Rails Needs New Governance  ## Metadata - Author: [[davidcel.is]] - Full Title: Rails Needs New Governance - Category: #articles - Document Note: --- tags: - #ruby - #governance - #open_source Author: davidcel.is Source: Article Reference: https://davidcel.is/articles/rails-needs-new-governance date created: 2025-09-20 00:00 --- # Title: Rails Needs New Governance ## Table of Contents: - [📝 Summary](#-summary) - [📖 Main Content](#-main-content) - [🗒️ Notes](#-notes) - [📖 References](#-references) - [🗣️ Paraphrase](#-paraphrase) - [📰 Newsletter](#-newsletter) - [✅ Action Items](#-action-items) - [🧪 Hypotheses](#-hypotheses) - [📊 Methodology](#-methodology) - [❓ Questions](#-questions) - [🔮 Future Research](#-future-research) - [💡 Implications](#-implications) - [🧠 Learning Styles Assessment](#-learning-styles-assessment) - [📊 Accessibility Assessment](#-accessibility-assessment) - [🌍 DEIB Assessment](#-deib-deib-assessment) - [✅ Logical validity](#-logical-validity) - [🔍 DARVO Analysis](#-darvo-analysis-prompt) - [🔍 SEO Evaluation](#-seo-evaluation) - [🎯 Conclusion](#-conclusion) ### References: - Tom Stuart, “The DHH Problem” (2014) lightning talk - DHH blog on Hey World (various posts referenced) - Ruby Central statements on RubyGems GitHub governance change - Rails Foundation information ## 📝 Summary: The author, a long-time Rails practitioner, argues that Ruby on Rails suffers from a governance problem centered on the outsized influence of its creator, DHH. Drawing on Tom Stuart’s “The DHH Problem,” the piece contends DHH’s rhetoric and political radicalization toward far-right positions undermine community trust and inclusivity. Recent Ruby governance turmoil (e.g., Ruby Central’s abrupt control shift over RubyGems on GitHub) exacerbates concerns about transparency and concentration of power, including dependence on Shopify funding. While a community fork seems unrealistic due to maintenance and funding burdens, the author calls for better governance, accountability, and leadership beyond “the Fox News of Ruby.” ## 📖 Main Content: - Personal context: 15 years loving and using Rails; concern about core rot tied to leadership culture and persona dominance. - “The DHH Problem”: DHH’s disproportionate visibility and combative style shape community discourse; single-experience bias risks narrowing perspectives. - Political trajectory: Author catalogs themes on DHH’s blog—anti-DEI, anti-“woke,” free-speech absolutism, trans-antagonistic rhetoric, nationalism—arguing a sustained shift rightward. - Nostalgia critique: DHH’s professed skepticism of nostalgia contrasted with later yearning for past norms, culminating in “As I remember London,” interpreted as ethnonationalist. - Governance flashpoint: Ruby Central’s sudden takeover of RubyGems GitHub access without clear communication erodes trust; broader frustration over opaque, unelected leadership and funding dependencies (Shopify). - Constraints and options: Removing DHH unlikely due to copyrights, roles, and ongoing platforms; a fork is impractical; still, the community should not accept the status quo and should demand transparent, inclusive governance. ### 🗒️ Notes - DHH visibility dynamics - “Ruby Famous” yields agenda-setting power - Rhetorical style: noisy, reactionary, anti-intellectual; “common sense” appeal - Single-perspective risk: discourages pluralism - Evidence patterns of shift - Topics: anti-DEI, anti-woke, free speech absolutism, trans issues, nationalism - Support/citation of right and far-right figures - Nostalgia contradiction vs. earlier anti-nostalgia stance - “As I remember London” - Read as ethnonationalist framing and endorsement of Tommy Robinson - Marked as author’s breaking point - Governance incidents - Ruby Central’s abrupt RubyGems GitHub control change - Opaque justifications; trust degradation - Structural constraints - DHH copyright ownership; Rails Foundation chair - Persistent platforming by conferences/podcasts - Shopify funding dependency - Proposed direction - Fork: idealistic but likely unsustainable - Call for new governance: transparency, accountability, plural leadership ## 📖 References: - Tom Stuart’s talk “The DHH Problem” - DHH’s Hey World blog posts (476+ posts) - Ruby Central announcements on RubyGems governance actions - Rails Foundation materials ## 🗣️ Paraphrase: 1) Original idea: DHH’s