More Dave Winer Wonders

First off, what a rude little monkey that Dave Winer is:

To write a review about news aggregators and to not include Radio, is wrong, and if you have a reason for doing it, it should be clearly disclaimed in your article so your readers understand. Already one BigPub has done this (with no explanation).

The fact that Winer did NOT have the first aggregator has already been proven in the past. This is typical Winer - in the past, he's complained about people not recognizing him as the first RSS desktop news aggregator (which was Carmen's Headline Viewer). Since Radio was out after CHV, he now suggests his My.Userland.Com was the first one - he's forgotten My.Netscape.Com, which appeared months earlier (to the same tune as CHV, which appeared months before his Radio).

The good part, however, is:

We don't file patents so other developers can compete with us. But please don't penalize us for our philosophy of generosity. Thanks.

Your philosophy of generosity? What kind of philosophy are you following when you applied for a trademark for RSS (search for RSS or application #78025336 at TESS). If you're so generous with RSS, and have been since time began, then why, a year and a half after your aggregators came out, did you apply for the trademark? Did your overriding, humble philosophy not yet take hold? Were you having doubts about your stranglehold on the RSS v0.9x format, since discussion of RSS 1.0 started in that same time period (as per the founding date of July 27th, 2000 for the RSS-DEV discussion group). It seems strangely coincidental to see you registering the trademark halfway between RSS-DEV being founded, and RSS 1.0 being released (December 6th, 2000). Or also that you started running a poll on "the future of RSS" the same week you filed the trademark application. This does not sound like a philosophy of generosity - what was going on through that little head of yours, Dave?