Author | Lightnews

Peter Zhu @peterzhu.ca · 2d

As I've stated in my blog post, governance isn't the issue here. It's the lack of companies that are willing to put engineers in OSS. When we know which companies these are, then maybe we can start discussing governance.

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Peter Zhu @peterzhu.ca · 2d

This is what my blog post is about. It's so heavily Shopify employees because no companies (with the exception of a few Japanese ones) will invest engineers in Ruby. If it's not Shopify, then who?

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Peter Zhu @peterzhu.ca · 2d

The development is about as in the open as it can be, but that doesn't mean the tickets tell you exactly what to do. If you knew how ZJIT works, the tickets contain all the information needed. The source code is there and there are blog posts and design docs, just read it.

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Peter Zhu @peterzhu.ca · 2d

I'm not sure I agree that BDFL is always bad. Imagine if we abolished BDFL and instead used a committee of Ruby core, then Shopify will have >50% of the votes. They can unilaterally accept or reject anything. Is that the optimal outcome?

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Peter Zhu @peterzhu.ca · 2d

Dev meeting agenda requires public proposal at least a few days in advance with a ticket for each item. This is public and open for feedback from anyone. bugs.ruby-lang.org/projects/rub...

We make sure the whole process is as transparent as possible with discussions and decisions in the open.

DevMeeting - Ruby - Ruby Issue Tracking System

Redmine

bugs.ruby-lang.org

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Peter Zhu @peterzhu.ca · 2d

The major decisions for the language are made in the monthly developer meetings within the Ruby core team. While the meetings are not public, the meeting notes are: github.com/ruby/dev-mee....

GitHub - ruby/dev-meeting-log: Log archive for monthly Developers Meeting

Log archive for monthly Developers Meeting. Contribute to ruby/dev-meeting-log development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

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Peter Zhu @peterzhu.ca · 2d

Your disagreement seems to be with one specific organization. The community is large so let's not generalize it like that. There are so many things to be optimistic about in the Ruby ecosystem, from many YC startups using RoR, to new features in Ruby & Rails, to a vibrant community.

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Peter Zhu @peterzhu.ca · 2d

I'm not asking for smaller shops to contribute, but the big players should do much more. I contribute 10-20 hours/week to Ruby in my own time and I do it because I love this language, I love this community, and I love solving real problems.

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Peter Zhu @peterzhu.ca · 2d

Why do we need a Ruby foundation? As a member of the Ruby core team, we don't need red tape. Our decisions are made democratically in the core team. However, a BDFL with vision for the language is important coherency. Individual changes to the language could make sense, but not make sense in total.

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Peter Zhu @peterzhu.ca · 2d

While DHH is the most vocal, I want to emphasize that Rails is so much more than DHH. The core team is driven by 12 amazing people, most of which I know personally and can vouch for. We should be optimistic that the future of Rails in the hands of these people. rubyonrails.org/community

Ruby on Rails Community

Rails improves every year thanks to hundreds of contributors. Meet the Core, Committers, and Issues team and learn how you can also make Rails better.

rubyonrails.org

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Peter Zhu @peterzhu.ca · 2d

People come and go. It's always sad to see people go but also exciting to see new Rubyists. But for many that have left the community, it's because of new opportunities rather than a governance issue. After all, open source is about less governance, less red tape, and more freedoms.

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Peter Zhu @peterzhu.ca · 2d

Sure, maybe you don't use all of these things, and that's fine. But the performance and stability improvements in Ruby come for free for everyone that upgrades. These improvements help your Rails app run faster, save money, and deliver better UX for users of your app.

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Peter Zhu @peterzhu.ca · 3d

This isn't true generally. It might be semi-true for things actively being worked on (e.g. ZJIT, Modular GC) but that's because it's moving at a high velocity that's hard to coordinate with non-employees. However, projects that are more stable (e.g. VWA, Prism, YJIT) are very open to contributors.

