Bundler Belongs to the Ruby Community • Hacker News Board

Re: Bundler Belongs to the Ruby Community

#21

Post by joshuap » Thu, Sep 25, 2025, 2:05 PM UTC

testdelacc1 wrote: post #20

joshuap wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funding open source work doesn’t confer ownership, but also “they controlled it by funding maintainers” is not true —- many other companies and individuals from the community helped fund the work through Ruby Together and later Ruby Central.

I believe the events of the last few days speak for themselves. Shopify has exerted absolute control over important Ruby infra. Shopify’s CEO? Lutke. And Board member? DHH.

Yes, that is a recent development. And many of Ruby Central’s other sponsors and sustaining members are upset about it.

Re: Bundler Belongs to the Ruby Community

#22

Post by bdcravens » Thu, Sep 25, 2025, 2:11 PM UTC

I realize this will come off as snide, and result in downvotes, but looking to the success of Ruby and Rails today, the "community" is as much the money that's been poured into the ecosystem as it is the warm fuzzies and volunteers. Without the millions of dollars companies like Heroku, Shopify, Basecamp, Github, 37 Signals, and others have spent in terms of money and developer-hours, the projects we know and love would be in a much different place. To that end, those entities are as much the "community" as the developer who has done nothing but "gem install" and put cute stickers on their laptop.

Re: Bundler Belongs to the Ruby Community

#23

Post by adgjlsfhk1 » Thu, Sep 25, 2025, 2:12 PM UTC

jillesvangurp wrote: post #11

mijoharas wrote: post #2

Interesting. > I have registered my existing trademark on the Bundler project. As all of this was happening I had wondered if there was going to be some kind of copyright dispute, but I guess it's gonna be trademark based. Does anyone have any insights into how this might play out? How do trademark disputes tend to happen? (I assume this is in the US?)

After fifteen years of not enforcing the trademark, a common legal interpretation in case of a conflict would be to consider the trademark genericized or abandoned. Which means any trademark owners apparently were not interested in enforcing their trademarks and effectively abandoned their rights. Of course this is not guaranteed and just a common interpretation of trademark law by judges in trademark related cases.…

There's a reasonable argument that the trademark hasn't been generalized or abandoned. There's not other project out there using the RubyGems trademark (as far as I know). As such, OP has a decent argument that there were no previous violations in need of enforcement. Until a week ago, the trademark was (arguably) being used by a community owned project as desired.

Re: Bundler Belongs to the Ruby Community

#24

Post by dbalatero » Thu, Sep 25, 2025, 2:13 PM UTC

bdcravens wrote: post #22

I realize this will come off as snide, and result in downvotes, but looking to the success of Ruby and Rails today, the "community" is as much the money that's been poured into the ecosystem as it is the warm fuzzies and volunteers. Without the millions of dollars companies like Heroku, Shopify, Basecamp, Github, 37 Signals, and others have spent in terms of money and developer-hours, the projects we know and love wo…

I can't tell what point you're trying to make here?

Re: Bundler Belongs to the Ruby Community

#25

Post by geerlingguy » Thu, Sep 25, 2025, 2:13 PM UTC

pavel_lishin wrote: post #17

eowyn wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this was the last statement from Ruby Central: https://youtu.be/VyCiE3GjQps?si=QgY1sa_w-59jJjQ3 This topic seems to be in a holding pattern now. People are waiting to see how Ruby Central responds. Some are hoping for the Q&A to be rescheduled or at least another statement

In this, the year of someone's lord 2025, surely there's a non-video version, right?

Probably on Discord.

Re: Bundler Belongs to the Ruby Community

#26

Post by bschwarz » Thu, Sep 25, 2025, 2:14 PM UTC

testdelacc1 wrote: post #18

hn8726 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But right now it belongs to the rich people who fund the work on Ruby and Rails. That’s DHH and Lutke (Shopify CEO). Do you mean "right now" as in _now that they hijacked the Github repositories and locked out the previous owners_, or "right now" as in _for some time now, since they've been funding some Ruby work_?

