zlacker

Posted an update in a thread (or whatever you're meant to call it) on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/mikemcquaid.com/post/3lz7klsyue22f

TL;DR: I've been given a lot of private nuance from both sides here but, even just based how the two sides have treated me personally, it's very hard not to put the blame primarily on RubyCentral. I've been a maintainer on Homebrew for 16 years: it's a hard job. If in doubt: I'll side with maintainers.

>>mikemc+(OP)
Sure, but it's two different things. Maintainers are in charge of their projects, and Ruby Central is in charge of the package index. Each has different priorities, which is fine. If they can't find a way to live with each other, maybe a parting of the ways is required.

>>yawara+Wa1
Parting of ways? Sure. In this case they are in charge of the package index but have removed most maintainers from their projects, implicitly taking charge there too. This is a problem.

>>mikemc+4v1
do they see themselves as more like debian, where the ruby gem and the open source project it packages are two separate things?

>>mikemc+4v1
How can they remove maintainers from their own projects? If my project is yawaramin/foobar, how can Ruby Central remove me as the mantainer from there?

>>yawara+Yk9
This thread has probably run its course, and newer postings[1] have more information, but I'll respond anyway if it's helpful...

> How can they remove maintainers from their own projects? If my project is yawaramin/foobar...

The official RubyGems projects in question were under a GitHub organizational account, not a single user's account. A subset of the maintainers had the "owner" flag on the org. One of those folks basically initiated the takeover. See [2] for a more detailed recounting.

[1]: Shopify, pulling strings at Ruby Central, forces Bundler and RubyGems takeover - >>45348390 - September 2025 (107+ comments)

[2]: https://joel.drapper.me/p/rubygems-takeover/#the-takeover

>>ilikep+gOb
That's a dumb move though, isn't it? The original maintainers will now just move their projects somewhere else, and the 'official' projects have now effectively been killed. This is a suicidal move for the Ruby ecosystem.