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A board member's perspective of the RubyGems controversy

apiguy.substack.com

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Re: A board member's perspective of the RubyGems controversy

#91

Post by bigiain »

x0x0 wrote: post #48
sc68cal wrote: post #13

This story is missing any context around what occurred. The only thing I was able to find was by searching, and I came to this PDF statement. https://pup-e.com/goodbye-rubygems.pdf > On September 9th, with no warning or communication, a RubyGems maintainer unilaterally: > renamed the “RubyGems” GitHub enterprise to “Ruby Central”, > added non-maintainer Marty Haught of Ruby Central, and > removed every other maintain…

How you can tell this is all lies from the board is simple: > How do you tell someone that has had commit and admin access to critical infrastructure long after that need has expired that you need to revoke that access without upsetting them? The first thing is they didn't tell them. The second bit is simple: "Hi [x], I'm sure you've seen the news about npm. Given supply chain attacks directed at them and the one rec…

There's a bunch of red flags here. The author of the article is desperately trying to sound like pert of the Ruby developer community, not some corporate type power player trying to maximise profits and their own bonus...

In the linked post the author claims to be just some grateful Ruby developer volunteering their time to mundane bookkeeping tasks for an organisation they feel lead to support, describing themselves with:

-----------------------------------------------------------------

When I first discovered Ruby, watching some crazy video where a blog was built in just a few minutes, I was just a young man working at a bank who would sometimes get paid to build software for other people on the side. Ruby opened my eyes to the idea that code could be a craft, a skill I could hone and develop. It also introduced me to the idea that code could be poetry... code could be art.

20 years later, and here I am, a reasonably successful person who's built a career out of building software.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Yet the Ruby Central website describe them like this:

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Freedom Dumlao is a seasoned technology executive with experience at leading companies like Vestmark, Flexcar, Zipcar, Wayfair, and Amazon. Currently the CTO of Vestmark, Freedom brings strategic insights that will help drive Ruby Central’s efforts to expand the Ruby ecosystem and build stronger connections with top companies and startups.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

The post appears to be signed as "MINASWAN", a well know pseudonym for Yukihiro Matsumoto, the chief designer of the Ruby programming language. Hard to imagine a scenario where that was accidental and not an attempt to manipulate readers into assuming Yukihiro has something to do with writing the post.

It's posted to a Substack launched 1 day ago. With the username/subdomain "apiguy" - suspiciously not 'ctoguy' or 'seasonedtechnologyguy'.

I place pretty close to zero respect for the OPs position, compared to well known names in the decade long Ruby Gems committer community.

Re: A board member's perspective of the RubyGems controversy

#92

Post by gus_massa »

bigiain wrote: post #91
x0x0 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How you can tell this is all lies from the board is simple: > How do you tell someone that has had commit and admin access to critical infrastructure long after that need has expired that you need to revoke that access without upsetting them? The first thing is they didn't tell them. The second bit is simple: "Hi [x], I'm sure you've seen the news about npm. Given supply chain attacks directed at them and the one rec…

There's a bunch of red flags here. The author of the article is desperately trying to sound like pert of the Ruby developer community, not some corporate type power player trying to maximise profits and their own bonus... In the linked post the author claims to be just some grateful Ruby developer volunteering their time to mundane bookkeeping tasks for an organisation they feel lead to support, describing themselves…

> The post appears to be signed as "MINASWAN", a well know pseudonym for Yukihiro Matsumoto, the chief designer of the Ruby programming language.

From https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/MINASWAN

> Initialism of Matz is nice and so we are nice: a motto of the Ruby programming language community, in reference to the demeanor of Yukihiro Matsumoto (nicknamed Matz) [...].

Re: A board member's perspective of the RubyGems controversy

#93

Post by type0 »

dewey wrote: post #26
khamidou wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you got things mixed up, open source projects survive because volunteers believe in them and want to contribute to them. Large companies rarely get involved, occasionally with some funding. It sounds like they sold something to their donors they couldn't really guarantee – supply chain safety – and they decided to alienate their contributors to try to appease them. Only time will tell if this was really damag…

Look at the core maintainers of Rails for example. Many are paid by Shopify and Basecamp, so it’s much more commercial than your regular open source project. Which isn’t a bad thing that people get to contribute on company time.

of course Rails is mainly commercial

gems and bundler is for everyone though, even hobbyists writing scripts. Alienating contributors who support common infrastructure for no good reason is just plain stupid especially when those projects wasn't theirs to begin with

Re: A board member's perspective of the RubyGems controversy

#94

Post by runjake »

generalk wrote: post #63
caymanjim wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything you're quoting is from one aggrieved person, who clearly felt slighted, and who left out a whole lot of context in their own post. The article above is a lot more reasoned, less emotional, and seems completely reasonable to me. Ruby Central clearly has issues with both internal and external communication. And the above article isn't an official statement either; it's just one person, not involve in the dec…

Wait, what? A maintainer of RubyGems was forcibly removed from the RubyGems GitHub org — which was renamed to Ruby Central — along with every other maintainer. Then access was restored, then revoked again. There was no explanation, no communication, and no understandable reasoning for this. And still! If there is an "official" statement, I can't find one on https://rubycentral.org/ . This wildly transcends "issues wi…

1. Visit https://rubycentral.org

2. Click News.

3. It’s the top item.

Direct link: https://rubycentral.org/news/strengthening-the-stewardship-o...

