"Ruby Central is said to have quietly snatched control of several flagship Ruby open source projects from their long-time maintainers without their consent, following pressure from Shopify, one of its biggest backers. The allegations were detailed by Joel Drapper, a Ruby developer and open source maintainer who previously worked at Shopify. They suggest a coordinated takeover of the RubyGems and Bundler ecosystems, and may deepen fractures in the Ruby community."
"According to Drapper, Ruby Central had already been financially strained. A major sponsor, Sidekiq, allegedly withdrew a $250,000/year commitment after Ruby Central "platformed" Rails creator DHH (David Heinemeier Hansson) at RailsConf 2025, leaving it heavily dependent on Shopify's chequebook. In that context, Shopify allegedly demanded that Ruby Central assume full ownership of the RubyGems GitHub organization and certain core gems - including 'bundler' and 'rubygems-update' - threatening to cut funding if the move did not occur."
Ruby Central assumed control of several flagship Ruby open source projects and the RubyGems GitHub organization, reportedly without long-time maintainers' consent. Claims indicate Shopify applied financial and governance pressure to compel the nonprofit to take ownership of core gems such as bundler and rubygems-update. A major sponsor, Sidekiq, allegedly withdrew a $250,000/year commitment after Ruby Central platformed Rails creator DHH at RailsConf 2025, increasing reliance on Shopify funding. On 9 September HSBT renamed the RubyGems GitHub enterprise to "Ruby Central", added Marty Haught as an owner, and reduced other maintainers' permissions. Partial rollbacks occurred on 15 September, but ownership changes persisted and maintainers were removed by 18 September.
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