Doc and Dave linked to O’Reilly’s Foo Camp, a meeting of the minds this weekend. The FAQ indicates that campers can sleep either inside the O’Reilly campus or outside on its grounds. The planned events sound amazing as do the invitees.
On that list of invitees is not Dave Winer, a fact that he notes and then mopes about. I just checked those links again and there’s nothing there. Classic Dave! Here’s the entries that he pulled (links removed because I’m typing this on a different computer than the one where the entries are so no easy copy and paste):<ol><li>Damn. O’Reilly has these great events with all kinds of interesting people. Reading Doc’s weblog today was the first I heard of it. How did this happen?</li><li>Maybe we should start a Wiki of all the people who weren’t invited to O’Reilly’s party. Maybe that will become a badge of honor. I’m tired of being pissed off about stuff like this. Their loss. I know so much about the stuff they’re doing there. They get to make the same mistakes I made. Feh. Losers.</li></ol>
And that is why the Winer Watcher was such a valuable service. NetNewsWire’s HTML diffing is great, but it’s not archived and you have to keep it running all the time. This is impossible because a laptop such as mine is disconnected from the Internet at least two times a day and spends a lot of time with its lid closed.
I could talk more about Winer’s issues, but I think it’s more fun to think about O’Reilly’s plans. This is just the sort of salon idea that I love so much. Bring a bunch of interesting, intelligent, stable people together and see what they come up with. It’s almost always going to be better than what they could come up with themselves because they can riff off of each other’s output.
The events seem very diverse and freeform. I too would love to be there, but I couldn’t contribute too much of my own right now because, for me, the best is always yet to come. I’m okay with that. Actually, I’m excited because I like having things to look forward to.
[UPDATE (10/13/03): It’s funny, but the blogosphere is aghast at the exclusivity of FOO (Friends Of O’reilly) Camp. Dave’s even written an essay about it, which includes the gem “So we had a conference where the users did the talking and geeks did the listening. BloggerCon.” Always with the separation: we’re the geeks, you’re the users. Another one: I’m privy to all sorts of stuff that you commoners aren’t. Oh, except what was said at FOO. And it’s eating him up inside.]
[UPDATE (10/16/03): For someone who “refuse[s] to be mad at O’Reilly” Dave is sure blathering on and on about it. As someone who’s been in this same situation before, I can say that Dave’s getting more worked up about this than anyone else. Dave probably barely even registers on O’Reilly’s radar, while Dave’s measure of self-worth seems to be derived from other people. Very unfortunate.]
[UPDATE (10/21/03): More Dave not being mad.]