31–40 of 76 posts
The less he is involved in the scalar community the better. Yes he is right no one has any inherent right to his work or his infrastructure. however he treats the site like his gift to us simple mortals. Here is why people are upset ,because that was a maven host for a bunch of scalar software and instead of transitioning it to a new owner he said no its mine now I paid for it find your own domain, ohh and by the way…
The response to these incidents is depressingly predictable. "Yes he has the right to shut it down, but..." -- no, there is no "but". Consider this: An employee quits his job. Do you say "Yes, he has the right to quit, but..."? No. There is no "but". He has the right to quit, period. Involuntary servitude isn't allowed even when someone is getting paid for it, what the hell makes you think it's acceptable when they a…
He has the right to quit, but the domain is a .org, and its name is not his but that of the language; it should belong to the community. If he wants to stop running it that's fine, but he should let it lapse or sell it to someone who will maintain it for the community, not turn it into something else.
That has no particular significance. The Big Three TLDs haven't had any special requirements or policies in many years.
> its name is not his but that of the language
The language's name is "Scala", not "scala-tools.org", but let's assume you just think any domain with "scala" in its name is effectively the name "Scala". I have some news for you:
"Scala" is also the name of a typeface, the student chapter of the American Library Association, part of human anatomy, a unit of area, a couple of music albums, a software company with no connection to the programming language, a couple of entertainment venues, two locations, a surname for I-don't-know how many people, and a snail.
> it should belong to the community
A "community" cannot actually own a thing. Who exactly do you think should have the domain? Who represents "the community"? And why exactly does this amorphous "community" have some special claim to one of an infinite number of domains that might be used for similar or entirely different purposes?
Why is he leaving Lift and Scala? What does it say about a web framework whose founder is leaving -- does this mean the death of Lift?
It does not mean anything, it means at most that he doesn't think it is a silver bullet.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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".
>> 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?
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…
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.
The response to these incidents is depressingly predictable. "Yes he has the right to shut it down, but..." -- no, there is no "but". Consider this: An employee quits his job. Do you say "Yes, he has the right to quit, but..."? No. There is no "but". He has the right to quit, period. Involuntary servitude isn't allowed even when someone is getting paid for it, what the hell makes you think it's acceptable when they a…
Point is, he can do whatever he wants, but his actions are solely designed to make the live of everyone else a bit harder, just for the sake of it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
He has the right to quit, but the domain is a .org, and its name is not his but that of the language; it should belong to the community. If he wants to stop running it that's fine, but he should let it lapse or sell it to someone who will maintain it for the community, not turn it into something else.
> the domain is a .org That has no particular significance. The Big Three TLDs haven't had any special requirements or policies in many years. > its name is not his but that of the language The language's name is "Scala", not "scala-tools.org", but let's assume you just think any domain with "scala" in its name is effectively the name "Scala". I have some news for you: "Scala" is also the name of a typeface, the stud…
The less he is involved in the scalar community the better. Yes he is right no one has any inherent right to his work or his infrastructure. however he treats the site like his gift to us simple mortals. Here is why people are upset ,because that was a maven host for a bunch of scalar software and instead of transitioning it to a new owner he said no its mine now I paid for it find your own domain, ohh and by the way…
He tried to transition it to a new owner. No one answered the call.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> the domain is a .org That has no particular significance. The Big Three TLDs haven't had any special requirements or policies in many years. > its name is not his but that of the language The language's name is "Scala", not "scala-tools.org", but let's assume you just think any domain with "scala" in its name is effectively the name "Scala". I have some news for you: "Scala" is also the name of a typeface, the stud…
Maybe someone should try to explain to you the concept of a "trademark".
I expect I'll be receiving an apology for your condescending assault on my intelligence?
The response to these incidents is depressingly predictable. "Yes he has the right to shut it down, but..." -- no, there is no "but". Consider this: An employee quits his job. Do you say "Yes, he has the right to quit, but..."? No. There is no "but". He has the right to quit, period. Involuntary servitude isn't allowed even when someone is getting paid for it, what the hell makes you think it's acceptable when they a…
This comparison is just deeply flawed. Point is, he can do whatever he wants, but his actions are solely designed to make the live of everyone else a bit harder, just for the sake of it.