I don't owe you scala-tools.org • Hacker News Board

Re: I don't owe you scala-tools.org

#51

Post by soc88 » Sun, Jan 22, 2012, 12:42 AM UTC

bmelton wrote: post #49

soc88 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are still missing it completely.

I believe it is you missing the point. They're his keys. If I quit the company I'm working for, they can't just take all all my keys because at some point they gave me some. This is no different than my old neighbor, Mr. Taylor. He used to let us use the pool in his backyard until one of the kids pooped in it. He stopped letting those kids come to the pool. It's his pool, and it's his choice who can and can't use it.…

I never used his pool.

I just think that his behavior is intended to maximize the potential damage to everyone, he is well aware of that and does it on purpose, because someone hurt his feelings.

In my opinion there are other, more constructive options available.

Re: I don't owe you scala-tools.org

#52

Post by dkhenry » Sun, Jan 22, 2012, 1:37 AM UTC

avree wrote: post #31

dkhenry wrote: post #22

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.

No he didn't. there was no call to transition. There was this statement.

"The Scala community should be serviced by the company that is making money off the efforts of the Scala community, Typesafe, rather than a bunch of people contributing thousands of dollars a year of hardware and bandwidth and time to do something that could be done by the commercial Scala entity."

Combined with this statement

"Whatever I think that monetary value is, it's likely a few orders of magnitude more than others think the value is. It's not even worth, in my opinion, trying to price it."

This is about money and the lack of it going to Pollak for a site whose sole value is that it is used by members of a FOSS community. There was no call for transition people would have stepped up for that. What there was was a call to keep running _his_ site for _him_ and keeping the ownership and value in _his_ hands. I can understand why people didn't jump at that opportunity. If he would like to transition the domain and repositories to community ownership and no one stepped up to administer the site then more power to him let it go dark, but there are plenty of people willing to host and administer the domain, David isn't interested in them.

Re: I don't owe you scala-tools.org

#53

Post by bigiain » Sun, Jan 22, 2012, 1:40 AM UTC

soc88 wrote: post #50

nknight wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be stuck on the idea that there's some sort of legally-enforceable trademark at issue, but you've provided no evidence of it. To even begin to claim a trademark, you must assert it, and I see no evidence of anyone asserting such a trademark. To actually enforce it in court, registration is required in the US and I'm sure at least some other countries. You also have interpreted his statements as saying he…

Then maybe you should actually read the text. Apart from that, registering multiple common scala-* domains and then making them point to his blog instead of something actually related to the topic is pretty much the definition of domain grabbing. Sure, he can do it and figure out if he gets away with it. But in my opinion it is just ethically and morally wrong to register domains which with popular names which are ex…

You realise you're sounding a lot like you've never had to deal with the problems of the effectively single dns namespace before?

Trademarks don't automatically apply to domain names - since ordinary trademarks apply to a narrow protection of people offering "that same type of goods or services". ("Generic" trademarks exists, but need t meet much wider standards of public recognition than Scala-as-a-programming-language has.)

Apart from trademark disputes, which "The Scala Community" have no chance of winning here, domain names have _always_ been first come first served. If _you_ thought scala-tools.org was a worthwhile asset, you should have registered it before he did. Same with any scala-* domain.

Feel free to get huffy about whether or not you think he should have done things differently, but trying to frame this as some sort of abuse of domain name ownership is, frankly, naive...

Re: I don't owe you scala-tools.org

#54

Post by dkhenry » Sun, Jan 22, 2012, 1:41 AM UTC

ludwigvan wrote: post #29

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?

Lift really lost traction over the past year. I think he is put off that his project and involvement in the community is being disregarded for other alternatives, seeing his star falling I think he jumped to his next thing ( Haskell and Obj-C apparently )

Re: I don't owe you scala-tools.org

#55

Post by bigiain » Sun, Jan 22, 2012, 1:46 AM UTC

kstenerud wrote: post #10

It's about managing user expectations, which David has done rather poorly. People have short memories. When you're going to shut something down, you really should put up a HUGE javascript timer at the top of the page saying: 83 days, 14 hours, 23 minutes, 11 seconds until this site shuts down. Contact me if you can take over maintenance. Unless it's constantly in their face, they won't feel the urgency, and so they w…

I'm not sure I agree with that at all.

