Dear Rubyists: Shopify Isn't Your Enemy • Hacker News Board

Re: Dear Rubyists: Shopify Isn't Your Enemy

#11

Post by ilikehurdles » Fri, Oct 10, 2025, 6:04 AM UTC

lamontcg wrote: post #10

> Over the past decade, people in the community, not just Shopify employees, started to conclude that rubygems and bundler were being monetized by some key maintainers. The logical conclusion of this argument is that if you maintain a critical piece of infrastructure with a "large moat" you are apparently expected to live in poverty, or turn it over to a $2.68B revenue per quarter company because trying to extract $6…

Yes I would actually be mad if a volunteer at an org sold member lists or gave preferential treatment to outside sponsors as a way to make ends meet for himself, for example. Like are you kidding? If you don’t like the terms and pay, change them or don’t sign up. Anything else - like monetizing off your own insider access - is underhanded and unethical.

Re: Dear Rubyists: Shopify Isn't Your Enemy

#12

Post by byroot » Fri, Oct 10, 2025, 7:16 AM UTC

saghm wrote: post #8

byroot wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Author here. > at which point the only claims made are fairly vague allusions to there being more to the story with even a hint at what that might be. The goal of my post was mostly to provide "character evidence". It's not for me to relay accusations made by others that I can't substantiate myself. Some other people did that previously and that is what caused that massive controversy. > The grievances against Shopif…

Your post isn't about them being horseshit though; you say that you consider them to be, but pretty the only information in it is entirely unrelated. To me, it basically sounds like you're saying "those people are lying, and I think something different happened but I won't say what it is". Maybe I'm unusual, but that just doesn't convince me at all. I don't know how to decide whether something is believable if no one…

> after Ruby Central was threatened to have their funding revoked from Shopify

So you take the original allegations at face value, even though they only rely on second hand reporting of anonymous testimonies, yet you don't want to consider my post even though the standard of proof is the same.

Got it.

Re: Dear Rubyists: Shopify Isn't Your Enemy

#13

Post by saghm » Fri, Oct 10, 2025, 1:07 PM UTC

byroot wrote: post #12

saghm wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your post isn't about them being horseshit though; you say that you consider them to be, but pretty the only information in it is entirely unrelated. To me, it basically sounds like you're saying "those people are lying, and I think something different happened but I won't say what it is". Maybe I'm unusual, but that just doesn't convince me at all. I don't know how to decide whether something is believable if no one…

> after Ruby Central was threatened to have their funding revoked from Shopify So you take the original allegations at face value, even though they only rely on second hand reporting of anonymous testimonies, yet you don't want to consider my post even though the standard of proof is the same. Got it.

You didn't include the actual context of the sentence you quoted, which is that I'm summarizing my understanding of the allegations. Do you not agree with me that those are what the allegations are, or do you think my ability to summarize them somehow implies that I must agree with them?

The problem with your post is that you're asking people to believe something without telling them what it is. I'd be more than willing to consider an alternate explanation of what happened but so far no one has been willing to share one. Regardless of your reasoning for withholding it (and the reasons of the others who apparently have knowledge of it), no one is going to be convinced of anything of anything by just asking people to trust blindly. At the end of the day, people are not going to believe there's some secret truth that explains everything about how Ruby Central and Shopify were acting if l in good faith; they'll need to be told what actually happened, or they'll quite understandably trust the people who don't seem to be trying to hide something.

Re: Dear Rubyists: Shopify Isn't Your Enemy

#14

Post by TheCleric » Fri, Oct 10, 2025, 7:14 PM UTC

lamontcg wrote: post #10

> Over the past decade, people in the community, not just Shopify employees, started to conclude that rubygems and bundler were being monetized by some key maintainers. The logical conclusion of this argument is that if you maintain a critical piece of infrastructure with a "large moat" you are apparently expected to live in poverty, or turn it over to a $2.68B revenue per quarter company because trying to extract $6…

No one should live poor, but any entity that takes donations (code, money, etc.) should be VERY above board with disclosures and conflicts of interest. The point isn't that they can't make money, the point is it shouldn't be a secret.