Comment by bad_user | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bad_user | Hacker News Reader

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> I'm not of the opinion that publishing work on-line is the same as giving it away, and I'm certainly not of the opinion that _why taking his stuff down is the same as breaking into a place to steal and destroy things

Publishing work on-line IS giving it away. If you don't want that, just don't publish it online. If not, it's like singing a song at a party and getting all upset on your friends for memorizing it. Sorry, but the cat is out of the bag, and you can't tell me that _why (being involved in an open-source community and all) wasn't aware of that.

_why's taking his stuff down is also comparable to stealing/destroying things ... his work still lives on because other people bothered to make copies, but he also took down the mailing lists / homepages of those projects, disrupting the communities behind those projects, leaving nice people that invested time and resources for those projects in the dark (I don't know how much time/resources were external, but that's irrelevant).

Being an artist doesn't excuse you being dick (although it also doesn't negate your achievements). But when you're being a dick, since you're living in a society that would brake if all of us where dicks, then you should pay the price for that.

We could go back and forth on this forever. I think it's a valid, if not tiresome, debate -- if you publish something on-line, is it yours anymore? Was _why's stuff art? Does it matter if we consider it art?

Maybe pulling things down is "comparable" to stealing, but it's not the same. And the extent to which external resources were part of his work is not irrelevant. There's tons of gray area here that's being glossed over.

Zed (and other posters) seem to have a view of the issue that lacks nuance. "He abandon us, he must be a dick." I'm not sure know why "dick" is the only name Zed et al have for _why. Besides the fact that the word is grating and low, it is bad form and, frankly, a little immature to use insults like that, especially when you don't know the whole story. The HN community both eulogized and demonized _why too quickly. Maybe it makes sense that hackers only think in binary terms and pass such stark judgment.

Look, I'm disappointed that _why is gone. There have been good points made on this forum about people who depended on the mailing lists, etc. And we can speculate ad-nauseam the causes for his disappearance. Personally, I thought his work was touching. As I discussed earlier, I also view him as an artist, with motivations that I think are very different from those of a typical hacker or engineer. But because we don't know the whole story, any judgment is based on speculation. And so I must give _why the benefit of the doubt here (and, clearly, defend him a little).

It's wrong to judge _why as Zed and others have, 'nuff said.

Yes, well, to tell you the truth I regret his disappearance. That's why I have a bad opinion about this.

I also believe in coding as an art form (although I'm surely not an artist), and _why was a person to which I could relate to. We need such positive models with the same aspirations as ours because we may start thinking that we are crazy ... ever got a blank stare while you where explaining to someone else that programming in itself is beautiful?

It would mean a lot to me if sooner or later he would reappear and provide an explanation ... I could also relate to him being burnt-out.

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