Do you own ethereum that will undoubtedly fall in value if the attacker is allowed to start dumping their earnings? It's within the network at larges interest to fork, so that is what will happen.
"Do you own ethereum that will undoubtedly fall in value if the attacker is allowed to start dumping their earnings?"
No, I do not own any ethereum and have had only a casual interest in the entire project. My own investments have been in "Oh By Codes"[1] most recently :)
[1] https://0x.co
"To be clear, if this happened due to an exploit in the software, then I can accept a hard fork fixing the issue. However, if the DAO team made a mistake in the way they designed their smart contract, as an issue of principle, they should not be "bailed out" by the Ethereum team because they are "to big to fail." Hard lessons like these teach the cryptocurrency community at large to do their homework and to be excessively (and obsessively) diligent with their security."
I agree with this.