outsized influence narrows discourse. Paraphrase: Although DHH’s contributions to Rails are undeniable, his dominance in conversation means the community risks mistaking one person’s experiences for universal truths, ultimately squeezing out diverse viewpoints the Ruby world depends on. 2) Original idea: Fork is appealing but unrealistic. Paraphrase: A community-led fork that excludes DHH and Shopify sounds attractive in principle, but the sheer cost and labor of maintaining the Rails ecosystem make such a split improbable. Even so, complacency isn’t an option; the community should insist on higher standards of leadership. ## 📰 Newsletter: Learning web development this week? Rails is in the spotlight—not for hotwire tricks, but for governance. A veteran Rails dev argues that the framework’s leadership concentrates too much power in one voice and calls for more transparent, inclusive stewardship. Meanwhile, Ruby Central’s sudden move to take control of RubyGems’ GitHub access raised eyebrows over process and communication. For learners: brush up on testing strategies beyond any single guru’s take; community wisdom > hero narratives. Community highlights: discussions on better governance models, sustainable funding, and codes of conduct that protect contributors. New plugins and tools? Keep an eye on gems emphasizing security and CI visibility—supply-chain trust is the theme of the week. Recommended reading: Tom Stuart’s “The DHH Problem” and recent commentary on Rails governance for context. If you’re building in WordPress, the lesson carries: prioritize transparent maintainership, clear escalation paths, and a culture that amplifies many voices. ## ✅ Action Items: Prompt for aligning articles with your open-source advocacy and OSPO trajectory: - Purpose: Analyze how this article informs open-source governance, contributor experience, and educational outreach in the WordPress ecosystem. - Instructions: - Governance: Identify power concentrations, decision rights, and funding dependencies described; map parallels to WordPress project governance and potential OSPO policies. - Contributor engagement: Extract pain points (trust, transparency, safety); propose onboarding, mentorship, and conflict-resolution practices that encourage broad participation. - Education: Design a workshop outline translating lessons on rhetoric vs. evidence, community codes, and transparent roadmaps for dev meetups and contributor days. - Sustainability: Evaluate funding models and sponsor influence; propose diversified funding and guardrails to prevent capture. - Transparency & Inclusivity: Recommend measurable policies (public decision logs, RFCs, CoC enforcement with appeals) and inclusive facilitation in contributor forums. - OSPO readiness: Draft a policy brief with KPIs (time-to-merge, incident comms SLAs, contributor retention, DEIB metrics) and escalation procedures. - Stage presence: Create a talk abstract connecting governance patterns to practical contributor experiences in WordPress. - Output: 1-page policy memo, workshop agenda, KPI dashboard mock, and comms playbook for incident response. ## 🧪 Hypotheses: - H1: Transparent, plural governance increases contributor retention and trust in open-source projects. - H2: Reducing single-leader platforming correlates with greater diversity of technical approaches adopted. - H3: Clear funding diversification decreases perceived (and real) sponsor capture and improves roadmap legitimacy. - H4: Prompt, clear incident communication reduces community churn after governance crises. ### 📊 Methodology: - Mixed-methods: - Data: Contribution graphs, maintainer demographics, issue/PR SLAs, survey trust scores, conference speaker diversity. - Design: Pre/post natural experiments around governance changes; difference-in-differences comparing projects with/without singular figureheads. - Analysis: Survival analysis fo - Summary: Ages ago, when I was still a student, I taught myself Ruby on Rails for my senior thesis and fell in love. Fifteen years later, and I’ve used Rails at every job I’ve ever held in the tech industry. Fifteen years, and I still love Rails! But there’s something rotten at its core, and we share a name. - URL: https://davidcel.is/articles/rails-needs-new-governance [](https://davidcel.is/)[A sketch of a bearded man with long, curly hair wearing a baseball