Ruby Central, a nonprofit that supports the Ruby programming language ecosystem, is in "real financial jeopardy," according to a missive from its board members.
Among other cost-cutting measures, it said, it has "parted ways" with its executive director, Shan Cureton, as well as its "PR agency, our CFO, and concluded several contractor engagements."
Board members Jey Flores and Ran Craycraft said that, after joining Ruby Central Board at the start of 2026, they had seen the organization's finances "become overly dependent on the optimistic timing of when funds may be received against fixed timelines for when our expenses are due."
The statement, released last night, follows a spat between different groups, with Ruby Central (which is the non-profit organization that manages the rubygems.org infrastructure) removing long-standing maintainers who then went on to launch a rival Gem Cooperative and create a gem server called gem.coop. The former maintainers claimed they were removed without notice from several flagship Ruby open source projects, including the RubyGems and Bundler ecosystems, without their consent.
Former exec director Cureton herself said at the time, in a video address, that the takeover was tied to demands from sponsors and companies dependent on Ruby tooling, who raised concerns about supply chain and access issues. She said Ruby Central attempted to reach an agreement with maintainers but ran into time constraints. She said "When Bundler and RubyGems came under our responsibility ... it came with operational risk, legal responsibility, and practical obligations."
Later that month, Ruby Central transferred the repository ownership of RubyGems and Bundler to the Ruby core team. However, it did not restore the control of those tools to the maintainers who previously oversaw them. "The forceful removal of those who maintained RubyGems and Bundler for over a decade is inherently a hostile action," said Ellen Dash, one of the maintainers affected, at the time.
'Difficult personnel cuts' and spending curbs
In their statement last night, Flores and Craycraft said the board had voted in April to start restructuring Ruby Central, including a transition from a governing board to a volunteer working board. "That means instead of the board advising a full-time Executive Director, our board members have taken on direct roles and responsibilities alongside our hardworking team of staff and volunteers. We voted for some difficult personnel cuts and to reduce discretionary spending. We voted to preserve RubyConf," they said.
It added: "Ruby Central has gone through a difficult period, and some of that has been visible to all of you. Some of it has been structural and behind-the-scenes. The gap between how we've been operating and what this ecosystem needs has been growing for some time, coming to a head in the past few months."
Flores and Craycraft said they hoped to move forward and did not "have an appetite for any ongoing conflict."
They promised to ensure greater openness over how big decisions are made and who participates. The new approach would strengthen the security and reliability of RubyGems. Ruby Central would "repair and rebuild trust across the community, and earn that trust with patience and results."
- Ruby Central report reopens wounds over RubyGems repo takeover
- Ruby Central tries to make peace after 'hostile takeover'
- Kicked from RubyGems, maintainers forge new home at Gem Cooperative
- RubyGems maintainer quits after Ruby Central takes control of project
Earlier this month, Ruby Central published an incident report describing the fracture around RubyGems, which began in September last year, when ownership of the GitHub code repository behind the package manager was wrested from its maintainers' control.
The report was written by board member Richard Schneeman, a principal engineer at Salesforce who maintains the Heroku Ruby Buildpack and joined the Ruby Central board a month after the RubyGems incident. It covers the events leading up to it and concludes on September 24.
Schneeman said he hopes to "provide some closure to the community" and vowed a further process of structural change.
Former RubyGems maintainer Josef Šimánek spoke about the report on the Ruby subreddit, saying the issue could have been resolved with a "simple apology to the community pointing to wrong actions (not people actually) and asking for help to resolve the issue and cooperate together with community to ensure similar mistakes are not going to repeat." ®