[gruseom]

In fact, Sam Odio is a very community-minded person. He started the original Hacker House in Palo Alto (http://hackerhouse.bluwiki.com/). He was an early enthusiast for the Hacker Dojo in Mountain View (http://wiki.hackerdojo.com/w/page/25442/Incubees). More significantly, when other people were offering advice to an unemployed hacker, it was Sam who offered his couch for a few weeks (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2827635). I'll add a personal data point: he once insisted on giving my co-founder and me a ride to the train station even though it was completely out of his way and we had only met a few minutes earlier. Trivial, yes, but trivial indicators of decency are often the most reliable, especially when no one is watching.

My 2¢ is that Sam seems to process social norms in an unconventional way and it occasionally gets him into a pickle. It also leads to good things. More good than bad, I'd bet.

[blhack]

I'm sure he's a great person. I'm not speaking against his character, just explaining why hackers would be upset about this.

[gruseom]

You did speak against his character. You said he tried to destroy a community. That is not the action of a "great person".

You began from the assumption that Sam is not one of us, the "highly community-driven" hackers. That's factually wrong. He's practically a prototype of the community-minded hackerspace type which you extol.

I don't agree with you that people are upset because they care about communities. A readier explanation is just garden-variety sanctimony. (I'm not referring to your comment here, but others.)