the greater good. These are things Winer is incapable doing. Dave's the damage and, in try Internet style, we're just routing around him.