There's often talk that Gabe Rivera is in Mike Arrington's pocket, and some days even I believe that talk, but then I just stumbled on something that reminded me that of all the people who are involved in aggregating the web, he's the one guy who more often than not does the right thing, and shares his sources, opening the door for competitors.



This is the philosophy that the web was founded on, but too often people draw from the well without giving back. I've been told, when criticizing people for doing that, that I'm naive -- maybe so, but I'm also a realist, knowing that if too many people do that, eventually there will be nothing left to build on.

Anyway, I just noticed a link at the bottom of Memeorandum, the political version of TechMeme, that has become a mainstay of mine through the 2008 election (and a secret for the few people in the political blogosphere who follow it), to the leaderboard. I sent the link to my friend Nicco Mele, saying I don't know how I missed this, but I had, and that an aggregation of the list would make a good product.

Then I noticed there was an OPML file with all the sources, and sure enough it links to the RSS feeds. So it would be no work at all to assemble the aggregation.

http://www.memeorandum.com/lb.opml

Is it in any way in Gabe's interest to share this info? Hard to see how. But he shared it anyway. And for that he gets my respect and appreciation and a virtual piece of cheescake.

"cheesecake"