Here’s my attempt to explain the situation in a brief way. DHH, the creator of Ruby on Rails, wrote some things which are considered racist by some people. This caused a prominent Ruby programmer to withdraw his large sponsorship of Ruby Central, a non-profit which organises Ruby conferences, because DHH spoke at one of their conferences. Therefore Ruby Central ended up very dependent on Shopify, a large company, for funding. One theory (mentioned in the article) is that Shopify (where DHH is a board member) then pressured Ruby Central to perform a “hostile takeover” of the RubyGems GitHub organisation, where they revoked the maintainer privileges of long-time contributors. What is RubyGems? It’s a website which is the de facto standard source for “gems”, which are Ruby packages. I guess this is equivalent to NPM in the Node/JavaScript world.
If you want to know the potentially racist stuff said by DHH, he essentially seemed to be unhappy that London is “no longer full of native Brits”. He says “native Brits” now make up “about a third” of London. So by “native Brits” he seems to mean the White British ethnic group, because they made up 37% of London in the 2021 census.
The Ruby programmer who withdrew his sponsorship of Ruby Central (allegedly worth $250,000 according to the article) said this: “I rescinded a six-figure grant because the org invited DHH, a white supremacist, to speak. We cannot tolerate hateful people as leaders in our communities.”
The “hostile takeover” of RubyGems has led some Ruby programmers to create an alternative to the RubyGems website. This alternative is gem.coop. Also there is an open letter signed by influential Ruby programmers which calls for Ruby on Rails to be forked so that DHH no longer has an association with it.
The article that this post links to is an update to the situation: Ruby Central is now taking steps to try and cool the controversy.
Thoughts on this?
Edit: fixed typo.
Racists defending racism? Nothing new here.
The edited quotes from OP are bad enough but they’re even worse in context:
I thought I might move [to London] 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. In 2000, more than sixty percent of the city were native Brits. By 2024, that had dropped to about a third. A statistic as evident as day when you walk the streets of London now.
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That frustration was on wide display in Tommy Robinson’s march yesterday. British and English flags flying high and proud, like they would in Copenhagen on the day of a national soccer match. Which was both odd to see but also heartwarming.
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[transphobia]
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I really feel for the Brits because it’s not obvious how they get themselves out of this pickle. They’re still reeling from the Pakistani rape gangs that were left free to terrorize cities like Rotherham and Rochdale for years on end with horror-movie-like scenes of the most despicable, depraved abuse of British girls.
GTFO with this scumbag whitewash. Ofc it’s a “moderatecentrist”. Fash troll garbage.
DHH, the creator of Ruby on Rails, wrote some things which are considered racist by some people.
Yeah fuck of with that “some people” lmao
Well racists are probably ok with it. It’s amazing how annoyed they get if you actually call them racist though.
I’m not a fascist or a troll, and if someone wants to read exactly what DHH wrote, then they can click on the link to his blog post, which is in my summary. I think it’s good that you’re quoting more of it to be honest, so people can see what he wrote, and they can decide for themselves what they think about it. I’m not trying to “whitewash” anything, I just wanted to give people an overview of the situation so they can draw their own conclusions, whether positive or negative.
It’s the conservatives and reform who called it “understandable frustration” everyone else calls it an excuse for violent thuggery.
He did a lot more than say that about london. In case anyone reading isnt aware just go searching. Dont trust slanted posts on the internet.
Also its all over now, and gems should never have been separate anyway. Who cares?
I’m just thankful I’m not a Ruby programmer.
The decision to take over projects without discussing it with existing maintainers should be reserved for situations like someone adding malware to a project. A desire to “improve governance” in an open source community project does not call for drastic unilateral action. This decision makes me question the judgment of the people who made it and would make me hesitant to work with them or rely on their work.
It looks like Matz, the creator of Ruby is now overseeing things. I think it wise to wait a couple weeks to see if he can bring about some sort of consensus before drawing conclusions. Rumor has it, he’s nice.
DHH doesn’t seem nice. I’d be happy about a change to Rails governance.
Ah yes and he appears to be a Tommy Robson apologist as well. He’s definitely been a racist, that is absolutely not something you can take out of context.
For DHH context, I’ll link this open letter
An open letter to the Rails Core team and Ruby community
David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH) has publicly published writings that make clear he holds racist and transphobic views, as well as a number of other traits undesirable in any figurehead and community leader.
