RubyGems Fracture Incident Report • Hacker News Board

Re: RubyGems Fracture Incident Report

#11

Post by RhythmFox » Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 6:21 PM UTC

busterarm wrote: post #10

RhythmFox wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this is a conflict of interest, then any Ruby core systems being controlled predominantly by members of the Shopify dev team is itself a conflict of interest. I am fine saying 'we need to make sure these libraries stay independent and community controlled', but that is so clearly not what was going on here. Believing that is just letting the RC FUD and PR control your thinking on the narrative.

I'm sorry but what are Shopify's business activities that directly compete with services provided/maintained by RubyCentral? As far as arguments about community, Shopify IS the community by virtue of being the ones putting up pretty much all the money to keep this ship afloat. If you don't have skin in the game your positions won't be taken seriously. Depending on your point of view, Sidekiq either turned their back…

That attitude is exactly the problem. Shopify does not 'keep the ship afloat' they are just a corporation using open source systems as the foundation of their business. Competition is not by definition the backing of a 'conflict of interest', it legally refers to a person or entity with a stake in a particular outcome having control of the means to achieve that which are not legally sound , ie compromise their judgment. I think Shopify's judgement of what 'is good for the Ruby community' is severely compromised by their corporate interests, and probably by their boards political interests as well. Hence, why they are trying so hard to justify removing Andre.

Re: RubyGems Fracture Incident Report

#12

Post by busterarm » Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 6:27 PM UTC

RhythmFox wrote: post #11

busterarm wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry but what are Shopify's business activities that directly compete with services provided/maintained by RubyCentral? As far as arguments about community, Shopify IS the community by virtue of being the ones putting up pretty much all the money to keep this ship afloat. If you don't have skin in the game your positions won't be taken seriously. Depending on your point of view, Sidekiq either turned their back…

That attitude is exactly the problem. Shopify does not 'keep the ship afloat' they are just a corporation using open source systems as the foundation of their business. Competition is not by definition the backing of a 'conflict of interest', it legally refers to a person or entity with a stake in a particular outcome having control of the means to achieve that which are not legally sound , ie compromise their judgme…

Do you have any idea how expensive it is to keep the infrastructure running? RubyCentral's operating expenses are in the millions every year and exceed their revenue.

Andre's removal is easily justifiable by his own (lengthy history of) sketchy behavior.

Since when is "open source" something businesses shouldn't be allowed to get value from or even have a stake in? These things are MIT licensed. That's free as in speech AND beer. If you don't like the freedoms of the license and how other people use them, don't use the license. If you don't like someone's stewardship, fork and maintain your own.

Re: RubyGems Fracture Incident Report

#13

Post by tuckerman » Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 6:28 PM UTC

RhythmFox wrote: post #6

tuckerman wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That wasn't my read of what the postmortem is claiming. I didn't see a claim that anyone did anything illegal with proprietary information and the only legal question anyone raised was around a tangentially related proposal with user data[1]. I think the question about working on competing work is unfortunately more grey than most on HN would like, but even then nobody was fired/terminated for that. It sounds like pe…

They are still trying to sue Andre, that is by definition claiming he did something illegal. The rest is just fluff to cover their insincerity (IMO).

The document didn't mention a lawsuit and I was just responding to the above comment with only the context of the postmortem and pointing out that this particular article didn't claim anything illegal happened. You and some others here might have much more context that I or other readers of this postmortem don't have.

I seem to remember there were some threats of legal action related to unauthorized access after this kerfuffle but I a) don't know what is going on with that, b) don't know what the law actually says about that and c) don't know if that is what you are referring to. If so, I think it is different than what the original comment alleged which was more about moonlighting/using proprietary information/competing. I think that topic is extremely complicated (e.g. I am not so sure moonlighting for a competitor while an employee is necessarily protected in California...) but that wasn't alleged in the postmortem anyway.

Re: RubyGems Fracture Incident Report

#14

Post by itsdesmond » Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 6:30 PM UTC

mpalmer wrote: post #7

This incident involved many people over a rather long time scale, and it was important to detangle how people perceived events from how they actually unfolded. The subject matter is deeply subjective, and multiple failed attempts at writing this doc came as a result of aiming for objectivity, for blameless representation. Therefore, those named in this report are: - Full-time employees of Ruby Central - Part-time con…

You’d think that name, Shopify, would appear three times, once per employee/committee member. Or just once, to say the entire OSS committee was employed by Shopify, if we’re still identifying the group strictly as a group. Either would be fine.

Re: RubyGems Fracture Incident Report

#15

Post by tuckerman » Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 6:33 PM UTC

matharmin wrote: post #9

I can see a lot of time was put into the report, and it helps to have the detail, but in my mind it glosses over one of the most important parts: The dispute in the stewardship of the bundler and rubygems open-source projects. As I understand it, Ruby Central controlled the rubygems and bundler github organizations, but did not "own" the projects in the traditional sense - the individual contributers have copyright o…

I don't have much skin in the game but as a passerby, I agree that the report obviously was made with a lot of time/effort but wouldn't dramatically change someone's view of Ruby Central or assure anyone this won't happen again. This is like writing an outage postmortem without really getting to the root cause and identifying what can be done to prevent in the future.

