[PeterisP]

The actual law is the law, and contract law (and criminal law i.e. regarding fraud) states that the intent does matter. The DAO website doesn't make legislation - the code may specify the rules about which transactions the Ethereum system will approve, but in the real world the actual laws matter and they will determine whether some people will have their stuff taken away, their movement restricted, or be forced to do some transactions in the Ethereum system.

[stale2002]

Sure, the law cares about intent.

But the question that is to be debated is, was the intention of the DAO too follow the code of the contract EVEN IF it had a bug.

There is an argument to make that, given that "the code is law" was plastered all over the DAO, that being hacked and having all their money stolen, was explicitly allowed.