Notice I’ll use some specific terminology.
For full context check Ruby Central’s role, my role, and what officially happened.
Ruby Central acted with a deus ex machina approach — coming down like a “hand of God” to forcibly reset the situation. That is not how you contribute to a community. That is not how open source works.
Originally, I had planned to write down everything I collected and share it publicly — because I strongly believe the community deserves transparency.
However, Joel Drapper has already done a quicker and better job of writing this up. I recommend reading it first before continuing: 👉 Rubygems Takeover.
I can personally confirm all information in that post related to Ruby Central, from multiple independent sources.
To be clear:
- I am not here to blame individuals.
- My critique is directed at the process, not at people.
- I am intentionally not naming names, because what matters is how governance was handled, not who pushed the buttons.
- The only exception is Shopify, since it is publicly listed as the main sponsor on Ruby Central’s website and is the company everyone refers to in this context. Personally, I like Shopify — I appreciate and admire all the work they have done (and continue to do) for Ruby over the years. What I do not understand is this push in governance that seems so disconnected from the community.
In short: Ruby Central, operating the service through operators (like me), unilaterally took control of the entire RubyGems GitHub organization — something that has always belonged to the maintainers. They justified it by claiming that some operators were dangerous. But in reality, they used this as cover to remove people from all projects at the maintainer level — including projects they never owned (RubyGems/Bundler/RubyGems.org (code)) — and now claim ownership themselves.
Over the past days, I have done my very best — even though it has been a rollercoaster of constantly uncovering new information (some of it reaching back as far as 2013). My focus was on keeping the community unified, listening to all sides, and trying to bring everyone back to the same table to resolve this.
After reaching out to various people on all sides of this conflict, having multiple conversations and meetings, listening carefully to counter-arguments, and trying to explain what is really happening, I have unfortunately reached the conclusion that one side — Ruby Central — is not willing to do this.
- The fact that the RubyGems GitHub organization was effectively taken over and is not being released back to the original community and maintainers (myself included) is a no-go for me.
- This is not how open source works.
- I did my best to explain that the right path forward was to restore original permissions, since this kind of unilateral takeover cannot be justified without cause.
The clear path was already there:
- Finalize the governance model (RFC #61)
- Invite everyone — especially those who had been historically sidelined — to restart the community co-op together
Instead, Ruby Central chose a different path. They acted like a dictator, deciding unilaterally what was “better for the community” and using their violent control to enforce it. In my view, this was reinforced by pressure from sponsorship arrangements (notably Shopify), which came across as a kind of blackmailing technique.
This is not the open, collaborative, community-driven model we’ve been working toward for years.
This situation did not happen in a vacuum. It is, in my view, a failure of Ruby Central and its board.
- They pushed the community into this state, while claiming to act in its best interest.
- They acted in the opposite way of protecting the community, despite being explicitly informed that such actions would put RubyGems.org into a dangerous state.
- No maintainers or operators were consulted. Nobody was informed in advance.
The composition of the Ruby Central board itself is also concerning.
- Shopify-affiliated people are everywhere, combined with others who have little understanding of how the community works, or what MINASWAN was supposed to stand for.
- People I admired for years for their contributions were revealed to be just that — people, not superheroes.
- The funniest person turns out to be grumpy whenever not everyone is aligned with them.
- The most “community-oriented” person is simply paid to play that role — it’s a contract, not conviction.
- The friendliest face spends their time throwing dirt on others when challenged.
- Some are greedy. Some cannot withstand criticism, or rejection, even after a decade.
The truth is painful:
- There is no MINASWAN. It was a lie — a golden cage that the community lived in.
- Ruby is not really exceptional in this regard, even though I believed it for over a decade.
- The same good people who helped build this community have, in the end, also played a role in breaking it.
All of the official Ruby Central statements so far are, frankly, lies.
- The results of their actions did the opposite of what they claimed.
- Instead of strengthening stewardship, they put the system in danger — and that danger continues today.
- RubyGems.org is now in a state we can consider mostly un-maintained.
- Rather than admitting failure, they chose to publish corporate-grade nonsense (likely even AI-generated in tone) instead of simply saying the truth: “we failed, please help us”.
