zlacker

>>levlaz+(OP)
I’m a top 50. Rails contributor. I worked with him in the sense that I tried for him to not need to notice that I exist. I felt lots of community with other contributors and core. But never Dave.

The year I got my Ruby Hero award was the year that I (partially) convinced core team members to name the RC release of Rails “race car” because Dave ditched us to play Max Verstappen. He didn’t come to RailsConf because of a race.

The years he did come, he usually will come be there for his keynote, maybe see him at dinner, and then he’s gone. Everyone else is pumped to be there. Core and contributors show up, actually go to talks for all the days, conduct birds of a feather sessions and hack and chat.

On the day that 1/3 of basecamp quit I had a realization that he really just didn’t care about us. We were resources to be exploited.

I still really like the rails community, but it keeps feeling like Dave wants that to be exclusively defined around him. Which doesn’t feel like a community.

>>schnee+hM1
You convinced core team members to inject snarky personal attacks in the Rails release name because its creator didn't attend RailsConf? I might be missing something here, but that comes off as incredibly toxic. It also doesn't sound like the actions of a person who's trying not to be noticed of their existence.

>>sorami+sX1
I’m not sure Dave noticed to be honest. To this day, I’ve never heard him mention or talk about it in public or in private chat.

It also wasn’t me running a shadow campaign or something. We were all talking about it and joking about it. At the time it was a “funny because it’s true” joke. I didn’t even mind so much, I felt like if he valued doing other things more, then he’s an adult and can make his decisions. Maybe the feeling is best described as “I’m not mad, just disapointed.”

There’s also a history of Dave doing the opening keynote and Aaron doing the closing one. And it’s mostly filled with jokes about the opening keynote.

I guess the reason I brought up that anecdote is that it was indicative of the culture he built around the development. We didn’t feel free to speak or minds or share our feelings on things that bothered us to him or around him, when those things involved him. Jokes in public were kind of the only commonly used channel. Provided they’re not too harsh and don’t go over some invisible line.

Maybe I was hoping it started a dialog or something. But it didn’t. I hoped to talk to him privately after the basecamp stuff but he didn’t come to RailsConf in Portland in 2022 either, and then he started a whole foundation to kill RailsConf (as I see it). So here we are.

>>schnee+ko2
It's still nasty and childish. If this is how you interact, I'd avoid you too.

If you want to give someone feedback, adult instead of playing passive aggressive games.

Putting jabs at people in the codebase is unprofessional and would result in some tough conversations in a professional environment.

>>x0x0+PE2
I see this thread as victim blaming and a distraction from my main points. I feel attacked and I’m not sure why it’s so important for you to judge me by one thing I did 8 years ago. It’s pretty frustrating.

I came here to share my raw story of what it’s like working with Dave in open source. To that end, I just want to be heard. Did you hear me?

>>schnee+8v3
Not sure about the person you're replying to, but I heard you.