Re: A board member's perspective of the RubyGems controversy

#95

Post by corytheboyd »

jaredcwhite wrote: post #4
corytheboyd wrote: post #2

Very reasonable other side to this story, which doesn’t come as much of a surprise. Too bad it didn’t hit the front page. People went WAY too far WAY too fast on this. There HAS to be urgency to this, the software supply chain is presently, undeniably, under attack. Frankly, everyone blasting RubyCentral the last few days should feel shame and embarrassment. These aren’t evil suits at Microsoft, they’re normal people…

What? This article is absolutely damning re: RC's leadership and the utter lack of proper transparency, strategic planning, marketing/PR, and solid OSS governance. Did we read the same article?!

Honestly I don’t know how to feel about it anymore, but I found the rhetoric way too explosive at the time, when nothing was really known. Now that some time has passed, and more has been said… yeah I get your point too.

Ruby has been a HUGE part of building my career, I don’t want to see it slide away one questionable move at a time into full corporate control. It’s not TOO hard to see how this whole thing could just be step one of that :/

Re: A board member's perspective of the RubyGems controversy

#96

Post by cratermoon »

Money. It's all about money. This is the only sentence from the post worth reading: "Either Ruby Central puts controls in place to ensure the safety and stability of the infrastructure we are responsible for, or lose the funding that we use to keep those things online and going"

Re: A board member's perspective of the RubyGems controversy

#97

Post by cratermoon »

McGlockenshire wrote: post #72
fwip wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks - that was helpful indeed. From there, I also found the linked post by Tekin Süleyman ( https://tekin.co.uk/2025/09/the-ruby-community-has-a-dhh-pro... ) to be informative.

Wow! When that one DHH blog went around the other day, I didn't actually pay attention to who the author was. All I saw was yet another bigoted rant and just skimmed it and rolled my eyes. (e: here it is to save people the effort: https://world.hey.com/dhh/as-i-remember-london-e7d38e64 ) I should not have skimmed it. From your link: > In the same post he praises Tommy Robinson (actual name Stephen Christopher Yaxley-…

He makes his position clear enough in the second paragraph, for those who know how to read between the lines. "London is no longer the city I was infatuated with in the late '90s and early 2000s. Chiefly because it's no longer full of native Brits."

Re: A board member's perspective of the RubyGems controversy

#98

Post by cratermoon »

bigiain wrote: post #91
x0x0 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How you can tell this is all lies from the board is simple: > How do you tell someone that has had commit and admin access to critical infrastructure long after that need has expired that you need to revoke that access without upsetting them? The first thing is they didn't tell them. The second bit is simple: "Hi [x], I'm sure you've seen the news about npm. Given supply chain attacks directed at them and the one rec…

There's a bunch of red flags here. The author of the article is desperately trying to sound like pert of the Ruby developer community, not some corporate type power player trying to maximise profits and their own bonus... In the linked post the author claims to be just some grateful Ruby developer volunteering their time to mundane bookkeeping tasks for an organisation they feel lead to support, describing themselves…

Oh yeah, 100% corporate speak damage control attempt.

Re: A board member's perspective of the RubyGems controversy

#99

Post by cratermoon »

rubiest2010 wrote: post #64
hluska wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know why the funder matters. RC agreed to a contract that provided a fixed date by which these issues needed to be resolved or funding would be terminated. Exploding terms are rare in funding agreements because they don’t make the funder look good when they explode. Back in my non profit board days, I learned that contracts with exploding terms need to go in front of the entire board instantly for action or l…

Actions were taken, at the request of a major funder or group of funders, that have become a PR problem for the entire Ruby language. This is the third article I’ve seen on HN in the last week and it’s not just Rubyists commenting. This is damaging to everyone who uses Ruby and developers who want job security in the future. These funders should want to maintain the reputation of Ruby, and forcing a nonprofit to take…

I really want to know who the funders are, for real. Not the public-facing organization, but the actual source of the money.

Re: A board member's perspective of the RubyGems controversy

#100

Post by vr46 »

McGlockenshire wrote: post #72
fwip wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks - that was helpful indeed. From there, I also found the linked post by Tekin Süleyman ( https://tekin.co.uk/2025/09/the-ruby-community-has-a-dhh-pro... ) to be informative.

Wow! When that one DHH blog went around the other day, I didn't actually pay attention to who the author was. All I saw was yet another bigoted rant and just skimmed it and rolled my eyes. (e: here it is to save people the effort: https://world.hey.com/dhh/as-i-remember-london-e7d38e64 ) I should not have skimmed it. From your link: > In the same post he praises Tommy Robinson (actual name Stephen Christopher Yaxley-…

OMFG

This post is full of outright nonsense. I was in Central London last Saturday and watched a lot of it go down, before heading to Islington and then catching the last dregs of the crowd nearer Euston and chatting in the pub with some of them.

As a "native Brit" and "native Londoner" that DHH wouldn't recognise as such, he can absolutely do one.

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