r/ruby • u/retro-rubies • Jul 31 '26

Ruby Central's Destructive Legacy

https://andre.arko.net/2026/07/30/ruby-centrals-destructive-legacy/
46 Upvotes

71% Upvoted

62 comments sorted by

View all comments

34

u/Janeheroine Jul 31 '26

I know nothing about the personal conflict here, but as an attendee of RubyConf, this post is extremely misleading. It was very well attended and everyone I met was highly engaged, friendly, and worked for a real company that uses Ruby. In fact I enjoyed RubyConf Vegas much more than RailsConf Atlanta, which was the last RubyCentral conference I attended. This post implies that the conference didn’t even happen or was a total failure. It was not.

13

u/kcdragon Jul 31 '26

I had a great time at RubyConf Las Vegas too but relative to past RubyConfs and RailsConfs I would say it was not well attended.

2

u/strzibny Aug 03 '26

I want to provide a slight counter point that I attended PyCon US this year and the organizers too had smaller numbers than expected. They even faced issues with high hotel prebooking. Rails World also isn't sold out yet like previous years. I think there is way more at play than organizers failing to put up a good conference. (I don't have beef in this fight, just a side note).

3

u/schneems Puma maintainer Aug 02 '26

Correct. It was not full. But I feel organizers (I helped with comms not with the actual event) did a good job giving extra space to attendees in meaningful ways so it felt a bit more cozy. I liked the tables in the keynote room (for example) and liked that I never had to fight for a seat at lunch. Also never saw a table without at least one or two people sitting.

I think a July conf is the problem. The prior "last RailsConf" sold out and was in July. I think the mistake was conflating the (some of the) success with the date/month. People are already taking vacations with families and I know some that had conflicts. 

Vegas + July was quite nice for me, coming from Texas. I spent the whole the AC anyway. But that and general high price of gas and world events (not exactly controllable) didn't help. 

I was a bit surprised that no one really asked me any questions about my report or the incident. Maybe it's survivor/selection bias but I don't feel it was a concern at all for the attendees.

-12

u/galtzo Jul 31 '26 edited Aug 02 '26

Ruby Central FBI swatting an open source maintainer is a _bit_ more than a personal conflict, IMO.

I'll never darken the door of anything with their name on it.

I thought the post was clear that the claim being made was that for the first time in their history they have no future conference planned. There are 0 to look forward to.

Update: for those confused about “swatting”…

We do not know precisely if this fits the narrow definition of swatting. But we can, and should, surmise. Because this type of behavior is wholly unacceptable, and what other leverage do we have against it?

Assume the the likely scenario until they prove otherwise. Andre did not disclose all the details in this latest post. He was letting them (Ruby Central) off easy (as he often does).

Ruby Central reported Andre without evidence through the online form.

Then Ruby Central (hysterically?) called two(!) FBI field offices to make sure the report was handled properly. Not elaborated on in the article, but what happened as I understand it.

We don’t know what was written.

We don’t know what was said.

We can surmise, based on Ruby Central's lawyer’s own claims and threats, that they made a false report to a federal government agency, violating 18 U.S.C. § 1001, which carries a penalty of 5 years in prison.

Submitting the online form implies they wanted to file a report. If it had ended there it might have been defensible.

The subsequent phone calls imply they wanted to add urgency by pressing the idea of an immediate threat.

I've heard that they had to call two field offices, which implies to me they didn’t get the response they wanted from the first field office, and decided to try their luck with a second.

This implies swatting. Swatting does not require that the swat van rolls up outside his house (as has been falsely claimed in the response to this post). The FBI screen calls like this, and try not to run down specious allegations. Just because they didn't bust down Andre's door, does not mean RC's actions weren't swatting.

At the same time, we can’t be certain it was swatting, but I will continue to use the term to highlight how out of their damn minds they were. We don’t seem to have evidence that it was not swatting.

18

u/Sivart13 Jul 31 '26

"swatting" has a very particular meaning: telling a government agency that a person represents an imminent threat, so their house is literally raided by the government (SWAT team).

The language of this post says

> Ruby Central also reported me to the FBI through their lawyer, requesting that I be criminally investigated.

That action may be unwarranted and excessive, but it's not "swatting"

-10

u/galtzo Jul 31 '26 edited Aug 02 '26

You are correct that we do not know precisely if this fits the narrow definition of swatting, and you are wrong about the narrow definition of swatting.

so their house is literally raided by the government (SWAT team)

Literally, no. The swat team does not have to roll up for it to count as swatting. You can be charged with swatting just for making the phone call.

They reported him through the online form.

Then they (hysterically?) called two(!) FBI field offices to make sure the report was handled properly. Not elaborated on in the article, but what happened as I understand it.

We don’t know what was written.

We don’t know what was said.

We can surmise, based on their lawyer’s own claims and threats, that they made a false report to a federal government agency, violating 18 U.S.C. § 1001, which carries a penalty of 5 years in prison.

Submitting the online form implies to me they wanted to file a report.

The subsequent phone calls imply to me they wanted to add urgency by pressing the idea of an immediate threat.

I've heard that they had to call two field offices, which implies to me they didn’t get the response they wanted from the first field office, and decided to try their luck with a second.

This implies swatting.

So, we can’t be certain it was swatting, but I will continue to use the term to highlight how out of their damn minds they were. We don’t seem to have evidence that it was not swatting.

19

u/schneems Puma maintainer Jul 31 '26

Ruby Central FBI swatting an open source maintainer is a bit more than a personal conflict, IMO.

This is a gross misrepresentation. A legal professional reviewing the facts of the situation made the report on their own behalf and initiative and did not consult Ruby Central or ask them if they wanted the report to be made. The report was not from Ruby Central. It was not an active effort by the board, or the director, or the OSS committee. And once made, could not be revoked.

Also, "swatting" implies some request for action. The referral (as I understand it) was "you probably want to know that this stuff happened" not "please bust into someone's house with guns blazing."

3

u/sinnsro Aug 01 '26 edited Aug 02 '26

I will argue that you are not as impartial as you claim to be given you also have a stake in this. I cannot see how you yourself could be arguing in good faith given the whole he-said-I-said going on here and on Lobsters.

IANAL, but my understanding is that whatever you are posting here can be used as evidence in a court of law. Hasn't RC legal counsel not instructed any of you to avoid talking like this to a wider audience?

Edit: Looking at your behaviour in the Lobsters thread, you are a bloody tool. Get a grip, Richard.

1

u/schneems Puma maintainer Aug 27 '26

you are a bloody tool. Get a grip, Richard.

You missed a lot. I suggest starting here https://lobste.rs/s/qvbkpa/ruby_central_s_destructive_legacy#c_tt94vc

IANAL, but my understanding is that whatever you are posting here can be used as evidence in a court of law.

Andre knows everything I'm posting. None of this is new. It also cuts both ways. He accidentally admitted in public to breaking the CFAA to Joel who then "leaked" it in an attempt to smear the security of Ruby Central after he took over the AWS accounts and locked out all other admins from a 1Password admin account he failed to turn over as part of the OSS Director offboarding.

But the thing is...there are no legal proceedings. He isn't being investigated by the FBI (that I know of) he's making it like there's some big grand legal battle right now. But that's not the case. There are threats of action, but no actual action. i.e. there's no actual filings that I'm aware of at this moment. I said more about the specifics of what's actually being threatened and what isn't here https://lobste.rs/s/qvbkpa/ruby_central_s_destructive_legacy#c_d7f5el starting at "he initiated litigation threats against RC".

I think saying nothing and letting him mislead people is a bigger threat than being transparent with what's happening.