And if we apply their own justification consistently, then I should have been removed as well.
This was not a neutral cleanup of “dangerous operators” — it was a well-targeted action aimed not at operators, but at set of maintainers (who happened to be also partly operators).
The Ruby Central board’s response exposes another problem: who sits on it.
- The super-naive post of board member is a perfect example. The only qualification on display is: “I love Ruby.”
- Loving Ruby is not enough. Thousands of people love Ruby. That alone does not qualify someone to secure and steward critical infrastructure for the community.
- The board is stacked with Shopify affiliates alongside people who lack deep community understanding or the perspective of MINASWAN.
What the board should have been composed of are people with:
- Strong community feelings and long-term investment in its health
- A real understanding of open source governance and trust
- The courage to protect the community, not corporate interests
Instead, we were left with decisions that betrayed the community and endangered the ecosystem.
In the end, it has become clear that Ruby Central prefers to prioritize its own position and corporate requirements over the needs of the community. The recent actions are the best proof:
- They threw the community overboard to satisfy corporate demands.
- This is unacceptable. It is a mockery in the face of the community.
- The message is loud and clear: you can be part of the community only if you follow our rules — otherwise, we will act unilaterally, regardless of the community’s or maintainers’ agreements.
Even worse, they have preferred to leave RubyGems.org mostly unmaintained and largely unoperated, with core projects left without real maintainers, rather than risk sponsorship money or compromise on personal demands and goals.
To make it even worse, Ruby Central kicked out the only maintainer directly involved with security — labeling him a “security threat” — and replaced him with exactly nothing.
That is not stewardship. That is control at the expense of the very people who built and sustained these projects for years.
I want to be clear: I understand there have been real problems in the community over the years. Some of the maintainers who were removed had conflicts, and there were reasonable reasons why a demand for change existed.
But this is not the way to fix those problems. Ruby Central acted with a deus ex machina approach — coming down like a “hand of God” to forcibly reset the situation. That is not how you contribute to a community. That is not how open source works.
So while I can acknowledge some of Ruby Central’s concerns, their actions have left me no choice.
- I am leaving any cooperation with Ruby Central.
- And since they will most likely require a CLA (Contributor License Agreement) for future work, I will no longer be able to contribute at all.
I do not believe RubyGems.org is in danger long-term — the service will continue to operate, just under different people. It will take some time to stabilize, but new operators will be hired, new maintainers will be found. Maybe even some of the old, disappointed maintainers will return (it is slowly happening, guess which company they do work for)...
But the underlying problem will remain: community is diverged. Nothing truly changes. There is no official effort to put it all back together.
It is time to show the strength of the community. Let’s build something new together!
For my part, I will continue to contribute to community tools as much as I can. In fact, I already have something in progress — just a few weeks old — and I hope to share it with you very soon.
The future of Ruby’s ecosystem should remain in the hands of the community. Let’s make sure it does.
Nice write-up. I agree on some points and not on others, such as the MINASWAN claim - that one is
actually historically incorrect. I am not sure why so many people keep on misquoting it.
Anyway I'll make some comments here and there. This is the first write-up to it; I may have to
improve on it at a later time, as I wrote this when it was quite late, so some typos and things
I may reword, may have to be adjusted. (I'll give notice what was changed if it was important
or quoted by someone else, but not today as I'll have to replenish some energy now, with the
ancient technique called sleep).
Right. On this part I agree fully.
There were various alarm signals I already noticed before, though.
When I commented on the ruby-issue tracker a few years ago or so, suddenly a rather entitled
shopify employee commented, trying to lecture me how I should write less. In the +15 years
prior to that, I never had that happen. And that was not the only guy - suddenly more and
more shopify paid devs popped out of nowhere, like ants on a sugar rush trying to find
sugar. These guys never contributed to ruby before (or almost never; their contribution was
usually marginal at best, one or two fake gems published .. for around 95% of them), but
suddenly my eyes popped open when the ruby core team was mostly paid by shopify, too.
That was actually a well-concerted take-over and I also find it VERY hard to believe the
ruby core team had no knowledge of any of this. Do we know which NDAs were signed?
