[andrewstuart]

Stack Overflow had the best intentions by making their data available for download.

The only outcome is see from that attitude is it fueled hundreds of spammy SO clones with names like “nerdsolution” and “geekanswer”.

We’d be better iff with SO keeping the data private.

[BlueTemplar]

Wait, hasn't it always been a (public) website ?

[borplk]

I'm guessing they released their data in a different format for download? Otherwise you'd have to scrape it which is not as easy as having it in a database.