When he helped to create and foster a community around his art, even creating forums (mailinglists) dedicated to his 'pieces', he accepted a responsibility to the people that joined/formed that community. To completely destroy that community overnight is reckless and narcissistic.
This is not to state that _why is a 'dick.' He might be in some sort of weird mental turmoil. But his actions, while maybe not meant to be 'asshole moves' can still be described as 'asshole moves.' Reality and intentions don't always line up.
Think of it this way. Some of his art -- namely HackityHack -- was designed to be not only art, but a learning tool. Some people maybe relying on that learning tool. While that learning tool is technically still in _why's possession -- giving him the right to pull the plug on it -- are you really going to say that ripping a learning tool away from people that are using it is a good thing?
Analogies -- even mine -- up to this point have not been the strong suit of this discussion, but I'll boldly use another one any ways. Let's say that _why owns a building. Why goes crazy and makes all sorts of artistic changes/improvements to the building. Now this building also has a meeting hall inside of it. _why uses this meeting hall to form several groups of people all of whom meet there to discuss various pieces of _why's art (and maybe how he should further improve the building or something... who knows). One day the people try to meet there only to find a wrecking crew tearing the building down. The construction workers say that _why sold the building to someone else who is tearing it down for condos.
Now in this analogy, _why has every right to do what he wants with the building. But _why has also formed an implicit promise with the people meeting there that this is their meeting place. He has assumed a responsibility -- albeit on a unspoken social level -- to at least announce to these people that the building will be no more.
This is not to state that _why is a 'dick.' He might be in some sort of weird mental turmoil. But his actions, while maybe not meant to be 'asshole moves' can still be described as 'asshole moves.' Reality and intentions don't always line up.
Think of it this way. Some of his art -- namely HackityHack -- was designed to be not only art, but a learning tool. Some people maybe relying on that learning tool. While that learning tool is technically still in _why's possession -- giving him the right to pull the plug on it -- are you really going to say that ripping a learning tool away from people that are using it is a good thing?
Analogies -- even mine -- up to this point have not been the strong suit of this discussion, but I'll boldly use another one any ways. Let's say that _why owns a building. Why goes crazy and makes all sorts of artistic changes/improvements to the building. Now this building also has a meeting hall inside of it. _why uses this meeting hall to form several groups of people all of whom meet there to discuss various pieces of _why's art (and maybe how he should further improve the building or something... who knows). One day the people try to meet there only to find a wrecking crew tearing the building down. The construction workers say that _why sold the building to someone else who is tearing it down for condos.
Now in this analogy, _why has every right to do what he wants with the building. But _why has also formed an implicit promise with the people meeting there that this is their meeting place. He has assumed a responsibility -- albeit on a unspoken social level -- to at least announce to these people that the building will be no more.