Tim O'Reilly Reponds

YOU CAN READ Tim O'Reilly's response to the raging storm kicked off in Ireland about the Web 2.0 service mark but if you're not inclined to give the issue any more time, I'll add two corroborating comments.

First, like many people, I got a working understanding of the term "Web 2.0" from O'Reilly publications. In several third level institutions throughout Ireland, the O'Reilly textbooks ground the concept with examples of technology and code. It's only fair to give credit where credit is due. Although developers make Web 2.0 happen, O'Reilly's writers have articulated exceptionally well what Web 2.0 means. I don't think anyone disputes their leading role in championing an understanding of the term. That said, once you give a concept, a phrase or a word the power of social currency, it's tough arguing that everyone should pay you to utter it.

Second, it does not pay to demand Web-speed around all communications. I've received two notices from the High Court of Ireland but did not think either required me to down tools and beat feet to my solicitor's door. Letters filled with legal jargon often come from boilerplates. You take them on board as elements for discussion, not as action steps on their own accord. IT@Cork got a legal letter--a frickin' piece of correspondence, that's all. The fact that Tim O'Reilly did not immediately weigh into the discussion around CMP sending their cease and desist letter meant he was out of contact. Tim explained he "was out of touch till late Sunday night, houseboating on Lake Powell for a week with my family and some old friends." From personal experience, I know desert southwest mobile phone coverage. I spent six hours locked inside a stationary train in the same state as Lake Powell--hours without a telephone signal. Do that a few times and you know that people are often unaware of proceedings in our internetworked world.

I'm going to the web conference in Cork, carrying some of my O'Reilly books with me. I'll ask Tom Raftery to sign one of them, before returning it to the library bookshelf. If I do that, I'll feel that Irish developers have closed the book on the question of owning a meme.

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Tim O'Reilly -- "Web 2.0 service mark controversy"
Dave Winer -- "O'Reilly and Web 2.0 Trademark Issues"
Tom Murphy -- "Beware the PR Moniker"
Thomas Hawk -- Apologies Galore. Why I Owe One to Tim"
Previously on IrishEyes -- "Web 2.0 conference in Cork"
Picture of dead stop in the desert without phone coverage.

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Comments

[Antoin O Lachtnain]

But bernie, this guy *invented* the term. He didn't just 'illustrate' it. It's not as if there aren't plenty of equally good or better terms to describe the same nebulous subject.

If I were sailing around on a lake, I wouldn't want to be disturbed about some teacup controversy like this one.

A journalist told me today that he laughed at the way this story has been dealt with just the way the worst end of 'old media' would have done. Pillory of a former poster boy isn't exactly a new concept. I didn't see a blog headline 'gotcha' but we were close.

Antoin.

[Bernie Goldbach]

I guess I know too many people who earn an honest living when training people and I know how they try to lock down their best content with service marks as well as copyright. When I first read the CMP attorney's letter, I understood the perspective with which it was written. I'm also not very inclined to get wound up by solicitor letters. So when the Slashdot Mob started chanting outside, I partked the issue inside the "feedmob" category. Everybody needs to feed the mob now and again. It's good web entertainment.