What was agreed upon? I just do not believe that a corporation would pay a lot of more
for zero influence in exchange before. With the take over of Ruby Central, this is now
more obvious, but even before it, I think there may have been financial interest. I could be
wrong, but ... if we can not see the NDA, how can we know? We can only infer indirectly.
DHH's tweet here was actually very informative, I totally agree with Joel, and his summary
is REALLY good - on this part I agree. Here is the link again:
https://joel.drapper.me/p/rubygems-takeover/
One of the best summaries in the ruby-ecosystem ever. \o/ (He may also update it with
more information, so anyone having insight and good quality information, consider
sending it to Joel for an update, as that link, or rather its content, may be important
for years to come from now on.)
Then came the more recent take-over of all rubygems. This is also strange.
It kind of breaks how ruby used to be developed and handled things in the
past. Also, DHH being on board with shopify against mucho money, makes
this even worse, since they can now force out other developers at will.
This almost seems like a corporation-versus-corporation warfare now. These
things did not happen years ago, and we can kind of trace this do the
influence if Shopify.
I thought about raising an issue about this, but if the whole ruby team
is paid by Shopify then this is a lost cause. The aliens won, just like
in the old horror movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
Agreed, it is a good summary.
I especially liked how he pointed out that RubyCentral's response was AI-generated.
I read it again and now I agree with him. Those shopify-hitmen not only stole
the ecosystem, but also COULD NOT EVEN BE BOTHERED TO DO A GENUINE WRITE-UP and
just resorted to troll-AI-generated crap webpage generating. This is the ultimate
insult, the literal flipping-the-middle-finger to ruby developers.
A shame how ruby has sunk ... it's still a great language, but boy can corporations
way too easily ruin the whole ecosystem. And none in the core team will dare raise
their voice, since they are bribed, excuse me, paid by shopify.
By the way there was an allegation that Microsoft also helped pay funds and then
applied pressure. So basically a big hit by several corporations; I think it is
not only shopify that took over.
It is not just the server infrastructure. They also took over gems. Look at the
new "rules" they forced people to accept. They wrote that they can do with the
gem whatever they like to, including changing it, putting in malicious code
and abusing your name since they are not forced to point out that it was a
FORK. Or the stupid "after 100.000 downloads, we disown the gem and you can
no longer remove it". This fits into the corporate agenda of making sure that
the gem remains. It is ok to fork the gem of course, but then THEY HAVE TO
CLEARLY LABEL IT IS A FORK, rather than assume people will accept those evil
corporation shenanigan take-over.
Well, many shopify developers are guilty as charged. They are paid to act as
lobbyists for shopify. Take the shopify dev who tried to force everyone into
2FA. So, people emerge out of nowhere, having done nothing for the ruby community,
and suddenly establishing new rules the shopify CEO tries to push down onto
others. That is 100% a hostile take-over. A direct attack on ruby. And nothing
will happen because enough money has been given to sanction all of it.
Ruby, why have you fallen so far from grace now?
The shopify developers involved here are all known. Although many probably
simply acted as how they were instructed, so I think we can not necessarily
blame them. They were probably scared of losing their job when they don't
pursue the evil agenda of hijacking the infra-structure. Although a few of
them don't seem to be so happy now that they are in cahoots with having
ousted key developers who contributed to ruby for decades, literally, or
run a proxy for DHH suddenly going on a political career spree. I would
say it is a private thing if DHH or Dana White are suddenly Trump supporters
but unfortunately DHH also leverages interest in ruby - not just with the
shopify affiliation but also foundation/trusts. Aka paid agenda. That seems
to be the ultimate abuse of genuinely independent hobbyist developers who
used to contribute to ruby but now can not because some gangsters with
a financial interest stole ruby effectively. I have nothing against funding,
not even coming from corporations - but THE CONFLICT OF INTEREST has to
be denied. I think Alan Wu (or someone else, I unfortunately forget things
that are like 20 years ago ...) once pointed this out many years ago on the
bugtracker in regards to Microsoft. Guess we now have become a proxy-corporate
programming language.
I'd disagree, I think both are relevant, but it is your opinion so that is fine.