cap, seated with his hands clasped in his lap as a thought bubble expands from his head with a slice of pepperoni pizza.](https://davidcel.is/) The title card of Tom Stuart’s presentation, The DHH Problem. Ages ago, when I was still a student, I taught myself Ruby on Rails for my senior thesis and fell in love. Fifteen years later, and I’ve used Rails at every job I’ve ever held in the tech industry. Fifteen years, and I still love Rails! But there’s something rotten at its core, and we share a name. #### The DHH Problem Back in 2014, Tom Stuart delivered a pithy yet salient lightning talk at the Scottish Ruby Conference titled [The DHH Problem](https://tomstu.art/the-dhh-problem), in which he succinctly describes the character of David Heinemeier Hansson, the creator of Rails. I recommend watching it because, in just three and a half minutes, he effectively provides context on who DHH was, who he still is, and why his future shift to the right would make so much sense and be so unsurprising. But, if you’d rather not, I’ll include a transcript below: > DHH is an intelligent and successful person. DHH invented Rails, and now I can get paid for writing Ruby, even though I enjoy it. So: thanks, DHH (sincerely). But, there’s a problem. DHH is “Ruby Famous”, which means that DHH is extremely visible (some might say disproportionately visible) in the Ruby community. Why is that a problem? Because DHH is the Fox News of Ruby. > > He’s noisy, he’s reactionary, he’s anti-intellectual, he’s very sure that he is right, and he enjoys being rude. *[Tom cuts to a photo of DHH delivering a conference talk in 2006, standing in front of a slide that just says “Fuck You”]* That was eight years ago, but things haven’t changed much. Just like Fox News, DHH appeals to “common sense” and makes a show of being “fair and balanced” but, in reality, his arguments use aggressive rhetoric and rely on a fixed viewpoint. > > To paint a topical example, is TDD hard in Rails apps because TDD is dead, or because Rails makes TDD hard? Is TDD not worth the effort because TDD is dead, or because the complexity of software can be managed more effectively if you only work on one product for which you control the requirements? If we only listen to DHH, then we’ll never know, because DHH is just one person and he only has DHH’s experiences. > > All I’m saying is: the Ruby community is large and diverse and thoughtful, and that is why I love it. Please listen to DHH: his experiences are valuable. But DHH does not speak for me, and he probably doesn’t speak for you. My personal preference is for a bit less of this *[Tom cuts back to the photo of DHH’s “Fuck You” slide]* and a bit more of this *[he then cuts to a different man delivering a conference talk, standing in front of a slide that says “What others do may be the stimulus of our feelings, but never the cause.”]* > > Please give DHH’s opinions the weight they deserve: they are what one man thinks. And if you disagree with him, please speak up—write a blog post, give a talk, create a web framework—so that we can all learn what the world looks like to you. > > That was eleven years ago, but things haven’t changed much. DHH is still noisy, still reactionary, still anti-intellectual, still very sure that he is right, and still enjoys being rude. You need only look at his [personal blog](https://world.hey.com/dhh) to witness this yourself, but doing so isn’t for the faint of heart; this iteration of DHH’s blog on Hey World started a mere four years ago but, in that time, he’s written 476 posts on a variety of topics. That’s too many posts for a deep dive, but the broad trends show a reactionary who has moved, at times steadily and at times quickly, to the far right. Early on, DHH comes off as a man who held a [variety of political beliefs](https://world.hey.com/dhh/mosaics-of-positions-ae6d4d9e). He would write about [the dire state of our climate](https://world.hey.com/dhh/you-gotta-read-less-is-more-88a4f37f) and then, a couple weeks later, drop hints of an increasingly present narrative around [cancel culture](https://world.hey.com/dhh/you-gotta-read-less-is-more-88a4f37f). Early posts on this blog tended to follow a theme of his “natural political stance” ostensibly being left-leaning, while being open to right-wing views as a way to [“find common