I'm still struggling to understand the "why."
(That's not an implicit criticism of the article, which is extremely appreciated because it's neutral and factual)
I've been away from Ruby for a few years but Shopify always seemed like a huge net positive, sponsoring lots of valuable work on both Ruby and Rails. I never followed Ruby community happenings very closely but I'm not aware of negative feelings towards their community role in the past.
Shopify wanted to put in place better goverance and access control, to reduce the risk of a supply chain attack and put a deadline on that.
Part time maintenaners left it to the last minute, didn't consult or communicate well and then over exerted their influence by taking over things without consensus to do so.
Existing maintainers then rightfully alarmed, when it all could probably have been handled better.
Doesn't help that the rift over a competing tool being created probably played a part in some of the heavy handedness. DHH's drift to white supremacy probably hasn't helped either, but likely neither are the cause here.