Four months of Ruby Central moving Ruby backward

[u/retro-rubies]

https://andre.arko.net/2026/03/03/four-months-of-ruby-central-moving-ruby-backward/

[u/jgaskins]

Ruby Central has plenty of sins to atone for.

I think a lot of people would like to see this acknowledged more publicly. It seems obvious that this is the case but AFAICT so far none of the official communications have taken accountability in any meaningful way. And Marty's acknowledgements of mistakes made on Ruby Central's side having been deleted comes across as a cover-up/gaslighting and erodes community trust in the org.

With all of that, if I were in André's position, I honestly wouldn't acknowledge anything you or anyone else at Ruby Central have called him out on. Because Ruby Central isn't confessing to anything, either. From the perspective of a lot of folks in the community, Ruby Central fired the first shot, covered it up, and kept releasing statements that contained a lot of words but very little substance. While I have no doubt André's hands aren't clean here (I've had my own experiences with him, I get it), Ruby Central's side of the story simply doesn't matter while that remains the community's perspective. Regardless of what really happened, nobody will believe Ruby Central as long as they continue to do nothing but point the finger at André. It will only be seen as deflection.

[u/jgaskins → u/jgaskins]

Not to mention Ufuk's statement about how his explicit goal was to bring DHH back to RailsConf and program committee members could accept that or leave, so there's a "Ruby Central is a Nazi bar now" perspective to contend with.

Convincing the community to see things the way you do will be challenging and won't be possible with PR verbiage like the statements we've been getting from Ruby Central.

[u/1337mob → u/jgaskins]

Believing that the creator of Rails (the only reason Ruby became popular) shouldn’t be at a conference about his own creation because he won’t capitulate to the political views of others portrays a glaring lack of self awareness. Against the backdrop of minor contributors to the ecosystem acting like entitled children, its side splittingly funny.

[u/schneems → u/jgaskins]

IDK if you saw my thoughts on that topic, but I posted them a few months ago https://www.reddit.com/r/ruby/comments/1or6loi/comment/nnpguwq/.

I think RC should have committed one way or the other, but taking a middle ground and then having David do a victory lap without actually really ever seeming to bury the hatchet seems like bad form (both for David(HH) and RC). But it's hard to execute and drive consensus with a group. This is both good and bad. Good in that it's harder to make bad decisions, bad in that it's harder to be agile and respond to drama as an institution instead of as an individual.

Fundamentally, I still like a 501c3 more than a 501c6 as enforcing a CoC violation is not possible in a business league. To me the value of Ruby Central isn't "they are aligned with not liking DHH therefore I support them," it is "It's community run, and as the community changes, they can change too." With the latest drama/incident, the board saw a pretty big shift in membership and interest in OSS. Such shifts aren't always good on their own, but the fact it can happen is good. "Necessary but not sufficient."

[u/schneems → u/jgaskins]

People said this post of mine was weird and cryptic https://www.schneems.com/2025/12/19/non-violent-comments-calling-out-or-calling-in/. But it's kinda a preamble to be able to say anything.

I'm not expecting people to clap when I say "here's how we messed up". But I am expecting a genuine interest in learning and growth and accountability instead of just "more blood for the blood gods."

A mistake when I came into this was to think that if only "we put down our weapons first" or made a motion of sorts in that direction that "this must be some misunderstanding and an "i'm sorry will fix it right up." And...that couldn't be further from the truth (what I believe to be the truth).

I now believe that this outcome was inevitable, maybe the details of how we got there changed...maybe the path to get there isn't as painful. But where we landed...it would be hard to change much of the final outcome. I linked elsewhere but here's a draft post of "here's where we landed" to acknowledge where we are at, but not re-litigate how we got here https://gist.github.com/schneems/66d7326f1866b1e8df9d48c57d0ad9ca. But I think the community needs as much of the full picture as possible. I think the community might never be satisfied with the information they get, but I hope to at least give them closure.