Alternatives [LWN.net]

Alternatives

Posted Oct 20, 2025 19:43 UTC (Mon) by NYKevin (subscriber, #129325)
In reply to: Alternatives by farnz
Parent article: Transition of RubyGems Repository Ownership

After clicking through a few of the links at the bottom of that summary, I have to say that "wrong politics" seems like a serious understatement in this context. DHH was not accused of being conservative, or of supporting some mainstream conservative policy. He was accused of being a white supremacist, which is a far more specific and damning accusation than the phrase "wrong politics" tends to imply.

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Alternatives

Posted Oct 20, 2025 20:15 UTC (Mon) by bmur (guest, #52954) [Link] (12 responses)

They specifically use the baseless "white supremacist" defamation because it's trendy to call people this and they know many people will not look further than the headline. DHH has done NOTHING to justify that accusation. The people on that Ruby github petition should be blacklisted for even suggesting such a false accusation.

Alternatives

Posted Oct 20, 2025 20:18 UTC (Mon) by daroc (editor, #160859) [Link] (4 responses)

LWN is currently working on preparing an article about the recent RubyGems debacle; perhaps we should leave off this discussion and wait to have arguments in the comments there.

Joe really did an excellent deep-dive on the topic. I think everyone will be pleased with the article once it's published.

Alternatives

Posted Oct 20, 2025 20:33 UTC (Mon) by jzb (editor, #7867) [Link] (3 responses)

Or, you know, just not have arguments in the comments at all. Radical idea, I know, but I thought I'd throw it out there in case it caught on. 🙂

Alternatives

Posted Oct 21, 2025 8:15 UTC (Tue) by taladar (subscriber, #68407) [Link] (2 responses)

Next thing you are going to suggest we should stop having the same arguments over and over again in circles in both politics and software religious wars like vim vs. Emacs, huh?

Alternatives

Posted Oct 21, 2025 9:27 UTC (Tue) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]

Pffft... you're all wrong. JOE is the best.

(my first editor was 'Tasword' on the Amstrad, Tasword had Wordstar-ish UI... I couldn't get on with Vi or Emacs, but JOE with its similarly wordstar-ish UI just felt right).

Alternatives

Posted Oct 25, 2025 19:08 UTC (Sat) by jzb (editor, #7867) [Link]

Asking people not to argue about Vim vs. Emacs would be like asking people not to argue about St. Louis Cardinals vs. the Cubs, or Beatles vs. Stones. I would never do that, so long as folks kept it civil.

Alternatives

Posted Oct 21, 2025 7:23 UTC (Tue) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link] (6 responses)

Nothing except maybe express views like this where he laments that only a third of Londoners are "native Brits". Which may be news to many people, but following the link he provides, it is clear he means white British citizens. Or this where he fat-shames a Black model.

Of course he won't come out and say "I believe in white supremacy" in so many words. But that is clearly his message.

Alternatives

Posted Oct 23, 2025 22:45 UTC (Thu) by fredi@lwn (subscriber, #65912) [Link] (5 responses)

Uhm, I think going to dig personal beliefs, or presumed so, of people which have nothing to do with the topic at hand, which is Ruby, is just distracting.

Just IMHO.

Alternatives

Posted Oct 24, 2025 2:06 UTC (Fri) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link] (4 responses)

Just a note that the provided links are to the personal site of the Ruby on Rails' author, so it is not unrelated to Ruby (IMO).

Alternatives

Posted Oct 24, 2025 3:02 UTC (Fri) by fredi@lwn (subscriber, #65912) [Link] (3 responses)

Yeah, re-reading my comment, I phrased it poorly. I just meant that, IMO, a person’s personal beliefs should be kept separate from their technical work — the discussion here is about the latter.

Disclaimer: I have no stake in Ruby or in any of the parties involved.

Alternatives

Posted Oct 24, 2025 8:33 UTC (Fri) by taladar (subscriber, #68407) [Link]

To be honest you are probably pretty alone with that opinion and it is certainly not universal enough that having unpalatable personal opinions won't have a negative impact on others being willing to participate in or use projects the person holding those opinions runs, benefits from or where others have to work with them.

Alternatives

Posted Oct 30, 2025 13:53 UTC (Thu) by davidgerard (guest, #100304) [Link] (1 responses)

I am pretty sure that is completely incorrect and an artificial distinction to make. If someone does that, the obvious question is to have a goose chase them yelling "WHAT BELIEFS IN PARTICULAR?"

Alternatives

Posted Oct 30, 2025 15:08 UTC (Thu) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

> > I just meant that, IMO, a person’s personal beliefs should be kept separate from their technical work

> I am pretty sure that is completely incorrect and an artificial distinction to make.

"Your reality is not my reality". Belief systems matter. I'll get told off if I bring databases into this :-)

You cannot separate a person's technical ability from their personality - all aspects of it - because it's part of them, and has a big impact on their work.

Not least, to drag Free Software into this, even here we have zealots and pragmatists, and you can see the effect this has on peoples' work, and the willingness of other people to work with them.

Cheers,
Wol