[LRUG] DHH, Rails, and London

[Sam Livingston-Gray]

"Let's not be political" is inevitably a political statement.  It's just
one that says "I got mine; why are you bothering me by talking about yours?"

> A tide lift [sic] all the boats.

All the boats *whose owners could afford to keep them seaworthy*.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias

Seriously, we were having conversations in the Ruby community 10-15 years
ago about how having one loud jerk[1] in the room will cause others—usually
the most vulnerable ones, with perspectives we need—to quietly move toward
the exits and never come back.  When that happens, is your response "let's
cheer for the success of the people who are still here," or "let's follow
those folks out and see what we could've done better?"

-Sam


[1] DHH in 2006: https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/dhh-says-f-you/57797


On Thu, Sep 25, 2025 at 3:44 AM Greg Molnar via Chat <chat at lists.lrug.org>
wrote:

> Just to give a counterpoint, I don't really care about others' political
> view. I go to conferences and share the love of Ruby and Rails with folks
> of various ethnicity, religion, gender, politics, etc and we have a great
> time and great conversations together.
> Whatever views DHH holds, he is good for the community in my opinion.
> Under his stewardship Rails moves forward, we have a Rails renaissance, and
> the bigger the community gets, the more opportunities arise for all of us.
> A tide lift all the boats.
> So I say let's keep building, let's keep helping each other and cheer for
> the success of others.
>
> Peace,
>
> Greg
>
> On Thu, Sep 25, 2025, at 9:46 AM, James Smith via Chat 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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