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An open letter to Google (scripting.com)
10 points by _pius on Nov 21, 2009 | hide | past | favorite | 7 comments


As genius as he is, doesn't everything seem to boil down to a battle of wits or a vendetta with Dave? Wouldn't be the first time ( http://workbench.cadenhead.org/news/2881/letter-dave-winers-... ) or the last.. :-) Similar rows broke out when Atom wasn't even called Atom, but Echo.. http://news.cnet.com/2009-1032_3-5059006.html?tag=fd_lede1_h...


Or in the nicely chosen words of Tim Bray, "A lot of people don't get along with Dave"


Could someone quickly summarize the technical differences between RSS vs. PubSubHubBub?

[Yes, I could google it myself :) -- but am also interested in various 2nd order issues (e.g. which is trending up/down, why does Winer not like PubSubHubBub) which would take more searching to learn.]


The latter is an attempt to remove polling from the architecture and thereby make the updates more realtime. A client would actually run a small server (in the "listener" sense of the word "server") that a "hub" would hit when there's a resource update.

Dave made significant contributions to RSS, and I suspect that he's experiencing the motherly instinct to protect his baby. Note the phrasing of point #2, and how he refers back to it from point #15. He's underscoring how he's not in "competition" with Google. But that doesn't mean that his ego is completely decoupled from the success of RSS.

On the one hand, I abhor polling and usually love to see it removed where possible. On the other hand, I've never thought RSS was insufficiently realtime. I tend to flood myself with too many feeds, and then it becomes an issue of self-discipline to trim or ignore it.


http://code.google.com/p/pubsubhubbub/wiki/ComparingProtocol...

Scroll down to the diagrams. RSSCloud is a "light ping" protocol and PubSubHubBub is a "fat ping" protocol.


This blog post describes why Winer does not like PubSubHubBub: http://brad.livejournal.com/2405147.html


I love Dave Winer. I don't always agree with him but I love that he expresses his ideas. More power to you, Dave.




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