Some good things can be said, that is true. Paying developers who find bugs -
I guess nobody disagrees that this is a good thing. But they also buy influence
and decision making, so ultimately I'd prefer if they'd just piss off now -
they already caused WAY too much damage now. Note that Microsoft/GitHub never
caused as much damage as Shopify, nor other corporations. I can't recall any
other company having caused that much damage in such a short amount of time.
No clue what is going on, but I think the problem is mostly Shopify; and that
they pay too many ruby people, so these become their lobbyists. I am not
saying this is all the fault of Shopify only either. Too many people left
ruby too, which actually also is not good, because the people who could
object to corporate take-overs, are ... elsewhere. Or probably already using
some corporate-controlled programming language, e. g. Go with regard to
Google.
I understand it. It is easy. Shopify wants more control over ruby, from
A to Z. They don't pay these ruby developers expecting zero return; they
WANT and DEMAND more control. It may even make more sense from a business
point of view - rather than create a new language nobody uses, why not
just hijack a well-designed language? Well done, evil, but effective.
Yeah. I now also see the 100k download limit as a hostile take over.
Shopify needs to be renamed as Gangsterify. They turn you into a
gangster in less than 24 hours. The even sadder thing is that they
are in Canada. Now it was said that the CEO is a Trumpist clown,
but then really they should just be expelled from Canada for being
anti-canadian - it's not going to happen since evidently they also
pay a lot of taxes, so we are back to money controlling the world.
Well, I have been quite active, and I can say that the current drama in ruby
is without precedent. It seems as if various factors have changed things
in the last 2 years. Shopify wasn't becoming as evil before that quite yet.
Perhaps they felt that they needed more influence right now for some reason.
Would be interesting to hear what really happened in Shopify, but the guys
are under NDA so we can only infer indirectly. Shopify probably already
ordered them to keep quit, and they will be quiet.
But that community was not ever "unified" to begin with. For instance, rails
community is not the same as ruby community. It's also unfortunately that
rails overshadows ruby too much. I don't have a good solution for this problem.
I'd suggest more ruby gems to be created outside of rails, but as I myself
retired from the shopify-controlled rubygems.org already, that option no longer
works. Shopify won. Ruby is soon to be renamed into rubify.
It is easy to resolve this: Shopify must go.
Then, the ruby core team also needs to come up with new ideas how to prevent
those financial kick-backs from turning ruby into a corporate-proxy-language.
I don't have a good solution for this either. Perhaps they depend on some
generous corporation, so there is nothing that can be done. If it is not
Shopify then perhaps Microsoft will buy ruby.
That is not surprising since it was a hostile take-over from the get-go. All
the "arguments" are fake. And the AI-generated webpage is the ultimate
insult. For this alone Shopify should be perma-banned. People pointed this
out on reddit. It's almost hilarious if it were not so outrageous.
Yeah. They stole it. Damn thieves. And lied about it. Damn liars.
The damage they caused to ruby is insane. Any independent developer will
now ask "why the heck would I want to publish when shopify causes so much
damage to the ecosystem as well as my gems/projects?".
Agreed, but this is how money works. And unfortunately, I am also now convinced
that the ruby core team sees no problem there, so ... money won. Don't resist.
Accept the new Shopify overlord. I may put a shopify logo on my arm or perhaps
more below. Somewhere. I for one welcome our new commerce Overlords.
Yeah. And a public apology by Shopify. Also, another excuse for that AI generated
crap video. But it won't happen. They may AI-autogenerate another video, cackling
evilly knowing full well they own ruby now. Let's not fight and instead embrace
our new overlord. On reddit you see some accounts who try to praise shopify -
it's kind of hilarious to see.
Actually, I'd discard all of that too. You guys became too addicted to procedures
and formal things. We didn't need any of that shit for literally 15 years or
so. I'd even recommend going back to the rubyforge days. Granted, rubyforge may
seem to be way too outdated now, but I don't recall any drama. Even rubygems org
didn't have a lot of drama from 2013 to 2023 or so. I remember because I used
to be very active before the 100k restriction nuked me into retirement. (Funny
how Microsoft github never puts such an arbitrary restriction on the code I
write and publish there, but I guess our new Shopify overlords simply want you
to love Big Brother.)
Not a bad idea. I think the whole ecosystem should be FUDGING UNPOLITICAL and
also without influence from private actors. Granted this is difficult since
some people require funding, so it is not that I do not understand the problem.
