Robert McLaws: "Unfortunately Dave, you made a point all right. It just wasn't the one you wanted."

Frank Paynter: "I'm hoping that Dave somehow crushes the competition, but the chances seem slim."

Tosh Meston: "The user is the most important thing."

Eric Kidd: "And do small ISVs offer any hope--individually or collectively--of challenging software monopolies?"

A software monopoly isn't like a railroad monopoly. Leland Stanford and friends truely owned a monopoly in the 1860s. There was only one way to take a train across the United States back then. On their tracks.

Today, if you want an operating system, you have choice. Every time someone loads Linux. Every time someone goes into an Apple store and buys a Mac. They remind me of that fact.

Microsoft can't behave like a traditional "railroad style" monopoly. Why? You all have choices. Even today. Eric, I'm very interested in working with you and any ISV. Small or large. Why? Because I know you have a choice of where to spend your development time. I know intimately that if guys like you don't choose to write software for Longhorn, that it'll be hard to get anyone to upgrade to Longhorn (and, if there's killer apps on Linux or Macs, and not on Longhorn, we'll see folks move and move pretty quickly. Considering I still have 20 years left in my career, this stuff is formost on my mind.

I also look back at all this RSS vs. Echo stuff. Neither came from Microsoft. In fact, RSS was popularized by a guy who didn't have much money or industry power at all. By the way, IBM has more than 300,000 employees. Microsoft has about 55,000. UserLand currently has two (and had seven back when I worked for them -- but only one was working on RSS). Just a little factoid.

Don Park: "There is no point of asking who will win [RSS or Echo] nor whether it should go on."

Robert McLaws: "[Dave} we'll be waiting for you when you come back."

Roy Osherove: "Scripting News is down. I'm sad."

MSNBC: Katharine Hepburn dies.

JY: "Give me my Scripting News back."

Mark LaFleur: "Scobled (v) - To be bombarded by an overwhelming number of blog postings." (In Brad Wilson's comments. Brad pointed out that my posting marathon last night overflowed his aggregator). Thanks, Brad. Yeah, Patrick is feeling better, so today we're gonna go off and have some fun. Time to give your aggregator a rest! :-)

Adam Curry: "In the end, this is all about marketing and branding. Something I find most developers aren't very good at. Because they believe in truth, like 1=true. Real life, just ain't like that."

Smug Canadian, long rant about Dave and RSS: "This is the path to failure."

Danish Shareware has a utility to clean out your temp folders in Windows. As usual, I see I'm way behind Chris Pirillo's LockerGnome newsletters.

Sometimes on DPReview's forums you see an image that catches your eye. Here's one titled "Seeing Digital." I wish I had talent like this.

Panoramic Photography by Brad Templeton. Cool!

Roy Osherove: "FeedDemon likes and dislikes."

It's interesting, a friend yesterday asked "why are you supporting Dave?" Regarding RSS vs. Echo. I answered "because he's my friend and I believe in his work."

Lots of people are jumping on the "do it without Dave" pile. It's an easy pile to join. But, I'm not going to. Why? Because Dave's belief in me is what got me to start weblogging. His belief in me is what got me to join UserLand. His belief in me is what got me to Microsoft.

I'll never forget that, and I'll always honor the guy who believed in me.

Oh, and think I haven't had reason to be mad at Dave? Yeah, right. Sometimes it's your friends who infuriate you the most.

Dave, I support you. I believe in your work. I know that people value what you do. Why do I say that? Look at my referer log. I'm supposedly a pretty well-known weblogger. Lots of people link to me. But, yesterday, who sent me more readers than all other sources combined? Dave did.

He's influenced my weblogging more than any other. He's influenced how I look at the world. And, I know, that he's influenced many inside Microsoft to change their approach to the industry. I've been to a bunch of meetings in my first seven weeks at Microsoft and I've heard this often: "but will Dave Winer like it?"

Dave has gotten an entire industry to adopt RSS. He's gotten an entire industry to adopt OPML. And, Microsoft definitely appreciates his support (and co development) of SOAP and other Web services standards.

He changed my world and he didn't have the advantages of Steve Jobs (Dave doesn't own a $40 million corporate jet). He doesn't have the advantages of Bill Gates (he doesn't have $46 billion in the bank and 55,000 employees to do work on his behalf). But, he changed my world.

Now some of my friends want me to abandon him. Sorry, I won't.

Dave, I wish you health, happiness, and peace of mind. I support you no matter what you do.

Wow, Dave took Scripting News down.

My wife was the first to see this. She said "that's so sad, it makes me want to cry."

Richard Tallent just IM'd me "off to bed? really? you are now to blame for me being up another 30 minutes!"

Heh, sorry for keeping you all up while I post like a monster.

One more for your Sunday morning before I go to bed: Chris Pirillo is looking for "Sunday Funnies." You know, RSS feeds of comics.

OK, I think that's enough trauma for your news aggregator for one evening. I'm off to bed! :-)