Scripting News: We can arrive at a fair solution

Scripting News, the weblog started in 1997 that bootstrapped the blogging revolution.

We can arrive at a fair solution

I don't think my old attorney blogs, but maybe he should. Maybe by the time we're done with all our michegas, he will.

Two weeks ago I posted a proposal, in public, to try to get a dialog going. In that proposal, I tried to see things from his point of view. I like to figure out what's right, and then do the right thing. I don't want anything I'm not entitled to.

I did all the work to create weblogs.com, and took all the risk, and withstood all the flaming -- and I also invented it (unlike RSS, weblogs.com was invented), so it might seem fair that I get all the proceeds. (I did all that without getting a salary from UserLand, all my time was at my own expense.)

But UserLand did help, it registered the domain for me (something we did for anyone in our community who wanted us to, back then domain registration wasn't so easy), and I did run the site on one of its servers (also something we did for others, at no charge), so let's, for the sake of argument, assume that UserLand owned it when it was transferred to me in 2003. That was the starting point for my proposal. From there, I thought we could easily arrive at a fair solution, shake hands and go forth and do our respective things.

So here we are at a fork in the road.

As far as I'm concerned the proposal is still on the table.

But -- today I thought about what it would be like to go through depositions and a trial. I can do it. I blogged Jury Duty and got something from it, and so did my readers. Maybe I'll write a book from the inside of the legal process, I suspect there will be plenty to write about. Sure it'll cost money -- but I have money.

Net-net: I believe in being fair, to others, and to myself.

Last update: Thursday, June 3, 2010; 4:00:40 PM

~About the Author~

Dave Winer, 55, is a visiting scholar at NYU's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. He pioneered the development of weblogs, syndication (RSS), podcasting, outlining, and web content management software; former contributing editor at Wired Magazine, research fellow at Harvard Law School, entrepreneur, and investor in web media companies. A native New Yorker, he received a Master's in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin, a Bachelor's in Mathematics from Tulane University and currently lives in New York City.

"The protoblogger." - NY Times.

"The father of modern-day content distribution." - PC World.

One of BusinessWeek's 25 Most Influential People on the Web.

"Helped popularize blogging, podcasting and RSS." - Time.

"The father of blogging and RSS." - BBC.

"RSS was born in 1997 out of the confluence of Dave Winer's 'Really Simple Syndication' technology, used to push out blog updates, and Netscape's 'Rich Site Summary', which allowed users to create custom Netscape home pages with regularly updated data flows." - Tim O'Reilly.

Mail: scriptingnews1mail at gmail dot com.

Mar May