[rancor]

It took a fair amount of reading between the lines, but here's what appears to have happened: 1) People and entities with partial control over RubyGems attempted to cancel DHH. 2) In response, elements aligned with DHH kicked the former out of RubyGems. 3) Everyone involved is now attempting to legitimize their motives as "good engineering."

In other words, "When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die."

[dragonwriter]

I think more accurate is this:

One person who was a major funder of RubyCentral pulled funding because they were upset at RubyCentral platforming DHH. Neither that person, nor RubyCentral, had control over or ownership of the RubyGems software at that time, though RubyCentral operated the rubygems.org service, which uses the RubyGems software.

The corporation that is the other major funder of RubyCentral (Shopify) responded to this (taking advantage of the fact that this left them the sole significant funder of RubyCentral whom RubyCentral could not afford to alienate) to direct RubyCentral to, without any plausible claim of right, seize control of the RubyGems software repos, and kick out anyone who wasn’t a full-time RubyCentral employee from them.

It’s not about DHH except that that indirectly provided the opportunity, it’s about Shopify seeking to consolidate control of core Ruby infrastructure.

[LexiMax]

When I choose to pull funding for an organization that makes decisions I disagree with, I'm exercising my discretion to spend my own money in the ways I see fit.

When you do that, you're cancelling someone. That's the difference.

[Niten]

> One person who was a major funder of RubyCentral pulled funding because they were upset at RubyCentral platforming DHH

Yes. To de-obfuscate, they sent a message that he should be cancelled. It backfired spectacularly, as it rightfully should have. Good.

[ambentzen]

DHH is on the board of directors at Shopify.

[sleight42]

No. DHH is on the board of Shopify.

[johntdaly]

Thank you, this explains it for me. The situation is still stupid tough...

[rancor]

Yeah, it's a bad scene, the Ruby community isn't nearly big enough to sustain major fractures.

[simianparrot]

Cancelling DHH would be a stupid kneejerk reaction given how much of a major part of Ruby’s story is thanks to 37 Signals and their community involvement, including but not limited to Rails.

If this is the reason, I am behind this takeover. It’s weeding out bad actors that have a shortsighted mentality.

I do not want RubyGems and Bundler to become yet another pair of ideological playgrounds for people that spend more time protesting unrelated causes than actually _writing and developing software_.

[motbus3]

I agree, on the other hand, financially supporting someone that you fundamentally agree with the principles is also not doable.

This is all a callout for people to step in and really help open source and free software before it is too late.

It can be by doing work, participating of the discussions, helping reviewing costs and expenses or even money.

This will certainly trigger the heads of evil dudes in suits and it will become a darker scenario.

Unfortunately, and very unfortunately, the world that Stallman predicted is here and we are late to start pushing back.

[JBiserkov]

https://world.hey.com/dhh/as-i-remember-london-e7d38e64

[queenkjuul]

I don't really think this is what happened. Seems pretty straightforward: Shopify wants to decide not just who runs RubyGems.org, but also the RubyGems repos. Separate teams (well, formerly)

[arresin]

> 1) People and entities with partial control over RubyGems attempted to cancel DHH

Ok there it is. That would explain why they’re being so cagey. I thought there had to more to this.

[jmcgough]

Nah, DHH has too much power and authority to be "cancelled". One person pulled his donations - a very generous continuous gift - because he didn't want to fund Ruby Central if they continued to platform bigotry.

Ruby Central screwed themselves by relying on basically two large donors for their funding, and then offended one of those two donors.

[JohnBooty]

The term "canceled" seriously needs to be retired.

If I understand correctly, Sidekiq's owner pulled his funding from Ruby Central because of his concerns with DHH. That's... one person.

Of course, many dislike DHH's views. Others like him more for his views. He is outspoken about controversial topics. Obviously this garners him fans, and detractors. Using terms like "canceled" is deeply useless at best.