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.
In other words, "When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die."
Apparently, the reason is having an incorrect opinion.
Ruby Central hosts DHH at RailsConf in July --> Sidekiq withdraws funding from Ruby Central --> Ruby Central is essentially entirely dependent on Shopify.
The "what" seems to be purely a reaction to this article DHH posted:
It's certainly possible that Shopify's actions had nothing to do with either side's politics in particular, and they decided it was simply safer for them to control Ruby Cental and RubyGems rather than rely on an independent organization with unstable funding (that they were basically solely funding anyway according to the article)
I don't love that outcome. As a Ruby fan, I don't want Ruby or bits of its infrastructure controlled by a particular organization.
What he’s saying is that he only considers white British to be legitimately British. He would look at former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and current Mayor Sadiq Khan and dismiss them as insufficiently British. Too much melanin I guess.
He’s even excluded white people from elsewhere who were born in Britain if they have a non-British ancestor. So according to DHH and his ilk Nigel Farage’s children wouldn’t be counted as white British despite having white mothers (Irish and German), being born to a British father in Britain and living all their lives in Britain.
What the fuck is the point of dividing people like this? “Just an opinion” my ass. DHH and people like him are dehumanising my fellow Londoners.
I'm not necessarily saying that's a bad thing. But it inevitably means they will not always be aligned.
DHH seems outright delusional in that post.
Plus, hell of a good ramen shop near the West End.
Also it’s sort of hard to separate the guy who offers his opinions on his blog and the same guy who offers his opinions at a tech conference.
Oh, I should read the actual tweet? Funny the actual tweet is so much worse than I imagined.
If a trans-women is in a space that she is legally entitled to be in, according to him one should:
> Make, a scene, call the cops and if all else fails, punch him[he means the trans-women] in the balls
He is literally telling people to be violent against trans people. And then cries when actions have consequences.
These people are like the school yard bully who will start a fight with you then cry "timeout, timeout" when you punch back. And go to the teacher to convince you they are the real victim.
Incredibly sad to watch. He literally has no idea what he's talking about.
I didn't feel like I was personally in danger, but I'm also a guy who's lived next to American slums.
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.
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.
DHH stopped trying to cultivate an inclusive community some time ago. The ruby community can ill afford to drive away more prominent maintainers, yet that is what is happening here, as the corporate interests are aligned with DHH even if the rest of the community is not.
The thing about free speech is that it's only relevant if someone with power hates what you say.
See also: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/52416-the-trouble-with-figh...
This takes as axiomatic that people with incompatible beliefs in one area cannot work together in a different area.
even before, during and after the fascist protest he is celebrating (as an immigrant in america, telling about his daydreaming on being an immigrant in the UK), there have been arrests for people simply saying "killing children is wrong" all over london.
yet he could not pick any of those arests for his example. yeah, it's plain and simple white supremacists. get over it.
Usually when this kind of stuff is rolled out, it’s agreed upon in some form and documented. Then when people are surprised, it’s a matter of pointing to the section in the doc that’s relevant and everybody goes on their way.
From the outside it appears this had none of that, so people are understandably surprised, sad, or angry. Since there’s a lack of transparency, people are filling in the blanks.
Ok there it is. That would explain why they’re being so cagey. I thought there had to more to this.
And, even if you can, it doesn't mean it's pleasant.
Its one thing if someone is horrible in silent. From experience, horrible people seem to be the most confident and outspoken. Maybe there's a common character flaw that underpins both behaviors.
a) Nod politely and try to change the subject?
b) Tell him you think he’s nuts and you prefer not to discuss politics with him?
c) Find a different dentist because this makes you uncomfortable and you’re not sure you can trust his judgement?
d) Tell your friends that this dentist has some weird political views, and here’s a new dentist you found that you like?
e) Start a pressure campaign to shame anyone who still goes to this dentist?
Because I think everything except the last one would be a fair reaction, but I can’t ever tell which one people are talking about.
"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...
What if I have a lot of friends? Is it now a pressure campaign?
What makes something telling the truth, and what makes something a campaign?
And, why do people so thoroughly fear the truth being told about them? Is that shame, or something else?
If you wish privacy, as we all do often, then stay private. Its easy and free.
But when your opinion is posted online and you willingly tie it to your real life identity, you cannot get canceled. No, in my mind, it's impossible.
You may cancel yourself. But people simply repeating your own words back to you is not a campaign, it's just a reminder of reality and truth.
I guess I would say that withdrawing funding from an organization based on who they let speak at an event seems like an overreaction given that it had these ramifications, but I don’t think it’s my place to judge what anyone chooses to contribute their own money to. None of the rest of us is contributing $250k to Ruby Central either, and we’re not entitled to have Mike solve our problems.
