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.
Reading through this, I’m not sure what the fear is of Shopify taking a larger role. They’ve been strong contributors to Ruby for a really long time. Not that I agree with the actions, but I can’t parse what nefarious motives they might have from this article.
I can totally see someone seizing the opportunity there. (And if you think it is a good idea, you are a terrible person)
I work for a small company who helps financially for ruby community, and they strongly advocate for other same size companies to do the same so there is balance.
It would be terrible for pypi, rubygems, brew and other repos to be used as political or economical tools.
Large companies can fork and keep living for a while or pay the cost. But for everyone else, including people developing ideas at home, it would be a shot through the heart.
So if you have a company that can help those orgs, press them to do so. If you have 5 USD to help, also do it. It makes the difference.
Can you say more about this? I haven't heard about this before.