Someone retiring from participation in any particular community has no obligation to enforce any sense of urgency on the remaining people.

This all reads to me as though the "fight against human nature" is revealing more about the currently-offended section of the Scala community that about David. From my reading, he let them know he was out many months ago, and their reaction was "Whatever. We'll just keep freeloading on his time/hosting-costs/sense-of-responsibility." Now their "human nature" lack of urgency has bitten them on the ass, and they're trying to make out like that's not their own fault... Not classy...

Re: I don't owe you scala-tools.org

#56

Post by lmm » Sun, Jan 22, 2012, 1:59 AM UTC

nknight wrote: post #32

lmm wrote: post #30

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…

>"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.

disingenous. He's not talking about repurposing the domain for any of those things.

>A "community" cannot actually own a thing. Who exactly do you think should have the domain? Who represents "the community"?

Once the community gets sufficiently large, a formal foundation like apache or the python software foundation. (Obviously for practicality it's fine for the domains of a smaller community to be owned by individuals, but they should act as custodians)

>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?

If you call your domain scala-tools and your site becomes known as a place to get scala tools you have a moral obligation to keep it about scala tools, or give it up and let someone else use the name. Doing otherwise would be cybersquatting - scala-lang may not be a single person's name, but it still means something.

Re: I don't owe you scala-tools.org

#57

Post by NegativeOne » Sun, Jan 22, 2012, 2:11 AM UTC

Seems a bit pretentious saying the domain 'can't be priced' while shutting everything down at the same time. He's gonna take his ball and put it in some closet for eternity, and it sounds like he doesn't really care if anybody else wants to play with it. Yes, this is his 'right', it's also pretty lame.

Re: I don't owe you scala-tools.org

#58

Post by smashing » Sun, Jan 22, 2012, 2:35 AM UTC

kstenerud wrote: post #10

It's about managing user expectations, which David has done rather poorly. People have short memories. When you're going to shut something down, you really should put up a HUGE javascript timer at the top of the page saying: 83 days, 14 hours, 23 minutes, 11 seconds until this site shuts down. Contact me if you can take over maintenance. Unless it's constantly in their face, they won't feel the urgency, and so they w…

I couldn't agree less. User's are ultimately responsible for managing their own expectations. The real lesson is about boundaries and that is what David Pollak is establishing in his blog post.

Re: I don't owe you scala-tools.org

#59

Post by soc88 » Sun, Jan 22, 2012, 3:00 AM UTC

bigiain wrote: post #53

soc88 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then maybe you should actually read the text. Apart from that, registering multiple common scala-* domains and then making them point to his blog instead of something actually related to the topic is pretty much the definition of domain grabbing. Sure, he can do it and figure out if he gets away with it. But in my opinion it is just ethically and morally wrong to register domains which with popular names which are ex…

You realise you're sounding a lot like you've never had to deal with the problems of the effectively single dns namespace before? Trademarks don't automatically apply to domain names - since ordinary trademarks apply to a narrow protection of people offering "that same type of goods or services". ("Generic" trademarks exists, but need t meet much wider standards of public recognition than Scala-as-a-programming-langu…

I have no idea what your problem is, but feel free to completely ignore what I have written and write down your ramblings instead. The net is big enough for everybody, right?

Re: I don't owe you scala-tools.org

#60

Post by soc88 » Sun, Jan 22, 2012, 3:06 AM UTC

NegativeOne wrote: post #57

Seems a bit pretentious saying the domain 'can't be priced' while shutting everything down at the same time. He's gonna take his ball and put it in some closet for eternity, and it sounds like he doesn't really care if anybody else wants to play with it. Yes, this is his 'right', it's also pretty lame.

That's exactly what I'm trying to say. He is leaving his Lift community to do something new and doesn't intend to do the hosting work anymore. That's completely acceptable.

What makes me confused is his determination to prevent anyone else from taking over the service he doesn't want to do anymore and basically forces everyone to rewrite massive amounts of documentation, package names, source code, maven xml files, build files, etc. for no real gain.