Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Mike McQuaid @mikemcquaid.com · 23h

Turns out people liked the “management podcast thing” Neha Batra and I did last week, so we made more: Minimum Viable Management is now a podcast. This time we talk about decisions, leadership, and other things managers pretend to be good at.

Various podcast links at mikemcquaid.com/minimum-viab...

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Mike McQuaid @mikemcquaid.com · 4d

Voting methods same ones as in Homebrew and handled nicely by OpaVote.

Us Europeans love our wacky voting systems 🤪

Mike McQuaid @mikemcquaid.com · 5d

It's been a pleasure working with you Martin <3

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Mike McQuaid @mikemcquaid.com · 5d

Thanks Nate, appreciate it from someone in the community whose work I respect and use.

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Reposted by Mike McQuaid

Justin Searls @searls.bsky.social · 5d

People jumped to conclusions about this RubyGems thing

For context, last week I wrote a post bringing to light a number of things Andre Arko had said and done (/posts/why-im-not-rushing-to-take-sides-in-the-rubygems-fiasco/) in the past as a way to provide some context. Context that might explain why any of the principal actors involved in the RubyGems maintainer crisis (summarized well up to that point by Emanuel Maiberg (https://www.404media.co/how-ruby-went-off-the-rails/)) would take such otherwise inexplicable actions and then fail to even attempt to explain them. Today, Jean shed some light on Shopify's significant investments in Ruby and Rails open-source (https://byroot.github.io/opensource/ruby/2025/10/09/dear-rubyists.html), and it actually paints a picture of corporate investment in open source done right. (Disclosure: I know and am friends with several people who work at Shopify on these teams, and unless they're all lying to me, they sure seem to prioritize their work based on what Ruby and Rails need, as opposed to what Shopify wants.) Jean went a step further by contrasting Shopify's approach with the perverse incentives at play when individuals or groups receive sponsorships to do open source. He also drew a pretty clear line of those incentives playing out based on how RubyGems and Bundler maintainers reacted to Shopify's feature submissions. Read the post, it's good.

justin.searls.co

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Mike McQuaid @mikemcquaid.com · 5d

I was involved in attempts to improve RubyGems governance, mediate between RubyCentral/RubyGems folks and helping the gem-coop folks setup their new governance process. Given recent events, I'm stepping back now that the initial governance work is done: mikemcquaid.com/bootstrappin...

Bootstrapping gem.coop Governance

gem.coop was announced on Monday. As part of that announcement it was mentioned that I was helping gem.coop set up a governance process, continuing the work I’d first started helping with on RubyGems.

mikemcquaid.com

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Mike McQuaid @mikemcquaid.com · 13d

If you liked this: reply here or email one of us with what we should talk about next and we'll do more.

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Mike McQuaid @mikemcquaid.com · 13d

Get context from the post that sparked this conversation in mikemcquaid.com/minimum-viab...

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Mike McQuaid @mikemcquaid.com · 13d

Had a chat yesterday with my best ever manager, Neha Batra, on minimum viable engineering management, one-on-ones, feedback and better product vs. engineering fights.

Check it out on YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZSe...

Building Trust and Having Better Fights with Neha Batra and Mike McQuaid

YouTube video by Mike McQuaid

www.youtube.com

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Mike McQuaid @mikemcquaid.com · 15d

Yes, it is. Paul is Irish. I am Scottish. It is common in both our countries’ cultures.

I have been involved with trying to prevent, mediate and now repair such events. One can both take things seriously and use humour. If you don’t wish to: that’s up to you.

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Mike McQuaid @mikemcquaid.com · 15d

It was a joke about Game of Thrones. Can we turn down the heat a little please? It’s not helping anyone.

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Reposted by Mike McQuaid

404 Media @404media.co · 16d

New: the world of Ruby has gone completely off the rails over the past few weeks. Developers suddenly locked out, corporate pressure, and claims of a "hostile takeover" of one of the most critical pieces of infrastructure for the internet we all rely on everyday
www.404media.co/how-ruby-wen...

How Ruby Went Off the Rails

What happened to RubyGems, Bundler, and the Open Source drama that controls the internet infrastructure.

www.404media.co

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Reposted by Mike McQuaid

Justin Searls @searls.bsky.social · 18d

Proposal: move RubyGems (the gem and bundler CLI tools) to the same Ruby org that governs the language itself.