The latter, they controlled it by funding maintainers. But the extent of their power and their lack of restraint in exercising that power only became clear now. DHH and Lutke don’t have the community’s best interests at heart.

> DHH and Lutke don’t have the community’s best interests at heart.

How does this manifest?

Re: Bundler Belongs to the Ruby Community

#27

Post by Aurornis » Thu, Sep 25, 2025, 2:19 PM UTC

joshuap wrote: post #19

testdelacc1 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The latter, they controlled it by funding maintainers. But the extent of their power and their lack of restraint in exercising that power only became clear now. DHH and Lutke don’t have the community’s best interests at heart.

Funding open source work doesn’t confer ownership, but also “they controlled it by funding maintainers” is not true —- many other companies and individuals from the community helped fund the work through Ruby Together and later Ruby Central.

> Funding open source work doesn’t confer ownership

A true donation wouldn’t confer ownership, but in this case there are actual organizations and legal structures involved that did confer ownership.

Re: Bundler Belongs to the Ruby Community

#28

Post by Aurornis » Thu, Sep 25, 2025, 2:21 PM UTC

adgjlsfhk1 wrote: post #23

jillesvangurp wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After fifteen years of not enforcing the trademark, a common legal interpretation in case of a conflict would be to consider the trademark genericized or abandoned. Which means any trademark owners apparently were not interested in enforcing their trademarks and effectively abandoned their rights. Of course this is not guaranteed and just a common interpretation of trademark law by judges in trademark related cases.…

There's a reasonable argument that the trademark hasn't been generalized or abandoned. There's not other project out there using the RubyGems trademark (as far as I know). As such, OP has a decent argument that there were no previous violations in need of enforcement. Until a week ago, the trademark was (arguably) being used by a community owned project as desired.

> Until a week ago, the trademark was (arguably) being used by a community owned project as desired.

The community isn’t a legal entity. Saying that it’s owned by a public community with no boundaries or membership is equivalent to saying it’s genericized or abandoned.

Even if it was, that would undermine this trademark registration which was registered by a single individual.

Re: Bundler Belongs to the Ruby Community

#29

Post by bdcravens » Thu, Sep 25, 2025, 2:25 PM UTC

dbalatero wrote: post #24

bdcravens wrote: post #22

I realize this will come off as snide, and result in downvotes, but looking to the success of Ruby and Rails today, the "community" is as much the money that's been poured into the ecosystem as it is the warm fuzzies and volunteers. Without the millions of dollars companies like Heroku, Shopify, Basecamp, Github, 37 Signals, and others have spent in terms of money and developer-hours, the projects we know and love wo…

I can't tell what point you're trying to make here?

That dismissing the concerns of organizations, big and small, that have contributed to Ruby's success is intellectually dishonest.

Re: Bundler Belongs to the Ruby Community

#30

Post by bdcravens » Thu, Sep 25, 2025, 2:33 PM UTC

jillesvangurp wrote: post #11

mijoharas wrote: post #2

Interesting. > I have registered my existing trademark on the Bundler project. As all of this was happening I had wondered if there was going to be some kind of copyright dispute, but I guess it's gonna be trademark based. Does anyone have any insights into how this might play out? How do trademark disputes tend to happen? (I assume this is in the US?)

After fifteen years of not enforcing the trademark, a common legal interpretation in case of a conflict would be to consider the trademark genericized or abandoned. Which means any trademark owners apparently were not interested in enforcing their trademarks and effectively abandoned their rights. Of course this is not guaranteed and just a common interpretation of trademark law by judges in trademark related cases.…

Further complicating the issue is that for as long as I can remember, the two organizations have been kind of comingled at Ruby conferences, taking money. You want a Bundler sticker? Go to the Ruby Central table. You want a Bundler t-shirt? They'll happily sell you one for a donation. IANAL, but there has to be some nuance to "ownership" based on how it's presented to those who didn't read the fine print.