Whenever there’s a big mob backlash against a company (like the RubyGems vs. Shopify drama now, or 37signals in 2021), I keep this tweet from @mitchellh in mind: “One thing I found incredibly frustrating as an employer is you can’t share your side of the story and you’re always painted as the bad guy.” You’ll often only hear one side, usually packed with personal attacks on the founders or even employees (like Rails core members from Shopify getting unnecessarily dragged into the current drama) by the offended (and often loud) parties. You’ll see people paint folks like @dhh or @tobi as evil overlords. The other side can’t usually tell their story for good (and sometimes, legal) reasons. Reality is rarely that simple. The truth can even be quite surprising. Don’t trust one-sided stories.
