[earl]

tl;dr:

David Pollack created lift. He also created and ran scala-tools.org, a maven repo and documentation host for scala stuff. He's recently decided to transition off much of his scala involvement, in part because his new startup visi.pro uses neither scala nor the jvm.

Several months ago he asked for help taking over scala-tools. There was not much response, and amongst the handful of people who stepped up, there was some sort of personality conflict.

In response, he temporarily shut it down and is transitioning the site to new hosts and maintainers. The internet is pitching a tantrum. Pollack is put out, since all the whiners where invisible when he was asking for new maintainers several months ago. Also, whiners who neither helped then and aren't stepping up to help now reek of entitlement: what right do they enjoy to Pollack's continued donation of time and money, just because he historically provided something the community liked?

[dmragone]

Apologies in advance for a comment that adds no value, but I feel the need to say it:

Thank you for summarizing. As someone who is not nearly as technical as many people on HN, I really appreciate seeing a summary of an article that can cut to the chase and hep me understand what's going on.

[soc88]

While I think he has all rights to feel insulted by an individual, I think holding the whole community responsible for that individual and threatening to use the site for damaging the reputation of the Scala community as a whole is a bit too much.

[SkyMarshal]

I think the community knows he's not holding the whole of them responsible. David is a well known, smart, decent, civil guy among them.

And maybe I missed it, but I didn't see anywhere he threatened to "use the site for damaging the reputation of the Scala community as a whole".

[soc88]

As far as I have seen until now the community feels different.

>> And maybe I missed it, but I didn't see anywhere he threatened to "use the site for damaging

>> the reputation of the Scala community as a whole".

> My way of working through my sadness about opportunities lost, my way of

> mourning these losses will be expressed on scala-tools.org. I will use

> something I had a mighty hand in building to express sadness about what

> could have been.

and

> I am not retiring the name. It will be a place that mourns the loss of dignity that the Scala community is suffering.

But this wasn't the first blog post with non-constructive criticism, (rambling, ... whatever you want to call it) and a deactivated comment system.

When I complain, I leave at least the feedback channel open. Otherwise it isn't quite surprising that some people are unable to fit enough diplomacy into 140 chars. (Which cannot be an excuse if there were actual insults (which I have not been able to verify yet), but the Twitter stream tells a lot about the other way around at least in one occasion).

In the end, I think it comes down to the usual political/financial stuff:

- Excitment about Lift cooled down and some people changed their opinion from "uber-cool" to "interesting, but a lot of misuse of the programming language"

- Typesafe partnering with Play! instead of Lift

Which more or less fits with his comments about selling the domain. Who - except Typesafe - would have the money to buy it?

[zak_mc_kracken]

> But this wasn't the first blog post with non-constructive criticism, (rambling, ... whatever you want to call it) and a deactivated comment system.

Given the hostile responses he's had on Twitter, I can't blame him for not allowing comments on his blog. This doesn't help repair the already bad reputation that the Scala community has.

He doesn't owe scala-tools.org to anyone for the same reason he doesn't owe readers of his blog comments: it's his blog, his rules.

[soc88]

I think responses will be less friendly if the only communication channel available is limited to 140 letters, that's just a limitation of the medium.

Responses towards constructive criticism have mostly been friendly, honest and helpful, I can't complain about that.

I think there is more talk about "bad reputation" than actual "bad reputation".

In the end, no one is arguing that. But there is a difference between what a person _could_ do and what is sensible.

[effu]

This. He reads like a 14 year old boy who's been jilted by his first girlfriend. Do grown mean really need a website for "working through my sadness about opportunities lost" when they change primary programming language?

He's such a source of drama; the Scala community is better off without him.