[LRUG] DHH, Rails, and London

[Todd Neale]

Hi James,

I am certainly one that sits and believes that one shouldn’t mix code and
politics. I am disappointed that DHH feels it is necessary to comment on
political issues that he seemingly does not understand fully.

Do you not find it all a bit ironic that he is a foreigner himself living
abroad in the US? Do you think he considers himself a migrant degrading the
culture of the city he has chosen to call home?

Personally I believe in the Ruby community to be a diverse community and we
will not be deterred or divided by divisive politics and hate speech.
Therefore I think it it’s important for the community to communicate with
DHH that expressing such views as he his is not welcome.

Thanks

Todd

On Thu, 25 Sep 2025 at 10:52, James Smith via Chat <chat at lists.lrug.org>
wrote:

> Hi folks,
>
> I recently read DHH’s take on London, how it’s “no longer British” and his
> support for Tommy Robinson and the far right, and quite frankly it made me
> sick, having been a Rails dev since 1.2, and a Brit since 1976.
>
> If it did the same for you, you might want to co-sign this open letter
> I’ve started calling for the Rails Core team to cut ties with him and
> remove his influence: https://github.com/Plan-Vert/open-letter.
>
> If this doesn't bother you, or you just don’t want to mix politics and
> code, then fine, please just delete this email and move on. Rest assured
> I’ve had all the standard abuse already, there’s no need to repeat it.
>
> Yes, forking Rails it would be almost impossible. Yes, the attempt will
> probably fail, I knew that on day one. But I had to try something, I love
> this language, framework and place too much to let them be tarnished like
> this.
>
> cheers,
> James Smith
>
> PS I did check with the organisers before posting “political” content to
> the list.
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