But, if you push back or criticise them, that is something wrong. The harm can go only one way - from bigots to the rest of us. But other way round, once you funded bigots you have to continue with it.
If this is the reason, I am behind this takeover. It’s weeding out bad actors that have a shortsighted mentality.
I do not want RubyGems and Bundler to become yet another pair of ideological playgrounds for people that spend more time protesting unrelated causes than actually _writing and developing software_.
Ruby Central screwed themselves by relying on basically two large donors for their funding, and then offended one of those two donors.
However, if I found out that one of the physicians I work with doesn't think I should have a job, doesn't think I should have equal rights, and doesn't think I belong in public spaces, then politics would become unavoidable. I'm not going to work for a bigot who sees me as a second class citizen.
Likewise there are a number of long-term Ruby OS contributors who belong to minority groups DHH has been attacking. Would you attend Railsconf if DHH called your ethnicity gangs of rapists, like he recently has?
I'm from Africa so I'm born with the instincts that luckily prevented me from losing anything or getting hurt.
I was just visiting the UK for 3 weeks, but that gave me a perspective how bad immigration laws can turn it into something out of control.
Why does a place like Singapore, where 48% of its workforce are immigrants / expats - not have this problem.
It remains the safest place on Earth.
If I understand correctly, Sidekiq's owner pulled his funding from Ruby Central because of his concerns with DHH. That's... one person.
Of course, many dislike DHH's views. Others like him more for his views. He is outspoken about controversial topics. Obviously this garners him fans, and detractors. Using terms like "canceled" is deeply useless at best.
One person who was a major funder of RubyCentral pulled funding because they were upset at RubyCentral platforming DHH. Neither that person, nor RubyCentral, had control over or ownership of the RubyGems software at that time, though RubyCentral operated the rubygems.org service, which uses the RubyGems software.
The corporation that is the other major funder of RubyCentral (Shopify) responded to this (taking advantage of the fact that this left them the sole significant funder of RubyCentral whom RubyCentral could not afford to alienate) to direct RubyCentral to, without any plausible claim of right, seize control of the RubyGems software repos, and kick out anyone who wasn’t a full-time RubyCentral employee from them.
It’s not about DHH except that that indirectly provided the opportunity, it’s about Shopify seeking to consolidate control of core Ruby infrastructure.
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.
This is all a callout for people to step in and really help open source and free software before it is too late.
It can be by doing work, participating of the discussions, helping reviewing costs and expenses or even money.
This will certainly trigger the heads of evil dudes in suits and it will become a darker scenario.
Unfortunately, and very unfortunately, the world that Stallman predicted is here and we are late to start pushing back.
However, Shopify sells SAAS thst runs on open source. What does it benefit them to take over key aspects of infrastructure?
If they disliked what was happening with the OSS tools, they are big and rich enough to maintain forks or their own toolchain.
The OP seems to be associating the start of this controversy with some feud between DHH and the founder of Sidekiq. Shopify is indeed quite aligned with DHH. And there’s some controversy about so-called supply chain attacks, which I understand might inspire a call for a more locked-down organization. But as an outsider I am confused.
To preempt any potential objections on the basis of the removed funding from Sidekiq based similarly on a relationship with a single person, there are two pretty crucial differences: the funding was withdrawn because of the relationship the organization had itself with someone, rather than someone involved with something that literally had to be stolen to terminate their involvement, and the funding withdrawn by Sidekiq was done openly with umambiguously communicated intentions. Deciding to not give money to an organization because of an actual choice that they made and tell everyone that is just being transparent about your morals; secretively pressuring an organization to exploit their existing connections to force someone out of a project they don't own and then having them represent it publicly as something they chose to do on their own for the greater good might as well be out of the playbook of organized crime or foreign intelligence services.
Instead, the intensity of his crackdown, coupled with later statements aligning him with reactionary causes, strongly suggests his “neutrality” was in practice a shield against progressive causes inside Basecamp.
Is it unfair that you can only impose a “no politics” rule without backlash if you’re progressive? Maybe a little. But the asymmetry is baked in: progressives are the ones challenging the status quo, so banning politics almost always protects the status quo and silences the challengers. And in this case, his later positions confirmed that he wasn’t neutral at all, he wasn’t on the side of the people he’d told to leave.
A dick move.
When you do that, you're cancelling someone. That's the difference.
Wait wait wait, now it's Mike's fault that Shopify acted the way it did and coup'd this organization? Come on. You can't judge his choice to remove funding on what someone else did.
