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.
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.
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?
You had/have expectations around his behavior he's never agreed to and quite probably doesn't know you had. It's fair to be bummed he doesn't want the same things as you.
What's not fair is to be mad at someone for not doing something he never agreed to to or offered to do. His obligation to you is not to lie about what he's interested in doing which he seems to have met.
Additionally, your anecdote about putting jabs at him in the codebase makes me believe engaging with people who do that is not healthy for him.
None of this makes you a victim except of your own expectations.