infoworld.opml

Who am I?
  Dave Winer, CEO, UserLand Software.
  Software developer and writer.
  Writing: Wired, Scripting News.
  Outliners: ThinkTank, MORE.
  Scripting/CMS: Frontier.
  Desktop websites: Radio UserLand 8.0.
How XML-RPC came to be
  Networking software on Windows and Mac in 1998.
  Use XML as encoding, HTTP as transport.
  Collaborate with Microsoft.
  Spec finalized in April 1998.
SOAP continued the process
  Work continues with Microsoft.
  Other big companies come in the loop.
  The vision remains constant.
  Simple cross-platform scripting.
The Web as a scripting environment
  Simple, low-tech, ubiquitous.
  No one owns it.
Bootstrapping
  Doug Engelbart coined the term.
  Lay a thin cable, use it to lift a slightly bigger cable.
Start simple
  And stay simple. One step at a time.
  Nothing in the technology industry ever gets accomplished by committees.
  Only the bootstrapping method works.
25 percent cash register, 75 percent writing
  Most of what goes on on the Web is reading and writing.
  Writing is too hard.
Decentralization
  Moore's Law continues to rage.
  Centralized resources are dear, as more work moves on to the Internet.
  Move as much work to the edges as possible.
  Get Moore on our side.
Demo
  Post an item to my weblog.
  Route it to a category.
  Look at the XML.
  See the <cloud>.
  There's a very simple Web Service.
  How do you find the services?
  Look in the XML.
Dan Gillmor's questions
  1) How will we prevent lock-in by vendors when they start patenting and copyrighting schema, etc?
  2) Why do tech companies assume that users will gladly trade in purchased software, where they can use it as long as it works, for the vendor wet-dream of subscriptions? It may make sense in some cases, but it's plainly not in our interest in others.
  3) Privacy seems to be an absolute afterthought. What will protect us? (Different from the security issue, which is more fundamental.)
  4) The copyright owners, i.e. Hollywood, loathe peer to peer technology, a key part of Web services. Could they stomp it all out?
Discussion, Q&A
  Daily news: http://www.scripting.com/
  XML-RPC: http://www.xmlrpc.com/
  SOAP: http://www.soapware.org/
  OPML: http://www.opml.org/
  RSS 0.92: http://backend.userland.com/rss092
  Frontier: http://frontier.userland.com/
  Radio UserLand: http://radio.userland.com/