Yes. To de-obfuscate, they sent a message that he should be cancelled. It backfired spectacularly, as it rightfully should have. Good.
It apparently isn't legal in UK? And also not widely legal in the US yet.
Anyways it seems to me that the debate hasn't been completely resolved yet.
> As soon as I was old enough to travel on my own, London was where I wanted to go. Compared to Copenhagen at the time, there was something so majestic about Big Ben, Trafalgar Square, and even the Tube around the turn of the millenium. Not just because their capital is twice as old as ours, but because it endured twice as much, through the Blitz and the rest of it, yet never lost its nerve. I thought I might move there one day.
> That was then. Now, I wouldn't dream of it. London is no longer the city I was infatuated with in the late '90s and early 2000s. Chiefly because it's no longer full of native Brits.
and that last sentence links to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_groups_in_London showing that, well, they're aren't as many white people in London as there used to be.
Now, I don't want to put words in his mouth, but it's pretty easy to interpret that as non-white people shouldn't be seen in London. That's not exactly "you, personally, don't belong in public spaces?", but it's seems fairly close to me, to anyone that isn't white. I am open to hearing alternate interpretations of what I quoted from DHH's personal blog though.
Can you say more about this? I haven't heard about this before.
What exactly has been "debunked" about these claims? I realise this is veering off-topic, but the very real facts at the heart of these claims need to be heard. Denying that these things happened only serves to further the abuse the victims have already suffered.
Even the BBC does not deny the existence of these rape gangs nor their heritage:
> It showed how the gang, comprising men of mostly Pakistani and Afghan heritage, plied girls as young as 13 with alcohol and drugs and passed them around for sex. [1]
There is more than 10 years of recorded evidence of these activities, over 250 probable victims, over 90 identified perpetrators, plus a litany of investigation reports detailing the failure of authorities to even properly investigate many of the cases.
> In 2007, Ms Rowbotham and her team had alerted GMP and Rochdale Council about a gang of men of Pakistani and Afghan heritage engaged in child sexual exploitation (CSE) while Ms Oliver resigned from GMP in 2012 to publicly reveal the extent of the police failings. [2]
A senior police officer had to go public to make her own superiours start caring about these crimes. From her wikpedia page:
> When Oliver got upset about the handling of the case, she claims one of her seniors told her, "Maggie, calm down. Listen: What would these kids ever contribute to society? They should have just been drowned at birth". Then, Oliver stormed off the job [3]
Recently, the Greater Manchester Police published multiple investigations into itself. I will quote only the part from the summary that specifically calls out the GMP for deflecting blame for its own failures [4]:
> 2.58. a police source was quoted in the media as saying that the Crisis Intervention Team [..] did not always communicate this to the police and social services.
> 2.59. the two serious case review overview reports published in 2013 explicitly criticised the Crisis Intervention Team for not following child protection procedures and for not communicating appropriately with other agencies [however] the multi-agency CSE strategy group chaired by Chief Superintendent C16 was aware of approximately 127 potential victims who had been referred by the Crisis Intervention Team to children’s social care and that these referrals had not been acted on. This figure later grew to 260 potential victims
> We find this level of misrepresentation quite disturbing. We would have liked to have put our concerns to both the author of the overview reports and the chair of the serious case review panel. These individuals provided a joint written statement that did not directly address these concerns and they declined to be interviewed by the review team.
> 2.60. our review has found compelling evidence to support the view that the Crisis Intervention Team was sharing explicit information with the authorities on the exploitation of multiple children. We also have evidence that, despite these explicit concerns, GMP and Rochdale Council failed to take appropriate action.
> 2.61. it has been a gross misrepresentation to suggest that the Crisis Intervention Team in some way was complicit with this failure and to tarnish the reputation of this small group of professionals
[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-66416549
[2] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-67967919
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Oliver
[4] https://www.greatermanchester-ca.gov.uk/media/9148/operation...
What has been debunked are the sweeping claims that:
- Sexual exploitation in the UK is disproportionately or uniquely committed by men of Pakistani or Muslim heritage.
- There exists a singular phenomenon of "Pakistani rape gangs" uniquely distinct from other forms of child sexual exploitation.
- The existence of these gangs proves something essential about Pakistani culture or immigration.
