Tim O’Reilly has finally weighed in with a response to this mess and although I don’t agree with everything he says, I do think he’s thinking along more acceptable lines in general than the CMP letter would have led one to believe. The following quote is the important part that says what I felt needed to be said:

But I’m really mindful of the fact that Web 2.0 has become so successful as a meme that we’re not looking at a traditional brand name situation. This controversy is also bad for my most important brand, my own name, especially since O’Reilly and not CMP is taking all the heat! So I’m going to be talking with CMP about this situation over the next couple of days, and will see if we can come up with a solution that will satisfy our reasonable desire to protect the name of the conference while taking into account the dual role of “Web2.0” — as a brand for our conferences and as a handy meme for discussions of this phenomenal technology.

I am a bit annoyed at his insistence that Tom Raftrey owes him an apology though, I don’t think that’s fair.

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