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.
Apparently, the reason is having an incorrect opinion.
Everyone, you included, has opinions that they find unpalatable. Pretty much all of human history has been "cancelling" people for "incorrect opinions". I mean, what were the crusades? Or world war II?
There's no, like, gun to your head saying you have to respect things you don't respect. Some things are just not respectable. You're allowed to be like "no" and then decide to get as far away from the person as possible.
And, relatedly - you don't have to run away. You can push them away.
Its not really fair that crazy people are allowed to say crazy things then we, normal people, have to take the high ground and walk away. What if I don't want to walk away? Why do I have to leave a project like it's the plague because you said something insane?
Anyway, just my two cents.
Also, just to be clear: I don't think DHH is crazy or evil. I'm addressed the broader concept, not this specific case.
This takes as axiomatic that people with incompatible beliefs in one area cannot work together in a different area.
"Beliefs" are when you think The Strokes are superior to The White Stripes, or that Giordano's deep dish pizza is superior to Lou Malnati's, or that IPAs are better than lagers. I'll happily work with people who espouse those beliefs, despite my beliefs to the contrary.
I won't work with people who describe a Tommy Robinson march as "heartwarming", or who use terms like "demographic nightmare" [1] to describe immigration, or who amplify repeatedly-debunked [2] claims of "Pakistani rape gangs", all of which DHH did. That's bigotry, not beliefs.
British culture isn't being eroded by immigration. It's being shaped by it, just like it has been for thousands of years. Where do you think your culture came from- thin air?!?
- Romans gave Britain roads, baths, and Christianity.
- Anglo-Saxons gave Britain Old English.
- Vikings gave Britain laws and half its place names.
- Normans made French the language of power and fused it with English.
- The Crusades brought new foods, science, and art.
And so on and so on.
It's the height of ignorance to look at that incredibly diverse history, and then say "OK, but right now is the moment in time where we 'lock in' our culture for the rest of time." Culture has never stood still, and no one, not even DHH, gets to freeze it in place. Well, they can try, but they'll be pissing in the wind, just like the Tommy Robinson marchers were.
I'll just leave this here: the folks in this Instagram reel [3], wearing the St. George's Cross flag and clearly on their way to the march, decided to stop and get a curry first. With the caption "When you're on your way to the racist march but the immigrant food is popping."
1. https://world.hey.com/dhh/as-i-remember-london-e7d38e64
2. https://tekin.co.uk/2025/09/the-ruby-community-has-a-dhh-pro...
Your source doesn't establish this. It claims without evidence that Robinson's claims (and those of such partisans) originate in some particular report that I've never heard of despite years of keeping tabs on people who make those claims.
From what I can tell, the claims those people are making about rape in the UK generally have a much broader statistical basis; see e.g. https://archive.ph/jmS6q (the original Statista link isn't working for me, for whatever reason). Claims specifically about the gangs are based in things like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotherham_child_sexual_exploit... (and note all the "See also" links). (But also see tremon's comment.)
The claim about conviction rates is missing the point entirely, that the Robinson protesters allege a wide-scale cover-up and bias against prosecuting the immigrants, ostensibly out of police fear of appearing racist.
> Where do you think your culture came from- thin air?!?
It's not mine (I'm Canadian), but yes, it literally did. Just like everyone else's. Thin air, and time. Time spent on doing things in the same way and noticing the patterns, and socializing.
> And so on and so on.
First off, infrastructure is not culture.
But the important thing is that all those events were centuries ago, taking place over the course of centuries. And in many cases they involved bloody wars and a whole ton of resentment. (Pretty understandable considering that the existing population, in each case, was trapped on an island.)
British culture was created by adapting ideas that were left behind in those conflicts. Just like every other culture is created by people with a shared identity picking up ideas, however they might be sourced, and forming a memeplex around them. That adaptation is what makes it British culture, and not "some combination of Roman, Anglo-Saxon etc. culture that doesn't deserve a name". That's why, for example, there was a Middle English, and eventually just more-or-less-modern English. A big chunk of that involved scholars independently studying Latin for their own reasons.
It's especially galling that you would whitewash the Norman invasions like this, considering the meaning and history of the two-finger salute. The same supposed "white supremacists" leading the charge in the UK still have less than pleasant banter for the French. The British literally developed culture by resisting foreign influence. (The whole "Britannia rules the waves" thing is also "culture", BTW.)
Anyway, none of these things involved the existing government consciously bringing in outsiders and completely transforming the population of major centers in the space of a generation or two. (Meanwhile, there are other parts of Europe — like the part DHH is from — that have not been subject to this. Should the EU be compelling them to follow suit or something?) This isn't about "locking in" culture; it's about understanding how the development (as opposed to displacement, or appropriation) of culture actually works.
> decided to stop and get a curry first
This is actually illustrative. Culture isn't just a curry recipe; it's the ritual of stopping for a curry with your mates. And eating it with English table manners, etc. Meanwhile, I can't fathom that the curry available in London actually reflects the cultural diversity of curry preparation within India; nor can I fathom that it hasn't been adapted in some ways to the local palate.
You can't just gift a cultural artifact to another people. Culture doesn't work that way.
(And if you think about what the word "colonialism" means to you, this should be obvious.)