Thanks to Dean for responding to my remarks.

By the way, I certainly wasn't calling Dean to task in my earlier remarks.  Sure it was a bit of a challenge.  And I was legitimately curious.  Sure it was a little name dropping.  It's funny--in the blogosphere, you can do that, and the person on the other end of the name-dropping might read at least one post.  In fact, most of my referral traffic (outside of people looking to steal software) is from people checking out my links to them.  Dean was actually kind enough to post a response.

Deep down, I think Dean's right.  Maybe the call for collaboration is too soon.  Let's all do some useful things and then collaborate.  I know that Dean is very busy.  So am I.  There are days that I think that my head is going to explode because I keep thinking of all of the things I want to do/learn/read/etc.

Is it enough to work independently?  Is there any need to "unionize?"  Sometimes I think that one or two people with a good idea and the right talents can do more than an army of well-meaning people.  Start small then release to the world.  Can we keep from reinventing the wheel?  Is there some way to stay informed about others' efforts without being involved and committed?  Is blogging about ideas enough?  Something to think about.

I think I need to revise my earlier thoughts about the two web services candidates.  The more I think about it, publishing information through an XML feed (similar to RSS) would prevent abuse.  In other words, read-only information available for syndication.  Just agree to the terms of use, and download away.  I know, that's not web services.  But it is collaboration.  It is syndication.  The means of submitting the prayer request doesn't necessarily need to be a web service, but that would be handy.

Need to go to bed.  Rambling now.  In closing, Dean is one of many Christians working on the Internet these days.  I'm glad he's leading by a consistent example.  I won't put him on a pedestal, but I will thank him for his work and give God the glory for the results.