The Failure of Open Source Leadership

Open source project leaders have faced heavy challenges over the last decade and a half. It seems every language community has had conflicts with its leadership: Python with the struggles of the Python 2 to 3 migration; Node.JS and the community's conflict with Joyent; Rust and their handling of trademarks and IP; Wordpress and their conflict with WPEngine; and of course Go and their conflict around dependency management (and error handling). Now we've added another: the recent conflict between Ruby Central and the community.

In this episode, Kris, Matt, and Steve discuss these conflicts and what they tell us about the way we've come to see leadership within open source projects, where the blame actually lies, and what changes we can make to avoid these issues in the future.

We continue this discussion in this week's episode of Break! We get into some of the topics briefly mentioned during the main episode. Watch it on YouTube or listen with your favorite podcasting app! Learn more by going to https://break.show.

For our supporters, we have extra chapters about the sustainability of the current model and where we should place blame for the current problems. Not a supporter yet? You can fix that by heading over to https://fallthrough.fm/subscribe where you'll get not only extra content but also higher quality audio. Sign up today!

Thanks for tuning in and happy listening!

Show Notes:

• Bryan Cantrill Platform as a Reflection of Values
• Low Level Rust is causing a lot of problems
• If WordPress is to survive, Matt Mullenweg must be removed
• ‘This Is Just How We Do Things Now’: The Quiet Collapse of Standards

Table of Contents:

• Prologue (00:00:00)
• Chapter 1: How Did We Get Here? (00:02:07)
• Chapter 2: Why Does Open Source Like Dictators? (00:41:04)
• Chapter 3: So what happened with Ruby? (00:45:21)
• Chapter 4: How Sustainable Is All Of This? [Extended Only] (01:01:49)
• Chapter 5: Blame Lies Everywhere [Extended Only] (01:02:19)
• Chapter 6: It's Not The Individual, It's The System (01:03:06)
• Chapter 7: We Actually Can All Get Along (01:13:41)
• Chapter 8: Nuance Was Had (01:24:24)

Hosts

• Kris Brandow - Host
• Matthew Sanabria - Host
• Steve Klabnik - Host

Socials:

• Website
• Bluesky
• Threads
• X/Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Instagram

• (00:00) - Prologue
• (02:07) - Chapter 1: How Did We Get Here?
• (41:04) - Chapter 2: Why Does Open Source Like Dictators?
• (45:21) - Chapter 3: So what happened with Ruby?
• (01:01:49) - Chapter 4: How Sustainable Is All Of This? [Extended Only]
• (01:02:19) - Chapter 5: Blame Lies Everywhere [Extended Only]
• (01:03:06) - Chapter 6: It's Not The Individual, It's The System
• (01:13:41) - Chapter 7: We Actually Can All Get Along
• (01:24:24) - Chapter 8: Nuance Was Had