June 10: Ruby Central hosts a Zoom meeting with Executive Director Shan Cureton, Marketing Director Rhiannon Payne (who since left Ruby Central on September 1, more on that in a moment), some of the engineers who work on RubyGems, Bundler, etc., as well as folks involved in RailsConf programming, to address concerns from the community. I attend this Zoom meeting. I don’t feel at liberty to share who I recall also attended, but you would definitely recognize their name from recent criticism of Ruby Central. At the start of the meeting, Ruby Central asked permission from everyone to record the call. At the time, I took this to mean they wanted to be able to publish it later for folks who were unable to attend.
Much of the concern expressed in the meeting around DHH returning to RailsConf centered around why this announcement was made so close to the date of the conference, if sponsors were putting pressure on RC to permit his appearance, how they would protect the community from more hateful rhetoric, what steps RC is taking to create safe spaces for minority groups, etc. Here is a key exchange: in a conversation regarding DHH’s behavior outside of the conference, someone from Ruby Central (I forget who exactly) said they’d keep an eye on anything DHH might say regarding his return that’s a form of “weaponization” against his perceived political opponents—aka using his RailsConf appearance as a justification for his behavior. At this point, I shared the link to what DHH had already posted two weeks prior which is referenced above (aka “ardent ideologues”). Shan Cureton specifically replied that she wasn’t aware of that post and they would have to look into it. Again, this is key information: Shan Cureton and Ruby Central, as of June 10, knew DHH was already weaponizing his return to RailsConf to attack his enemies, because I was the one who shared this information with them. The Zoom meeting concluded in a reasonably cordial fashion, but it was obvious this would need to be the first in a series of difficult conversations to come.
Ruby Central’s leadership will be in Amsterdam this week for Rails World, and we’d love to see you there! Executive Director Shan Cureton and Director of Open Source Marty Haught will both be attending.
Again, I am beside myself that Ruby Central is blithely heading off to DHH’s pet conference—especially with DHH’s public views as toxic as ever on a regular basis (as you’ll soon see), so on September 4 (at the start of Rails World) I send the following email to contact@rubycentral.org:
“Ruby Central’s leadership will be in Amsterdam this week for Rails World, and we’d love to see you there! Executive Director Shan Cureton and Director of Open Source Marty Haught will both be attending.”
Meanwhile, DHH is posting this on X:
“First-world problems” shouldn’t be seen as an insult, but a celebration! Hurraaaay, I have ascended from the daily toils and tribulations of a life in the third world, so my worries may now include slow laundry machines and air conditioning, not starvation or failed states 🎉
I regret to say I am unable to support an organization which seems unable to publicly disavow a man who has demonstrated numerous times to be a racist, homophobe, transphobe, fatphobe, ableist white nationalist who is now apparently cheering on death via starvation in third world countries.
Disassociating with Nazis should be the bare minimum of ethical behavior by anyone in a civilized world. I’m sad I can no longer in good conscience support Ruby Central.
Regards,
Jared White
P.S. I am lead maintainer of the Ruby-based Bridgetown web framework. I have been outspoken on this topic and will continue to speak out. I’ve tried to keep a low profile with regard to speaking about Ruby Central specifically, but given the non-published Zoom conference prior to RailsConf which resulted in a nothing-burger Q&A response which didn’t even mention DHH by name in any way and now this…I am flabbergasted and dumbfounded.
A week later, I had not received any response to this email, so I replied again with the following:
I’m disappointed I never received a response back to my message, and furthermore, the exact thing I warned you about in the Zoom conference I attended prior to RailsConf—that DHH would weaponize his inclusion at RailsConf by attacking and silencing his political opponents and gaslighting the public that all is well in the community—is continuing to happen! (see the attached from his HEY World blog*)
Your silence is now complicity! Can you explain how it’s possible to uphold ethical policies which protect the LGBTQ+ community and other marginalized people, people in “third world” countries, the disabled, and others who are frequent targets of DHH’s wrath on his public HEY World blog, all while doing nothing to disassociate from him and his abhorrent views and instead sanctioning (!!) the Rails World conferences and the Rails foundation?
Jared
* This was what I had attached, a screenshot of DHH’s blog post reflecting on Rails World 2025 as stated here:
Thanks again to all The Rails Foundation members who believed in the vision for a new institution back in 2022. It looks like a no-brainer to join such a venture now, given the success of Rails World and everything else, but it actually took guts to sign on back then.
I approached quite a few companies at that time who could see the value, but couldn’t find the courage to support our work, as our industry was still held hostage to a band of bad ideas and terrible ideologies.
All that nonsense is thankfully now long gone in the Rails world. We’re enjoying a period of peak unity, excitement, progress, and determination to continue to push for end-to-end problem solving, open source, and freedom.
Think about it. DHH fully admits that it was hard to gain public support back in 2022 for a new Rails Foundation due to his reputation at the time and companies’ hesitancy to associate with him. But now, everything’s all good! “All that nonsense” (AGAIN linking back to the news he wouldn’t be at RailsConf 2022) is “thankfully now long gone in the Rails world.” Aaaarrgghh.
Anyway, I finally got a reply back from Shan Cureton, which I will include in a moment.
Hi Jared,
Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts and concerns with us. We value hearing different perspectives from across the Ruby community, and your voice has been heard. Ruby Central is a small organization with a small staff, and while we’re not always able to respond quickly or engage in every social conversation, we do take feedback seriously and reflect on it as part of our ongoing work.
Ruby Central’s mission and work are rooted in supporting the Ruby community, sustaining open source, and creating inclusive, welcoming spaces. We strive to show up in ways that reinforce our values in everything that we do. While we can’t always respond in the moment to everything that happens in external channels, we remain committed to fostering unity, equity, and respect within the ecosystem.
We know that perspectives within the community may differ on how we prioritize and balance these responsibilities. Our hope is that, over time, the work we do will demonstrate where we stand and may help shift how you view Ruby Central’s role in the community.
Please know that our door is always open to thoughtful discussion around these topics. Thank you again for your email and for all the ways you’ve contributed to the Ruby community.
Best Regards,
Shan
And here is my final reply back:
Thanks Shan for the reply back. I am eagerly awaiting something, anything, that seems to push back on the false narrative that all of the “nonsense” DHH is constantly talking about is long in the past and everyone’s totally on board his weird political train and it’s all cool bro. There is no “creating inclusive, welcoming spaces” in the Ruby on Rails community as long as that man is at the top of the food chain.
I will continue to monitor the situation.
All the best,
Jared
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