ground”](https://world.hey.com/dhh/books-that-bust-bubbles-35c46be2). I’ll be honest and say that I’m not sure I believe that he was ever truly left-leaning. My own observations show someone who is fairly centrist or even slightly right of center, which tracks with what standard Liberalism has become in America. Over the next few years, we’d see posts from DHH covering a range of far-right talking points: [anti-wokeness](https://world.hey.com/dhh/are-we-past-peak-woke-c313b7d1), [anti-DEI](https://world.hey.com/dhh/the-waning-days-of-dei-s-dominance-9a5b656c), [free speech absolutism](https://world.hey.com/dhh/where-at-least-i-know-i-m-free-da04f873), support of figures who range from right-leaning (like [Joe Rogan](https://world.hey.com/dhh/everything-popular-is-problematic-eb039e2b)) to far-right (like [Andrew Tate](https://world.hey.com/dhh/the-faith-of-andrew-tate-a8a4d448) or [Jordan Peterson](https://world.hey.com/dhh/the-parental-dead-end-of-consent-morality-e4e8a8ee)), to [anti-trans](https://world.hey.com/dhh/bad-therapy-08849dc9) [fearmongering](https://world.hey.com/dhh/gender-and-sexuality-alliances-in-primary-school-at-cis-97f66c06), all the way to [outright nationalism](https://world.hey.com/dhh/national-pride-f7aa1e92) (this post may seem innocuous on its face, but hints at [his inability to recognize hate speech as violence](https://world.hey.com/dhh/words-are-not-violence-c751f14f) and includes the common dog whistle of countries having a “strong national identity”). He [rails against finding beauty in diversity rather than what’s “normal”](https://world.hey.com/dhh/the-endangered-state-of-normality-d632a7fe) or in [people of all sizes](https://world.hey.com/dhh/the-beauty-of-ideals-b3dccf72). But what I find most indicative of DHH’s shift (whether towards the right, or towards honesty that he’s always been on the right) comes from a quote in one of his earliest posts on this blog, [Legacy without nostalgia](https://world.hey.com/dhh/legacy-without-nostalgia-b19708c9): > I’m just not a nostalgic person. In fact, I’m deeply skeptical of nostalgia. It too often feels like a trap to romanticize the past at the expense of the future. If you fall in love with who you once were, it’s too easy to forget to keep going. I want to keep going. > > This is *deeply* ironic given just how much DHH thirsts for nostalgia in his later posts. He frequently yearns for the world of the past, especially [the 80s](https://world.hey.com/dhh/the-80s-are-still-alive-in-denmark-54e7a404) (but not the 90s, which he [hates](https://world.hey.com/dhh/it-s-beginning-to-feel-like-the-80s-in-america-again-68c2708e)), before all of this pesky talk about DEI, before cancel culture, [before “pessimism”](https://world.hey.com/dhh/pessimism-is-on-the-retreat-e67dbd7e). But no post encompasses this hypocritical desire for nostalgia more than his essay from a few days ago, [As I remember London](https://world.hey.com/dhh/as-i-remember-london-e7d38e64), a post which disturbingly echoes the sentiments of the [Ku Klux Kreed](https://www.wisconsinhistory.org/Records/Image/IM58857): Denmark for the Danes, Britain for the Brits, Japan for the Japanese. Given Britain’s long history of multiculturalism, I wonder what DHH would say is the defining characteristic of “native Brits”? It also declares his support of one of Britain’s most prominent far-right activists, [Tommy Robinson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Robinson). This post was my breaking point. This post is why I’m here right now, writing something much longer than the social media quips I’ve written over the years in response to his ongoing descent into far-right white nationalism and fascist rhetoric (and make no mistake: [nationalism is the bedrock of fascism](https://theconversation.com/is-every-nationalist-a-potential-fascist-a-historian-weighs-in-256826)). But I’ve noticed something common over the years as DHH’s posts circulate on social media, the same kind of response from multiple people every time there’s a new controversy: “Wow, I had no idea DHH went fully mask off.” There’s a clear lack of awareness. Or, worse: people simply forget. “As I remember London” should be a wake-up call for everyone in the Ruby and Rails communities. This is not a man who wants to keep going. This is a man who romanticizes a past that was predominantly good for white men. This