From: Jason Roelofs <jameskilton@...>
Date: 2009-08-21T23:07:49+09:00
Subject: Re: Why, oh why, _why?

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On Fri, Aug 21, 2009 at 9:54 AM, Gregory Brown <gregory.t.brown@gmail.com>wrote:

> On Fri, Aug 21, 2009 at 9:49 AM, Rick DeNatale<rick.denatale@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > On Fri, Aug 21, 2009 at 7:17 AM, Gregory Brown<gregory.t.brown@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >> Not sure if you are aware, but _why intentionally destroyed all his
> >> work before leaving.   That's not consistent with "people come and
> >> go".  I don't plan to set fire to my apartment when I move out....
> >
> > Well, one theory, and most likely?, is that he did it intentionally,
> > another is that he was hacked somehow.  AFAIK, the jury is still out
> > on that.
>
> Do you really think there is a remote possibility that he was hacked
> at this point?  I thought so too at first, but I doubt it now.
>
> -greg
>
>
It's definitely too late now, or we would have heard if he got hacked. He
closed up shop and destroyed almost a decade's worth of Ruby information,
discussions, library documentation, ticket history, etc. I agree with Zed on
this one, that was a dick move. People use and rely on the tools he's built,
have contributed back to them, and have helped with the documentation. He
didn't just destroy his work, he destroyed the work of hundreds, maybe
thousands, of people who wanted to contribute to Open Source.

I had tons of respect for _why and always marveled at his capabilities
(while wondering when, if ever, he'd burn out, of course). But after this,
well it's going to be hard to take him seriously if he ever shows up again,
in Ruby or some other community.

Huge props go out to github, at least we didn't lose any of the source code,
history, etc, and to Rubyforge for not allowing people to delete their
accounts.

Jason

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