Hi Josh, welcome to the Rails discussion forum - I’ve put together some answers to the questions you’ve asked
Regarding rubyonrails.org, none of the Core team are designers/illustrators/copywriters and DHH has access to people at Basecamp with those skills. Not everything has been designed by Basecamp, for example the Rails Contributors website was designed by José Espinal.
DHH made the video because he’s good at those and the intent was to capture the spirit of the original 15 minute video - the fact that it’s on his YouTube channel is because there isn’t an official Ruby on Rails channel.
The trademark is purely there as a defensive measure to protect against abuse by third parties, the only time it ever comes up is when we flag someone who might be using it outside of the accepted limits and DHH needs to send a cease and desist email/letter.
On governance, we have a Core team and we operate on a consensus basis. The role of the Core team is to manage releases, evaluate pull-requests, handle conduct complaints, and lay the groundwork for major new features.
The process to become a Core team member is through outstanding contribution to the framework until you’re invited to become a member of the Committer team. Then if a person continues to contribute in a similar manner, at some point a Core team member will propose them and the rest of the team will make a decision whether to issue an invite using the consensus basis previously outlined. There is no fixed limit on the number of members and there is no term limit on membership.
Regarding the point about leverage, that’s not a term I’d use but if you’re asking what some would call ‘power dynamics’ then obviously each team member’s experience is personal. For example I’d generally defer to Aaron’s greater experience in Active Record and DHH’s on the public api of a feature but it’s not a ‘veto’ like some portray it - there are times when DHH has accepted my thoughts about a public api on a feature and I don’t fear for my place on the Core team if I disagree.
The Core team is setup to provide stability - membership is not tied to employment at any company and some current members have been employed by Basecamp before and after being added to the Core team.
Hopefully this addresses the concerns you have.
Andrew White
Rails Core team member