We, the undersigned, call upon the Rails Core team and the wider Ruby community, to:
- cut ties with DHH and his work from this point forward
- hard fork Rails and associated projects to a new name and development free from his influence
- adopt a modern Code of Conduct with suitable community governance
It has three source links on ‘racist’, ‘transphobic’, and ‘undesirable’ if you want to form your own opinion.
Related to DHH, there’s also been controversies on Omarchy/Hyprland recently (post from 8 days ago). That source has a lot more information and historical/personal experience on DHH.
You might’ve noticed Framework, the laptop manufacturer, embroiled in a controversy as of now. The Discord server is on lockdown because the volunteer moderation team has gone on hiatus, and the Framework forum post about the controversy has been gaining unsightly amounts of steam from people disappointed at actions taken by Framework.
I think it’s in the nature of capital cities that they tend to attract quite a lot of people who want to try “life in the city” for a while and then move on? I’ve a few friends who moved down to London to see if they could make it in the music industry, which they did not, and then moved on to somewhere else with a less insane cost of living, after a decade or so. I’d observe that, while there’s quite a lot of Brits in London, there’s a massive shortage of Londoners. When people have kids, they generally want a bigger house somewhere with a decent school nearby, which in many cases means moving to the outskirts, or to a different city altogether.
That’s very much to London’s benefit, though. They have everything that you can imagine; specialist shops of every variety, and opportunities in every industry. However, I don’t think ‘London weighting’ of wages is really sufficient. Even if the wages are eg. 20% more for doing the ‘same job’ as the rest of the UK, you aren’t going to get a lot for that, and a lot of people in entry-level jobs are going to be living in big shared houses and struggling to scrape by, until they find the experience/inclination to leave. That’s a tale as old as time, tho, and probably to the benefit of the city - without a massive turnover of people, wages would probably need to be even higher.
Diversity is strength. If you don’t like that, then a bustling metropolitan capital city is not for you, and London is no exception. They’ve a nice bridge for the racists to throw themselves off; cry while you do, dickheads.
I know quite a few people that work in London but live in the Midlands, precisely so they can have a nice house. For them, it’s worth the commute.
Find a nice house in London costs millions, so you would have to have a sing significant pay hike in order to make it work.
CultRepo’s video coming to youtube in 2027!
The amount of effort put towards trying to control what people get to think and say is disgusting.
Anyone competent should avoid getting in bed with the censorship crowd. They will always expect unwavering loyalty and if you dare falter, you’re branded a nazi and have to apologize.
Fuck that.
All societies have morals right? In pretty much any country, if you say something that is considered bad in that country, people won’t like you. That’s not censorship, it’s just morals. In many countries, racism is usually considered bad, so if you say something that seems racist, many people won’t like you.
If DHH wanted to make a point about culture in London then it’s possible to do that without tying it to ethnicity.
Never heard about SJWs actually defending someone who needs defence, but SJWs making drama? Every single time.
The only effective way to make things right (and the most difficult, alas) is the community who manages their gems-shit by themselves, without corporations, prominent figures and 6-digit grants.
Is it okay for DHH to express his unhappiness that London is no longer mostly White British? He said “I thought I might move there one day… 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.”
Let’s say a lot of white people move to a previously black area. This causes a prominent person to write a blog saying “I thought I might move there one day… Now, I wouldn’t dream of it. It’s no longer the place I was infatuated with. Chiefly because it’s no longer full of black residents.” That would be racist wouldn’t it?
I’m not sure it’s worth engaging with the kind of person who uses SJW as a pejorative.
I’m just interested to see what the other side of the argument might be. Sometimes you might very strongly disagree with other people’s views, or even be disgusted by those views, but you might still want to find out what those views are.
Sure, just know that this feedback is coming from people who have probably walked the same path and are trying to save you some pain. Best of luck, but I have found people like that are not engaging in good faith.
Sometimes you might very strongly disagree with other people’s views, or even be disgusted by those views, but you might still want to find out what those views are.
Sure, but if they’re using SJW as a pejorative, you already know what their (disgusting) views are. I have yet to meet one of these people who didn’t fall into a rather specific shitty box when it comes to certain viewpoints.
Especially nowadays, long after “SJW” stopped being commonly used. If they’re still holding on to a 2016 anti-SJW “everyone’s so offended!!” mentality, they’re probably not worth engaging with. Just shows they never matured past that point.
Is it okay for DHH to express his unhappiness that London is no longer mostly White British?
No. Dude is a racist baby. It’s also the transphobia and support for open fascists.