Tommy Robinson, and those on the far-right who share his agenda, have weaponized real cases to push their narratives. The big picture from the CSA Centre's own data is that:
"Of defendants proceeded against for child sexual abuse offences in 2022/23, 88% were White, 7% Asian, 3% Black and 2% Mixed or Other ethnicities." [1]
Compare that to the census: Asians (including South Asians) are 9% of the population but only 7% of offenders (i.e. under-represented). Meanwhile, white Britons are 82% of the population but 88% of CSE offenders (they're actually over-represented). According the Home Office’s own review, "The majority of child sexual abuse gangs are made up of white men under the age of 30." [2]
Racist grifters love to flog lurid myths about "Pakistani rape gangs" to frighten gullible Britons into voting against immigration. And racist griftees eat those stories up, because in their eyes, rape by a non-white person is somehow "worse" or "scarier" than rape by a white person. But if someone is genuinely worried about roving gangs of ethnically homogenous rapists, they should probably avoid Robinson’s marches. Statistically, that's where they're more likely to be.
1. https://www.csacentre.org.uk/app/uploads/2024/02/Trends-in-O...
2. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/dec/15/child-sexua...
Yeah, that's kind of the point. Preserving a culture that is several times as old as the USA.
> > Chiefly because it's no longer full of native Brits.
> [there] aren't as many white people in London as there used to be. Now, I don't want to put words in his mouth, but it's pretty easy to interpret that as non-white people shouldn't be seen in London.... I am open to hearing alternate interpretations
The "alternate interpretation" is that "native Brits" means "native Brits", not "white people". Per your source, in the time frame DHH is talking about, the population was still specifically about 3/5 British. As in, English (and possibly Welsh and Scottish, although I imagine they mostly keep further north). So presumably that's what he actually observed.
A Dane isn't going to see this as a matter of race. Denmark is still about 5/6 ethnic Danish, and a big chunk of immigrants and their descendants are European. The concept of race is just not something you think about when you aren't exposed to it all the time. The difference between an ethnic Dane and and ethnic Englishman is salient to someone like that, in a way that a typical American can't be expected to understand.
We're talking here about people who are in their ancestral homeland. They are the natives of the area; they don't have anywhere to go back to. The https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Saxons have been there since the 5th century — far longer than the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C4%81ori_people have been in New Zealand, for example. And London was founded by the Romans, even longer ago than that. And those groups were both fully admixed with the indigenous population long before the establishment of modern immigration policy. So now we have recognizable "native Brits" who look different from modern-day "native Italians" or "native Germans". Not to mention, those indigenous island folk would presumably have been quite pale themselves.
If someone were pointing out that the settlements of Turtle Island were no longer full of First Nations peoples, would you make that out to be about race? Rounding all of this off to "white people" is a projection of an Americentric view of race, and frankly offensive. It's strange to me how there are people who put effort into knowing about the cultural and ethnic and religious distinctions found across, say, South Asia, and seem to think themselves morally superior for caring; but couldn't be bothered to do the same for Europe.
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.)
You aren't being restricted from engaging in pushback or criticism.
You're just receiving some of your own.
Part of which involves disputing your framing of who is or isn't a "bigot".
No, I think the dick move (in the https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0la5DBtOVNI sense) is raising hue and cry because the opportunity to see another influential person at a convention somehow ruins the rest of the convention for you.
And are we seriously arguing that the creator of the thing should be barred from a convention about the thing?
"Progressives" (I don't think the label is accurate for the group it describes) are also the ones who believe that "protecting the status quo" entails doing "politics".
This contradicts your supposition of racism rather than enhancing it.
For me, this means that brew will eventually phase out.
Reading further into DHH's blog post reveals even more troubling context. He describes Tommy Robinson organized marches as being "normal everyday Brits." When white supremacist, xenophobic marches are your idea of "normal everyday Brits," the mask rather slips, doesn't it? He attempts to equate these marches with legitimate free speech cases like Graham Linehan, trying to make it all seem like reasonable pushback, as if this is just another historical moment of the isles being "invaded". The rhetoric is telling.
It takes DHH only 701 words before he's linking to articles about Pakistani rape gangs. At this point, we're not dealing with subtle implications anymore.
The argument about Danish cultural context doesn't hold water either. Denmark has its own charged political discourse around Middle Eastern and African immigrants. And DHH has lived in the US for roughly 20 years so he's well aware of how these discussions are perceived. As for the Anglo-Saxon history lesson: they were themselves migrants who mixed with existing populations. London was founded by Romans (also migrants!) and has been a multicultural trading hub for over a thousand years. What "native British" golden age is DHH mourning exactly? The 1950s? The Victorian era built on colonial extraction? When precisely was London purely "native British"?
> So now we have recognizable 'native Brits' who look different from modern day 'native Italians' or 'native Germans'.
I'd be curious to hear more about these supposedly "recognizable" distinctions. This sounds remarkably similar to certain early 20th century anthropological theories that we've since... reconsidered.