But what about hobbyist devs? They get abused by the corporations seizing
control.
I somewhat agree, but only to an extent. You see, that "argument" presented
by Shopify, actually makes no sense. Instead, as others have pointed out,
IF the plan was a hostile take over, then THIS MAKES A WHOLE LOT MORE SENSE
to analyse it in that way. After all, they could re-instate the people they
fired - but they don't want to do that. So the goal was indeed to get rid
of people; while ALSO getting more control over the ecosystem. Anyone wondered
why suddenly 2FA is mandatory on, say, the bugtracker? Or Shopify trying it
on rubygems.org? Well, one "explanation" used to be "prevent spam" - but does
this not more eaily fit the "we want more security" as mandatory part? That
suits a corporate agenda. And ruby gave in to that. Ruby will continue to
give in to whatever demands Shopify will push onto it. Those who pay, control
the ecosystem. By the way, how can Shopify pressure anyone? I mean, I'd
actually suggested to remove Ruby Central, Ruby Together etc... - you guys
actually collectively let down independent developers. Why would I need
corporate funding? I literally don't care. I don't want any of those gangster
shenanigans. I understand the "but who provides the infrastructure" - this is
a legit problem that has to be solved. But as a first step, we should use
the extreme approach - no more corporate funding leading to corporate controlled.
Any corporation trying to blackmail the community, gets perma-banned and
forbidden from any further contribution. Of course this is never going to
happen but it SHOULD happen. Why would we want those corporate gangsters
controlling the ecosystem? It wasn't that way years ago. Something really
changed. Too much money being injected into the system. Everyone has a price.
True. But this should not be limited to Shopify. Any corporation that tries
those gangster-practices, must be removed from "contributing". They are
harmful to the community.
Proposal: instantly eliminate Ruby Central. They have abused the community.
There can not be peace with a hostile entity.
Agreed. These paid lobbyists must go.
True.
But it also shows how POWERLESS the community is. A shame how ruby fell into
corporate control so easily. Almost as easy as the USA becoming authoritarian.
Shopify does not care about the community. They wanted a sexy programming
language and got it. Although I have to say... ruby got more money from
other corporations, and these corporations didn't behave that way, so
there is something unique about Shopify too. Something evil. Something
we don't want in Ruby. DHH being on board of Shopify also lends credibility
to this thought process. We see how Evil comes together. Ruby Together.
Evil Together. I knew there was a connection.
Yeah. Because it was a hostile take-over. It's not so difficult to understand.
People explained this on reddit. It is the single best explanation - and then
the AI generated crap video or rather the text, actually, which came first.
Wowsers. Shopify thinks they can get away with that. (Well, they will, but
letts just assume they won't. In the end, evil wins. Those James Bond movies
were all wrong - entertaining, but wrong. No villain meta-explains the
plan at the end so that James can stop him ...)
Well, since they are just lobbyists, it does not matter who is on board.
Yeah this is really the most annoying thing. They popped out of nowhere, having
not contributed to ruby AT ALL and suddenly changed things. Now to be fair:
some of them actually never caused a problem and only did useful things. I am
not saying ALL who worked for Shopify, were evil and malicious. But those people
who are doing good, are not the problem. It's the others that cause problems -
and of course now nobody wants to be responsible. Yet why did Shopify act in
the way how it did? With nobody responsible? That makes no sense. Someone MADE
THESE EVIL DECISIONS. Someone at Shopify. (I actually don't know who made it,
but clearly someone had to decide on taking over the ecosystem in one sweep.
And now they refuse to undo the damage, so this was a PLANNED move. Planned
Evilness.)
Ok, this ALSO shows that you are not quite as knowledgable.
MINASWAN never existed in the first place. That was coined by the Pickaxe guys.
Now, I should say that matz is in general nice, and excellent at designing
programming languages too. But MINASWAN never existed as a "rule". It simply
conjures the wrong image when people repeat it.
It depends. Some people I think are great despite where they work. For instance,
tenderlove (Aaron Patterson) is cool. Though I am really concerned about the
issues with DHH - I think we have a real problem in regards to the ecosystem
now. Way too much money influencing things. It may already be too late for
ruby to do much about it.
