We've all had enough of this nonsense

TLDR

• DHH responds to a 2025 attempt to cancel him from the Rails community, declaring the effort rejected and ignored.

Key Takeaways

• A group published a letter accusing DHH of “racist and transphobic views” and named it after a French WWII resistance action.
• DHH says this is a recurring pattern: a similar effort in 2022 succeeded in getting Ruby Central to uninvite him from the RailsConf keynote.
• RailsConf has since shut down; Rails World, which DHH controls, is thriving – the 2022 cancellation had no lasting effect on Rails.
• DHH reports more negative responses to the letter than positive, expressing uncertainty about the Ruby community’s values.
• His stated response: reject, ignore, and keep building.

Why It Matters

• The episode documents how open-source maintainers with public profiles face recurring organized pressure campaigns tied to political cycles.
• RailsConf’s death and Rails World’s growth illustrate how a founder retaining infrastructure control can outlast community governance conflicts.
• DHH frames the mental cost of such campaigns as a direct tax on builders, not just a personal dispute.

David Heinemeier Hansson · 2025-09-26 · Read the original