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I no longer care to work on any Ruby gems so I've archived all my repositories
SoftwareFirst seen 374 points353 comments
A Ruby developer has archived all of their Ruby gem code repositories and says they no longer want to work on Ruby software. They say the reason is how Ruby and its main web framework, Rails, are now being shaped by AI tools and the people behind them.
What happened
The author has archived the source code of their Ruby gems. An archived repository is still visible, but it is marked as no longer being worked on. They wrote a post to explain why, and they link to it from the code.
Why Ruby matters here
Ruby is a programming language created by Yukihiro Matsumoto, known as Matz. Years ago, he said Ruby was designed to make programmers happy and to be built for humans. Rails is a popular tool that uses Ruby to build websites and web apps. The author says Rails is owned and controlled by a man whose views they find very offensive, and that some people are trying to make a copy, or fork, of it.
The AI concern
The author says Ruby is now being developed a lot with AI agents, which are programs that can write and change code on their own. Matz talks about Ruby as a language for the AI age, where AI writes the code. The author worries that AI needs lots of good human-written code to learn from, and that big companies are taking that code to feed the machines.
Why it matters
This shows a growing debate in software. Some developers feel that writing code by hand is less valued now, and that open projects they gave their time to are being used to train AI. The author's choice is a personal protest, and it shows that some programmers may step away from open source when they feel it no longer fits their values.
What to watch
- Whether other Ruby gem authors archive their projects too.
- Whether an effort to fork Rails grows into a real alternative.
- How the Ruby project changes as it uses more AI agents to develop the language.
- How big companies use open source code to train AI tools.
Glossary
- Ruby
- A programming language that people use to write software. It was designed to be easy and fun for people to write.
- gem
- A small package of Ruby code that other programmers can add to their own projects.
- Rails
- A popular tool, called a framework, that helps people build websites and web apps using Ruby.
- fork
- A new copy of a software project that someone takes in a different direction, often after disagreement.
- archived
- Marked as no longer being worked on. The code stays online but is read-only for most purposes.