Who exactly?
Yeah that sucks. The money guides them in their decisions. Damn lobbyists.
I always felt that integrity is the most important thing here. But let's
be real: money is more important, at the least for many people. Also,
this seems to be a problem more in the USA or North America. I am angry
that people in Europes suffer because of that area. That's really annoying.
We should perhaps split up rubygems into separate areas, and people can
freely choose their favourite areas. So the corporate gangster area will
be in North America. These guys have the longest "new rules" and restrictions.
Leave the rest of the world alone - k thx bye.
That hostile take over originated from the USA - that is clear.
Dirt? Either something is correct. Or not. People can evaluate "dirt" lateron
but first the facts must be checked and confirmed. This is a bit hard when
e. g. the accused denies any wrongdoing, but we can infer indirectly.
That is true.
No, it was not a lie. IT NEVER EXISTED TO BEGIN WITH.
I am surprised you don't know that part of history.
Exceptional in what with or how?
As a programming language I still think Ruby is great.
The ecosystem is now seriously broken though. I also don't actually think it
can be cleaned up. Shopify won. It has to be renamed into shopisystem.
Perhaps we can get a discount at least for a little while. Though, I don't
want to purchase at Evil.
Who? To which person do you refer?
The people who built gems, are either dead or very old. So clearly you don't
mean these.
You really SHOULD mention names rather than accuse everyone.
Yeah. Not so hard to notice though.
The AI generated text is still the biggest insult. Someone talk to Shopify
about this shit.
Well it was just autogenerated propaganda. They never cared about
stewardship. They cared about control. You have become property of Shopify
now. Look at the new rules they placed onto rubygems.org. And this MUST
have been agreed with the core team by the way - this actually makes me
even more sad, because it means that it was not just Shopify alone. A
sad day indeed.
These things did not happen in the past, by the way.
Well, it is now ShopifyGems.org so nothing to be done about it. Let
the dead things remain dead. Perhaps someone is able to come up with
something better. But probably not.
Well they are trolling us with that AI generated crap. Actually, if it
is NOT AI generated, then whoever wrote it needs to be fired at once
due to epic incompetency. But I am quite certain this is AI generated.
All have to go out now. The ship is sinking.
Indeed - it was a hostile take-over. Why should shopify apologie
for the mission that was a success? Although perhaps the plan was
to destroy the ecosystem. While I don't see a benefit in it, some
people do strange things like the guy who killed IRC freenode.
Why does such a board even exist in the first place? Here you try
to elevate a board to be important. What if there is no board?
I understand that some decisions have to be made, but is a board
really needed? It was easier in the past since the people back
then were mostly individuals without corporate-influence. This
changed with Shopify. But it may have also changed because of
the nature of the current world. People have less time available
on average. Anyway, I don't want to stray this discussion too
much away.
Well. Those who pay. So, Shopify. And thus also DHH. His tweet
is very revealing. I was unaware he had so much influence.
Perhaps ruby should be renamed to railsy. Shopify also came from
rails. It's annoying that all the bad things originate from rails
now. Admittedly if it is the money-giver, then not much can be
done about it. Evidently it was a success story - Microsoft paying
some fantastillions for GitHub built largely by ruby, that is a
success story. Same with Shopify. Ruby is the ultimate corporate
language now. Perhaps python is also mega-dependent on corporations.
Hmmmm. You mean this I guess:
https://apiguy.substack.com/p/a-board-members-perspective-of-the?r=43k3q&utm_medium=ios&triedRedirect=true
I am not sure he actually meant harm. I'd probably excuse him, though
perhaps he was naive. He should have understood the "if I can not
resist pressure from Shopify, I may look like a corporate-controlled
person". (Or from any other corporation by the way; while Shopify is
the clear villain in this story, this could happen by any other corporation.)
I think Ruby Central being so easily blackmailable is actually the main
problem. This does not excuse Shopify, but why has there been a structure
install that is basically an invitation system for corporations to
gamify and play with the ruby ecosystem? Why does nobody protect the
solo developers? This feels very unfair. Can we have a rubygems without
corporate overlords? But as stated, I think the ship has sailed. Let's
stop fighting Shopify and instead reach out our hands to them, no matter
how evil they are - they are our new Overlords.
