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Have a little respect. Unlike most of us here, _why never profited directly on his online celebrity status. If he chose to remove himself from the 'net, it seem
by rcoder 17y ago
Have a little respect. Unlike most of us here, _why never profited directly on his online celebrity status. If he chose to remove himself from the 'net, it seems only reasonable that he would want to shut down public repositories he managed, if only to avoid the inevitable deluge of complaints about them going stale, requests for commit rights from other people, etc.
The fact that you would care more about his shepherding of repositories which have been available to everyone else all along speaks volumes to me about the kind of attitudes that probably helped to drive him offline in the first place.
- sho 17y agoI would like to think I have utmost respect for _why. I have certainly never said or done anything against him in the past, nor ever felt anything besides quiet appreciation for his efforts. If he wanted to quit, that's his right, of course. But at least give people a day's notice before he nukes everything, right? "The fact that you would care more about his shepherding of repositories" Care more about them than what? What else is there? I don't know what's going on. The repos were his work, they're all I know of him. You seem to detect this entitled, callous attitude in my words but I assure you it's a false positive. I have, or had, nothing but positive feelings for the guy. Never met him, spoken to him, or anything else really. But I have relied on his code, and in my book, when you release open source code there's a kind of implied promise that you don't suddenly delete the master repo in a fit of internet pique. if that's "the kind of attitudes that probably helped to drive him offline in the first place" then .. maybe he should be offline because I think it's pretty reasonable.
- adbachman 17y agoNo, he shouldn't give people a day's notice. He doesn't owe it to you, he doesn't owe it to me. That makes two of us. Let's imagine we're not unusual in that regard. Who does he owe a warning, then? when you release open source code there's a kind of implied promise that you don't suddenly delete the master repo in a fit of internet pique. You're making a lot of assumptions, not least among them _why's motivations (should they even exist) for dropping off your radar. Again, he doesn't owe you an explanation or a warning. You were a user, not a co-owner of the projects, not an extensive financial donor (most likely), not an employer. The relationship is entirely one way. _why gives you things, you say "thank you", and move on. This is also the Internet we're talking about, if someone decides the content (repository or writing) should be made available again, it will happen.
- sho 17y agoWell, look, everything you say is technically correct. But my reaction remains the same. It's not about "rights" - I agree I have no "right" whatsoever to continue to benefit from _why's beneficence in perpetuity. No, _why hasn't breached any laws or contracts, but he has breached social norms. For example, this site. I think all would agree that we have no "right" to its continued existence. None of us pay or contribute financially to this site in any way whatsoever. And yet if PG suddenly changed his mind and deleted it tomorrow, with no explanation or warning - I would consider that to be very poor form, and I'd wager most others here would, too. Same deal. It's about basic respect for your audience, whether they were paying or not.
- scott_s 17y agoI think your point of social norms is an important one. You have the right to be rude, but people won't be happy with you if you exercise that right.
- bunnny 17y agoDid _why strike you as a guy who lived within the social norms? I mean, come on. I would like to also point out that the people who "won't be happy with you if you exercise that right" don't actually care about you any way... so what's the loss?
- alexpopescu 17y agoWhile I do agree that the author(s) of an open source project do not owe me or you anything, I'll have to disagree with you about what is an open source project. Once you've opened up your project it belongs to the community (and even if I'm not a lawyer I think that most of the OSS licenses speak in this direction). Anyways, I'm pretty sure we will hear soon about what happened and it will be easier to understand things. ./alex
- bunnny 17y ago_why isn't required to maintain his copy of the source forever. Other people have forked/mirrored his projects; deletion of his repos is an inconvenience, but something that can be recovered from.
- jonny_noog 17y agoI'm with you Sho. _why's writings are in large part what initially attracted me to Ruby. I have nothing but admiration for his work. If one releases open source code, I don't expect them to support it for free or at all, everyone's time is their own. But at least leave the existing code up there or at the very least, give some notice that it will be removed. This of course assumes that he did do this intentionally and that he was not the victim of some kind of foul play.
- rntz 17y ago> Unlike most of us here, _why never profited directly on his online celebrity status. Most of us are online celebrities?