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Peter Zhu @peterzhu.ca · 3d

I would like to see evidence of "sucking up money"? Sure, there could be more transparency. However, the management chain is fairly lean. You can see they hire 7 staff members (paid by RC) and 6 directors (not paid by RC). rubycentral.org/about/

About Us

Our Vision We are a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting and advancing the Ruby programming language and a welcoming and diverse worldwide Ruby community. We create spaces and events, onli...

rubycentral.org

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Peter Zhu @peterzhu.ca · 3d

That's not true. In fact, RailsConf this year got far more sponsors than RC. There were 3 x $50k, 1 x $35k, 2 x $25k sponsors. railsconf.org/sponsors/

Sponsors

RailsConf 2025 is the world’s largest gathering of Rails developers, brought together to further discussion and learning about building, managing, and testing Rails applications. With a specific focus...

railsconf.org

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Peter Zhu @peterzhu.ca · 3d

Also, should we think of confs as money makers or as an investment for the community? I think of them as the latter. Of course, it's important to be responsible with the money. Confs should be a place of discourse, learn new things, build connections, and get hyped. (2/2)

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Peter Zhu @peterzhu.ca · 3d

From what I know, RC's confs have been roughly breaking even in the last year or two, so far from "spending money without any accountability." I would argue that the confs are essential to the Ruby ecosystem, as it (was) the only Rails conf in US and is still the only major Ruby conf in US. (1/2)

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Peter Zhu @peterzhu.ca · 4d

I wrote about some of my thoughts on the lessons we can learn from the RubyGems situation and how we can move forward. blog.peterzhu.ca/open-source-...

Open Source is the Most Fragile and Most Resilient Ecosystem - Peter Zhu

Some of my thoughts on the lessons we can learn from the RubyGems situation and how we can move forward.

blog.peterzhu.ca

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Reposted by Peter Zhu

Jean Boussier @byroot.bsky.social · 13d

I tried to explain why I don't believe the recent accusations toward my former teammates, as well as how the Ruby and Rails Infra team at Shopify operates and why it can be trusted.

byroot.github.io/opensource/r...

Dear Rubyists: Shopify Isn’t Your Enemy

I’ve been meaning to write a post about my perspective on Open Source and corporate entities. I already got the rough outline of it; however, I’m suffering from writer’s block, but more importantly, t...

byroot.github.io

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Peter Zhu @peterzhu.ca · Sep 22

I’m excited to share that I’m starting as a Staff Developer at Figma!

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Peter Zhu @peterzhu.ca · Sep 21

Still in the Ruby community! Will be upgraded to a user of Ruby at my job but I’ll still be working on Ruby in my spare time.

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Peter Zhu @peterzhu.ca · Sep 20

Friday was my last day of an incredible journey at Shopify.

In the past 5 years, I had the privilege of working on some cutting edge projects to advance Ruby with some of the most talented and well-known developers.

Shopify will always have a very special place in my heart.

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Peter Zhu @peterzhu.ca · Sep 16

Shopify sponsors and collaborates with academia to take Ruby to new heights. We're working with Australian National University to integrate Memory Management Toolkit into Ruby. Earlier this year, we published a paper about it. Today, we wrote a blog post: railsatscale.com/2025-09-16-r...

Reworking Memory Management in CRuby

Shopify sponsors and collaborates with academia to take Ruby to new heights. In this post, we give an overview of what we’ve built in collaboration with the Australian National University.

railsatscale.com

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Peter Zhu @peterzhu.ca · Sep 15

My #RailsWorld talk recording is up!

youtu.be/9r0xmX0oK5Y?...

Peter Zhu - Ruby Stability at Scale

YouTube video by Ruby on Rails

youtu.be

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Peter Zhu @peterzhu.ca · Sep 6

Honored to give a talk at #RailsWorld again, on the same stage 2 years later. The recording should be up in a few weeks but you can find the slides here in the meantime: blog.peterzhu.ca/assets/rails...

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