I still use ruby for my personal stuff. I still write ruby code too. I
just no longer publish on rubygems.org, but that also was a decision
I already made last year. I can publish on github (this also does not
solve the problem though, as Microsoft controls github - it's a shame
how mega-corporations control our digital life now. Can we build a
new world wide web? But alright... that takes even more effort than
fixing rubygems).
THERE IS NO MINASWAN. But otherwise I agree. All paid lobbyists. I
wasn't aware of how messed up the ruby ecosystem is. And I bet none
of the ruby core team will say anything - the financial dependency
is too strong. People can't risk their job.
I agree, but the plan was to hijack the ecosystem. That plan succeeded.
Indeed. That was the goal.
All true. The sad thing is ... although I have no proof, I am 100%
certain that this was only possible because Shopify got the permission
to do so. Perhaps due to signing a NDA aka "we pwn you guys now, you
may not object to anything we do". Ruby has been infiltrated.
Well, this part can be changed. I don't think that is the primary
problem. Actually, I think it makes no sense to keep rubygems
separate. This only creates problems, since those who control
rubygems, can inject any arbitrary agenda, thus undermining
ruby itself (and the ecosystem).
Yeah, that was another insult. It was a hostile take over, let's
not beat around the bush.
Agreed.
Which ones?
Which ones? I disagreed the most with people who came up with things I
did not want to have slapped onto me - and they slapped it down anyway.
Not all were from Shopify actually. Bad maintainers can exist everywhere.
This brings us back to this question: why the heck is rubygems decoupled
from ruby itself? I feel that rubygems should be an integral part of
ruby. No boards. No corporations. Just an ecosystem.
Naturally some decisions have to be made. Well, first - leave ALL politics
out of it. Slim down that insane 20 pages long new rules - nobody needs
that shit. Keep it small, e. g. with basic what is necessary e. g. the
infrastructure having to provide downloads. That's the core, the rest
is mostly not needed (some legalese I understand, but this can also
be simplified). These guys have just been adding more and more rules,
and the current rules also seem both AI autogenerated and coming from
some bored lawyer at Shopify or elsewhere.
Yeah. It has to be disbanded at once. It lost our trust.
That's unfortunate. Ruby Central really destroyed the ecosystem.
It already is. I think it actually has to be integrated into
ruby itself and also operated by the ruby core team. Now this is
a bit of a chicken-egg problem, and it also does not solve the
issue of corporate-proxy-control (besides, I think Shopify already
got its OK-ed, so this is moot), but this approach would solve one
thing: no more separate agendas that are suddenly pushed into ruby
via the ecosystem and mysterious boards that exist and have to be
filled. These people just seem to come up with more and more rules
to try to inflate their job. That's not good. Why were we able
to live without these boards in the past? Can we go back to when
it was simpler?
Under Shopify.
If trust is gone, that is hard to fix.
Well, Shopify maintains it now.
That would mean they just did a show and the money pulls them back.
Do people really have no pride anymore?
Shopify!
True.
I can not trust these corporate hackers. They are not genuine,
honest people. They even use AI-generated text!
Yeah. And I think it will not happen either. Money works.
Well ... I am actually open for new ideas, because Shopify pisses me
off, but how does any other new company replacing Shopify, help
solve the underlying problem? I'd actually prefer to go back in
time when Weirich was alive. Granted, I have no idea how to fill
in the 20 years in between or so, but perhaps that could be a model
that could work better. Individual people unaffiliated mostly from
corporations. At the least I would like to think that this is the
bteter model, but it also has problems, I get it. (Also people
dying, that's not good of course.)
More options are not bad, but that still does not really solve
the problem - and will lead to more fragmentation. I understand
that this can not be avoided, but ruby actually also suffers
from a lack of new people. That will kill it long-term; it is
not directly related to the ecosystem, but ... we'd need to
make the whole ecosystem better. Can this be guaranteed with
new tools? I have no crystal ball for predicting the future,
but I think it may be very, very hard. Even without the current
drama, ruby still has the problem of too few new, young people
using it; and rails being WAY too over-dominating.
Agreed.