[rcoder]

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.

[rntz]

> Unlike most of us here, _why never profited directly on his online celebrity status.

Most of us are online celebrities?

[sho]

I 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]

No, 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.

[gfunk911]

http://github.com/raganwald/homoiconic/blob/master/2009-05-0...

why is awesome. he's one of the big reason I'm a ruby programmer. He's contributed so much to the community, and he doesn't owe anybody anything.

If he deleted all his repos, sites, etc with no notice, then that was a dick move. It doesn't mean he's an asshole, it means he did one asshole thing. That doesn't mark him as an asshole, but it wouldn't change the fact that it was an asshole thing to do.

If you're running for the elevator and I don't bother to hold it, that's an asshole thing to do. Maybe I saved your ass last week when you forgot to check in the fizbit and the client was pissed, whatever. That doesn't change the asshole-ness of my one action. And that's ok, we all do it. why's still awesome, even if possibly for an hour he was an asshole.

[adbachman]

The elevator analogy doesn't really hold for me.

It's more along the lines of one person in the office bringing in bagels every week for a few years, then one Monday morning they aren't there.

The asshole isn't the one who stopped bringing in the bagels, it's the folks standing around the coffee machine empty handed, griping about not getting their weekly cinnamon crunch.

"I wish Mike would've told us he wasn't going to bring in bagels today. What a dick move." Nope, doesn't work.

But that's just the way I see what is happening here. I can understand the divide if you have a different perspective of what's going down.

I agree that failing to hold the elevator is inconsiderate, but I disagree that simply putting information on the web constitutes entry to a similar social contract.

[scott_s]

Bringing in bagels every day is active. Leaving existing software up is passive.

[akd]

Keeping software hosted is active. Let's say he waited until his domain name expired... then he could say "I'm not spending the $10" and let it go offline, and people would excoriate him then. He just chose to rip the Band-Aid off at once instead of in bits and pieces.

[astine]

I'm going to agree with sho on this matter. If you provide something and give the impression that you will continue to provide it, you are partly responsible when people become dependent. You are certainly not required to continue to provide it, but you should at least give warning that those who were dependent have a chance to adapt.

When you quit a job or end a contract you ordinarily give notice. It's the same principle, and a matter of courtesy. --- That said, I've no idea what's really going on here, so I'm loathe to pass judgement.

[alexpopescu]

While 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]

_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.

[sho]

Well, 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]

I 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]

Did _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?

[jonny_noog]

I'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.