Attorney-Client privlege aside. You could at least show a little respect for the benefit Rogers work did for Dave and you.

I’m going to assume you’re just angry now and won’t budge. A good trate fora lawyer and not a bad one in a friend.

“Rogers is manipulating the facts to tell a story that is different than reality.” We can only surmise which situation Roger’s is manipulating: weblog.com or this new conflagration over feeds.scripting.com.

I have read everything I can on the RSS Advisory Board
manipulating and Rogers recent attempts at negotiations with Dave Winer and I have come to my own conclusions. They are consistent with a pattern of business and blogging behaviors from both Dave and Rogers.

If there are any facts available to indicate that
Dave Winer can negotiate a win-win resolution over feeds.opml.com I’d love to see them. He last message on this point was that Rogers would still have to deal with him.

Long time Winer watchers know how persistent and dedicated Dave can be when he make something a priority. But like the Podshow conclusion to the melt down of his Adam Curry relationship Dave will likely learn once again: “get it in writing”. Anger and malice have little legal standing.

You are a lawyer and might see Dave a small clue in that regard. “feeds.scripting.com” is indeed a web site that could be pointed to in a day or two and life coudl resume as Rogers and Dave agreed verbaly. Dave’s got text on the site indicating his pleasure with Rogers miraculous productivity bring the site into service.

Now Dave wants the work for no compensation. He’s angry again and wants a pound of flesh for Rogers defection over RSS control: likely a by product of their inability to agree on some simple steps.

So, my point to you is: give Winer a call and talk him down from the ledge. He’s just angry and needs an outlet for some of the recent events that have raised his ire. Try to stave off the Jihad on Dave’s short list… and throw a few less bombs into the mix while you’re at it.

A judge or bar committe might well conlude that you have behaved in a manner deserving reprimand.

I hope that Michael Arrington will correct me if I’m wrong.

Ben, I understand your point and today I would certainly do that (actually I would just not write about it at all). But back in July TechCrunch probably had 50 readers, it was a much different animal than it is today and I had no idea of what it would become. I just didn’t think it was important at that time. Remember that hindsight is 20/20.

“The only thing I will add is that I was part of the weblogs.com transaction and was also very dissapointed with Rogers Cadenhead’s performance.”

Nothing ot support it, no details, just a bomb thrown out to do some damage.

Michael Graves, VeriSign:
“In any event, I appreciate the great resource Rogers has been throughout the acquisition and transition processes, and it’s good to hear that Rogers wants to go further in this area. We’d be happy to work with Rogers on helping him realize his vision for ping. I think our goals for the future of ping are highly congruent.”

http://www.infrablog.verisign.com/2005/10/cadenhead_king_of_ping_1.html

Yes, Keith, no value there.

I didn’t make my point well regarding the essential value of weblogs.com.

The site had an “outtage”. Imagine of it stayed out for days or longer. Roger’s efforts stabilized the site while Dave could seek a buyer. It ran well during that stage of the project. You probably didn’t have visibility into that earlier phase of the situation but it would have made negotiations diffferent if the site itself was unstable.

Dave asked for help getting it stable and on-line again. It stopped collecting and reporting “ping data”. As you mention that value to Verisign was in that “ping data”.

Rogers assisted in that effort under a lot of pressure and Dave was very grateful for the assistance.

If Rogers had not assisted is it safe to assume Dave would have got the service up and functional again? Maybe. But I’d certainly have some sense of debt for the guy that protected my assets when the fire broke out. But subsequent events corrupted their relationship. You stand by your friends… some give up a lot more easily on a tested relationship.

Most of us aren’t attacking Dave… we’re questioning his judgement around some control issues with Rogers (related to RSS issues).

Rogers has made it clear here that he didn’t have any ill will over the weblogs.com situation. That’s yet another clue to the backstory.

The rest of us are searching for some understanding of this perturbation in the RSS Community and how to talk Dave into seeking common ground.

There don’t appear to be any villians here… just a lot of broken glass. It still makes no sense. Shelley Powers tried to get input from the parties involved but she also has history with Dave.

As a lawyer you might read the simple agreement Dave sent to Rogers to sign. Dave says he wouldn’t sign it.
It sounds like an agreement that was not crafted in any sense to be fair based upon a snippet of language.

So, stand by Dave, but understand what it means to blindly stand by someone who’s not acting according to businesses ethics and practices you’d personally endorse.

A mediator at this juncture would be wise to give the situation a fresh perspective. Perhaps as a friend you could counsel Dave in that regard privately, as you might counsel a friend dealing with a troublesome divorce. Let cooler headers strike a compromise.

Probably also worth noting that while plenty of commenters have said Roger should get a cut of the weblogs.com deal, I haven’t seen Roger say that. I personally don’t think he should, for what very little it’s worth.