is a man who has spent years railing against diversity, equity and inclusion and who spreads anti-trans rhetoric. This is a man who is deeply afraid of immigration changing countries’ cultures and “national identities”, despite this kind of change being a constant for the whole of human history. This is a man who is a white nationalist. And he is in sole control of Rails, this framework we all love. #### Something needs to change There’s a growing discontent that I see on social media over leadership in Rails, most of which comes down to DHH’s continued involvement, waning trust in the organizations who continue to platform him (like Ruby Central), and the problematic reality of how much Ruby and Rails is beholden to Shopify money. But what’s the answer? What can we reasonably change? I don’t know! It doesn’t help that, as I was writing this, yet another Ruby Drama unfolded live on social media. This latest drama (in a community that has [a long history of drama](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4801397) the likes of which I’ve not seen in any other programming community) is that, over the course of the last week and a half, [Ruby Central forcibly took control of RubyGems on GitHub](https://bsky.app/profile/duckinator.bsky.social/post/3lz6exzgtcc2j) and revoked access from all of its maintainers in a massive shift of governance that came without advanced warning or communication of any kind. They [responded](https://rubycentral.org/news/strengthening-the-stewardship-of-rubygems-and-bundler/) several hours later with some very hand-wavey corpospeak describing their motive of “a fiduciary duty to safeguard the supply chain and protect the long-term stability of the ecosystem,” whatever that means. The whole situation reeks of incompetence and I’ve lost any trust I had left in the organization, which had admittedly become very little. I’m tired of a lack of transparency from our community’s unelected leaders and board members. I’m tired of the vagueposting that makes it impossible to decipher what events like these are truly about. I’m just so tired in general. While I would love for new governance, I don’t know how it’s possible. I don’t think there’s any getting rid of DHH, and I can’t see him removing himself of his own accord. He owns the copyrights to Rails, he’s the founder and chair of Rails’ governing body, the [Rails Foundation](https://rubyonrails.org/foundation), and—despite his open politics—he continues to be platformed. He’s invited to speak on podcasts. He’s invited to speak or keynote at conferences. Even Ruby Central [invited him back for the last RailsConf](https://rubyonrails.org/2025/5/29/final-railsconf) earlier this year after he threw a [hissy fit](https://world.hey.com/dhh/no-railsconf-faa7935e) over being asked to cede the keynote stage in 2022. Rails core members and organizations like Ruby Central continue to work with and collaborate with him closely and, though many have walked away in recent years, I wish more would follow. I get that doing so is an incredibly difficult decision to make, but people have had years to distance themselves from this man. But they don’t, so Ruby and Rails continue to be directed by far-right sympathizers like DHH and [Tobi Lütke](https://techwontsave.us/episode/232_shopifys_right_wing_inner_circle_w_luke_lebrun__rachel_gilmore) (and their money). And all of this is allowed because Ruby and Rails have a [code of conduct](https://rubyonrails.org/conduct) that purposefully falls prey to the [paradox of tolerance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance). On the other end of governance changes, the alternative that I’ve seen people calling for increasingly is a community fork of Rails that doesn’t involve DHH or Shopify. As much as I’d love for this to happen, I have to admit that I don’t think it’s realistic. The amount of work that goes into maintaining this ecosystem is enormous and expensive. Funding is precarious, which makes the option to walk away from Shopify’s sponsorship difficult to stomach. But that doesn’t mean that we should sit back and accept the status quo. Why do we collectively settle for this? I have to believe that we can do better than the leadership we currently have. We can do better than the Fox News of Ruby., Rails Needs New Governance, davidcel.is, 01k5kqtm20g7fh77dzm7by1z67.