Re: RubyGems Fracture Incident Report

#16

Post by dismalaf » Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 6:43 PM UTC

matharmin wrote: post #9

I can see a lot of time was put into the report, and it helps to have the detail, but in my mind it glosses over one of the most important parts: The dispute in the stewardship of the bundler and rubygems open-source projects. As I understand it, Ruby Central controlled the rubygems and bundler github organizations, but did not "own" the projects in the traditional sense - the individual contributers have copyright o…

> individual contributers have copyright on the code, and potentially even trademark

They're not the original authors of Rubygems so it's doubtful they have anything more than copyright on the code they contributed.

Re: RubyGems Fracture Incident Report

#17

Post by RhythmFox » Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 6:43 PM UTC

tuckerman wrote: post #15

matharmin wrote: post #9

I can see a lot of time was put into the report, and it helps to have the detail, but in my mind it glosses over one of the most important parts: The dispute in the stewardship of the bundler and rubygems open-source projects. As I understand it, Ruby Central controlled the rubygems and bundler github organizations, but did not "own" the projects in the traditional sense - the individual contributers have copyright o…

I don't have much skin in the game but as a passerby, I agree that the report obviously was made with a lot of time/effort but wouldn't dramatically change someone's view of Ruby Central or assure anyone this won't happen again. This is like writing an outage postmortem without really getting to the root cause and identifying what can be done to prevent in the future.

I think part of that is that it was written from the perspective of the bug that caused the outage ;)

Re: RubyGems Fracture Incident Report

#18

Post by themafia » Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 6:44 PM UTC

busterarm wrote: post #12

RhythmFox wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That attitude is exactly the problem. Shopify does not 'keep the ship afloat' they are just a corporation using open source systems as the foundation of their business. Competition is not by definition the backing of a 'conflict of interest', it legally refers to a person or entity with a stake in a particular outcome having control of the means to achieve that which are not legally sound , ie compromise their judgme…

Do you have any idea how expensive it is to keep the infrastructure running? RubyCentral's operating expenses are in the millions every year and exceed their revenue. Andre's removal is easily justifiable by his own (lengthy history of) sketchy behavior. Since when is "open source" something businesses shouldn't be allowed to get value from or even have a stake in? These things are MIT licensed. That's free as in spe…

Those who write the code have more of a right than those who pay the bills. Anyone can write a check. A select few have the acumen and experience to actually write the code.

You can't unilaterally declare someone "sketchy" and then kick them out in the name of conveience.

Re: RubyGems Fracture Incident Report

#19

Post by itsdesmond » Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 6:50 PM UTC

busterarm wrote: post #12

RhythmFox wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That attitude is exactly the problem. Shopify does not 'keep the ship afloat' they are just a corporation using open source systems as the foundation of their business. Competition is not by definition the backing of a 'conflict of interest', it legally refers to a person or entity with a stake in a particular outcome having control of the means to achieve that which are not legally sound , ie compromise their judgme…

Do you have any idea how expensive it is to keep the infrastructure running? RubyCentral's operating expenses are in the millions every year and exceed their revenue. Andre's removal is easily justifiable by his own (lengthy history of) sketchy behavior. Since when is "open source" something businesses shouldn't be allowed to get value from or even have a stake in? These things are MIT licensed. That's free as in spe…

Responding to your first paragraph, the rest wasn’t constructive.

Shopify paying for infrastructure related to Ruby is an investment, not charity. Hosting gems costs money and a healthy community depends on that gem hosting. Spotify, in turn, depends on that healthy community to produce and maintain gems, train future employees, stuff like that. They’re not paying that money for fun, it is to protect their interests.

And all of the above would be true even if the OSS committee wasn’t 100% Shopify affiliated. That’s gravy.

Re: RubyGems Fracture Incident Report

#20

Post by busterarm » Tue, Mar 31, 2026, 6:53 PM UTC

themafia wrote: post #18

busterarm wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any idea how expensive it is to keep the infrastructure running? RubyCentral's operating expenses are in the millions every year and exceed their revenue. Andre's removal is easily justifiable by his own (lengthy history of) sketchy behavior. Since when is "open source" something businesses shouldn't be allowed to get value from or even have a stake in? These things are MIT licensed. That's free as in spe…

Those who write the code have more of a right than those who pay the bills. Anyone can write a check. A select few have the acumen and experience to actually write the code. You can't unilaterally declare someone "sketchy" and then kick them out in the name of conveience.

No I'm calling him sketchy because that's the sentiment anyone who has been around in the community long enough and dealt with Andre has about him. This is very openly discussed and documented and not just in the aftermath of this event.

People having concerns about Andre's behavior around his money and his open source contributions can't even be called an open secret.

The narrative that one side of this is pushing that this is some little guys vs evil corporate overlords problem is short-circuiting so many peoples' ability to rationalize about this topic.

This is about the personal failings to communicate and organize among a very small group of highly skilled, highly productive people. It's also about how they have fallen into camps and try to apply institutional and social leverage in order to influence millions of bystanders in order to maintain/wrest control. Each credibly accusing the other of doing it for their own benefit.

Nobody is in the right here. If you can't engage with that as your starting point, you aren't serious about this conversation and are just spouting one side's propaganda.

In the aftermath us bystanders are left wanting either stability or revolution. Revolutions generally aren't good for anyone. Especially the people who want it the most.