Let’s say a lot of white people move to a previously black area.
Let’s not say that reverse racism is a real thing, because that’s an imaginary racist trope.
Let’s not say that reverse racism is a real thing, because that’s an imaginary racist trope.
My view is that racism can happen to any ethnicity: black, brown, white, anybody. It depends on the situation. If a business run entirely by white people disallows entry to a black person because they’re black, that’s racist, but if the races were reversed (a business run entirely by black people disallows entry to a white person because they’re white), I’d say that’s also racist. In fact if I end up talking to a white person about racism I might deliberately give them an example of a situation where a white person could experience racial discrimination, because that might make them think “fair point, I would dislike it if someone was racist to me, so maybe racism is a bad thing”.
Why do you assume that a Danish person talking about “native Brits” means “white”?
Firstly because when he says London is “no longer full of native Brits” he links to a Wikipedia page about ethnic groups in London. So he seems to be talking about ethnicity. Secondly, he says that these “native Brits” are now “about a third” of London. Looking at the Wikipedia page he linked to, the stats show that white Brits were 37% of London according to the 2021 census, which is about a third. It seems to me that’s probably what he’s talking about.
If “native Brits” just meant people born in the UK, or people with a British passport, then those figures are higher: 59% and 77% of London respectively (that page says that “In 2021, more than 4 in 10 (40.6%) usual residents in London were non-UK born, and more than 1 in 5 (23.3%) had a non-UK passport”).
When you start quoting “stats” about “white brits”, you’re only taking your mask off.
Yes, it is ok. Different people have different tastes in cultural, social, etc neighborhoods. This guy prefers classical British culture. See no wrong here.
He doesn’t seem to be talking about culture. He didn’t say something like “London has fewer pubs than it used to”. Instead he seems to be referring specifically to ethnicity. His interest in London seems to be reduced because more non-white people now live in London.
^ mental gymnastics olympian trying to defend overt racism with word salad.
Ethnicity is linked to culture in a very straightforward and obvious way. You’re just making drama here.
Ethnicity and culture are different. A person can choose to adopt whatever culture they want regardless of their ethnicity. Also if you said something like “I don’t want that particular ethnicity to move to my neighbourhood due to their culture” then I think that’s probably racist. I think it’s fine to object to certain cultural aspects as long as you don’t tie it to ethnicity though. E.g. if you said “I object to a cultural practice of treating women worse than men” then I think that’s okay.
Ethnicity and culture are different. A person can choose to adopt whatever culture they want regardless of their ethnicity.
Correct. And now the question: how can someone detect ethnicity without obvious cultural nuances? Obviously, that guy is talking about people who practice alien and unpleasant cultural practices. And don’t care about local culture. Some immigrants accommodate plus share some interesting culture approaches. Others – completely disregard local culture and behave like they are still at home.
Go to ignore. I’m sick of explaining to every kid around what the difference is between nazism/racism/chauvinism/stereotypes and common sense.
I think DHH is talking about ethnicity specifically though, not culture. He said London is “no longer full of native Brits”, and he describes “native Brits” as now forming “about a third” of London. White Brits were 37% of London at the 2021 census, so I think that’s what he’s talking about.
It’s possible to express disagreement with a cultural practice without making it about ethnicity. E.g. someone might object to men and women being separated for religious prayer. They might believe that men and women should pray together. It’s possible to make that point without making it about ethnicity.
I’m sick of explaining to every kid around what the difference is between nazism/racism/chauvinism/stereotypes and common sense
Seems like you’re not doing a good job of it, but you also don’t have a good take on those meanings based on your comments, so that’s to be expected.
Go to ignore. I’m sick of explaining to every kid around what the difference is between nazism/racism/chauvinism/stereotypes and common sense.
Hmm, maybe you should try understanding those concepts first before you share with everyone that you are in fact a racist. Some food for thought.
I am sure everyone was just waiting for you to explain those differences 👍
Damn man, you are really bending over backward to defend this guy… do you owe him money or something?
The King of England is ethnicly German.
You’re just making drama here.
…says the racist troll making as much drama as they can manage.
Classical British culture? London in the 90s?
Lol
SJWs
2012 called, they want their “insult” back. What a joke.
Sorry your fad is over and people are getting sick of the nonsense.
It’s time to grow up.
Yes, self-organization without the distorting effects of corporations, massive grants, or quasi-celebrities is best for most groups.
Yeah, this is all grandstanding to control what people get to say.
