_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.

AFAIK there are forks/mirrors of his work on GitHub; so why are you having such a hard time dealing with his repos being deleted by him? It sounds like you're just whining.

There are copies of it floating around. Here's one on Scribed: http://www.scribd.com/doc/2236084/Whys-Poignant-Guide-to-Rub...

I understand that you're referring to the web-based version which has a different feel to it, but the content does still exist. Nothing lasts forever--enjoy it while you can.

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?

Yeah, it sounds like you were really trying to be thoughtful, gracious, and evenhanded in your comparisons:

Nokogiri: A Faster, Better HTML and XML Parser for Ruby (than Hpricot) http://www.rubyinside.com/nokogiri-ruby-html-parser-and-xml-...

No, you're being down-voted because you're a selfish arse. Is the primary concern the slight inconvenience his disappearance will cause you?? ... to us, the answer is No.