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busterarmyesterday at 6:27 PM3 repliesview on HN

Do you have any idea how expensive it is to keep the infrastructure running? RubyCentral's operating expenses are in the millions every year and exceed their revenue.

Andre's removal is easily justifiable by his own (lengthy history of) sketchy behavior.

Since when is "open source" something businesses shouldn't be allowed to get value from or even have a stake in? These things are MIT licensed. That's free as in speech AND beer. If you don't like the freedoms of the license and how other people use them, don't use the license. If you don't like someone's stewardship, fork and maintain your own.


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itsdesmondyesterday at 6:50 PM

Responding to your first paragraph, the rest wasn’t constructive.

Shopify paying for infrastructure related to Ruby is an investment, not charity. Hosting gems costs money and a healthy community depends on that gem hosting. Spotify, in turn, depends on that healthy community to produce and maintain gems, train future employees, stuff like that. They’re not paying that money for fun, it is to protect their interests.

And all of the above would be true even if the OSS committee wasn’t 100% Shopify affiliated. That’s gravy.

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mperhamyesterday at 6:57 PM

> Do you have any idea how expensive it is to keep the infrastructure running?

Yes, I do. All hardware and bandwidth are donated by Fastly and AWS so it costs RC nothing. Their expenses were $20,000/mo for 24/7 ops coverage: $2000/mo for 6 people and $8000/mo for service maintenance (e.g. db and software upgrades). So $240,000/yr, not "millions".

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themafiayesterday at 6:44 PM

Those who write the code have more of a right than those who pay the bills. Anyone can write a check. A select few have the acumen and experience to actually write the code.

You can't unilaterally declare someone "sketchy" and then kick them out in the name of conveience.

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