It's an accident of history that Ruby, its dependency tools, and its dependency hosting are managed by three separate entities. (And it hasn't gone great.)

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Mike McQuaid @mikemcquaid.com · 19d

Have thought a bit at past few companies about whether engineering management in some form is always necessary (spoilers: yes) and what's the minimal viable level of engineering management:
mikemcquaid.com/minimum-viab...

When I joined GitHub there was none. This sounded great but was actually bad.

Minimum Viable Engineering Management

When I first joined GitHub in 2013, there was no engineering management. They had people in engineering leadership roles (some with titles, some without) but no dedicated managers to check in with reg...

mikemcquaid.com

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Mike McQuaid @mikemcquaid.com · 19d

More Of This Sort Of Thing. Pointing and laughing is much more effective than people think.

tef @tef.bsky.social · 25d

in case you're not sure who dhh is, he's a danish counterstrike player and race car owner who writes essays like "i am smarter than you" and "foreigners bad"

rich enough not to worry about consequences but at the very same time, still desperate for status, a man two friends short of a podcast

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Mike McQuaid @mikemcquaid.com · 20d

I think we've used OpaVote the last few years.

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Mike McQuaid @mikemcquaid.com · 20d

Problem is: there's also people who weren't removed who were entirely inactive.

Mike McQuaid @mikemcquaid.com · 20d

We'd love to have you! Feel free to email me and I'll share my iMessage/WhatsApp/whatever and help you get started :)

Mike McQuaid @mikemcquaid.com · 20d

Thanks for the kind words Martin, always a pleasure dealing with you. I had sent this data privately to enough people that it felt like it made sense to just make it public and let people draw their own conclusions.

Mike McQuaid @mikemcquaid.com · 21d

Lots of RubyGems chat recently, very little data. I've used Homebrew's tooling to analyse RubyGems public GitHub data and posted it here: mikemcquaid.com/rubygems-con...

RubyGems Contribution Data with Homebrew’s Tooling

There’s ongoing discussion about recent changes to access in the RubyGems GitHub organisation. If you need context, first read Open Source Turmoil: RubyGems Maintainers Kicked Off GitHub. My goal is t...

mikemcquaid.com

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Mike McQuaid @mikemcquaid.com · 21d

Sorry not sorry people who want to make this one-dimensional: that includes Ruby / Rails maintainers at Shopify.

Please let's not turn OSS into an environment where we assume malice based on your present or past employers.

This happened on Homebrew while at GitHub, was 100% untrue and felt awful.

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Mike McQuaid @mikemcquaid.com · 21d

> For the entire time, I have remained independent of any company in my decisions and actions. Even while working full-time jobs elsewhere, I made sure my contributions reflected the voice of the community rather than the goals of any corporation.

This is great 👏 and the case for most maintainers.

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Mike McQuaid @mikemcquaid.com · 21d

Another day in Rubyland, another first-hand account from a departing RubyGems maintainer: gist.github.com/simi/349d881...

rc-wtf.md

GitHub Gist: instantly share code, notes, and snippets.

gist.github.com

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Reposted by Mike McQuaid

Martin Emde @martinemde.com · 21d

Joel did an amazing amount of investigative work to put together the most accurate representation of this situation that I’m aware of. I stand by everything that I’m able to vouch for. I don’t have anything else to add. Thank you for your effort here @joel.drapper.me

Joel Drapper 🇬🇧🇺🇦 @joel.drapper.me · 21d

After listening to about a dozen first-hand accounts, I’ve published what I know about the RubyGems takeover.

Shopify, pulling strings at Ruby Central, forces Bundler and RubyGems takeover

Ruby Central recently took over a collection of open source projects from their maintainers without their consent.

joel.drapper.me

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Reposted by Mike McQuaid

Joel Drapper 🇬🇧🇺🇦 @joel.drapper.me · 21d

After listening to about a dozen first-hand accounts, I’ve published what I know about the RubyGems takeover.

Shopify, pulling strings at Ruby Central, forces Bundler and RubyGems takeover

Ruby Central recently took over a collection of open source projects from their maintainers without their consent.

joel.drapper.me

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