Collin: 0:04

Hello, friends. This is Colin speaking. Today, we are joined by Adarsh Pandit and Allison McMillan from Ruby Central. We will be talking about Ruby Central, organizing conferences, community, and of course, the upcoming RubyConf in San Diego. It's a great conversation that I think you're really going to enjoy. So let's get to it. Why don't you guys introduce yourselves, say your names and what you do, and then what we're going to be talking about. We'll get into it.

Allison: 0:37

Perfect. Um, I could start. I, uh, am Alison McMillan. I have been on the board of directors for Ruby Central, um, for a handful of years

Adarsh: 0:47

How long?

Allison: 0:47

five or six. Um, and I am, hmm? Is it? I don't know. I lost track. And what is

Adarsh: 0:54

Time is a flat circle.

Allison: 0:56

did we even continue counting time during COVID and like all the, you know? Um, and I'm also one of the conference co chairs for RubyConf San Diego.

Collin: 1:08

That's amazing.

Adarsh: 1:09

Hey, I'm Aadir Pundit. I am currently the executive director of Ruby Central. I also have previously been a board member of RubyCentral plus RubyTogether going back to 2016. And Allison and I were both on that board also, long, long, long ago. We've been board buddies for many, many years.

Allison: 1:33

Yes, there was a time that I was sitting both on the Ruby Together and the Ruby Central board, uh, and that was, it was interesting and wonderful, but I am glad that I am only on one board now, and

Collin: 1:44

Board buddies. Um,

Allison: 1:46

Yeah.

Collin: 1:46

I think people who, who are listening might know, but just maybe we could go over like, what is Ruby central? What is like its mandate? What do you guys do there?

Adarsh: 1:55

Sure, I'll go. So, RubyCentral is the Ruby community non profit. We have been putting on conferences since, I want to say, 2003? It's gone through a number of different iterations. Earlier, you know, there was a Ruby conference that started around then. And then a Rails conference started in 2006. Uh, O'Reilly was involved early on, and there was a couple of different folks who were leading those conferences. And around 2011, 2012, I think that's... I might not get these... Evan and Marty, Evan Phoenix and Marty Haught were sort of started, um, running the show and they both have been involved since, uh, Evan retired from Ruby Central a couple of years ago and Marty is still on our board. So what we do is two main activities. We put on those conferences. RubyConf in the fall and RailsConf in the spring. This year, RubyConf is in sunny San Diego, November 13th to 15th. Um, and next spring, RailsConf will be in my hometown of Detroit, Michigan. The other thing that we do as Ruby Central is administer, uh, the RubyGems and Bundler projects. And so those hopefully are things that you're familiar with as Ruby developers and listeners. Um, we cover all of the infrastructure costs. and administer it and, uh, have had funding in the last few years, especially with the advent of RubyTogether to pay for the development work and the infrastructure and the ops work, um, on call support, uh, things like that. So that has been great. So that those folks are not just, um, volunteers, you know, helping support our entire community. And companies, um, in volunteer time, but are getting paid to do that work. So that's us.

Collin: 4:11

Cool. Allison, so you're more running the show for the RubyConf conference this year itself.

Allison: 4:18

Yeah, for, for San Diego. So yeah, Ruby Central is really, we want to be what the community wants it to be. Um, and so, you know, we talked about sort of like some of the main initiatives, but we really ebb and flow through a lot of different things. And those are really our core things. Running the conference, taking care of the community, helping to advance the community. You know, uh, sponsoring and paying for open source work and, and the development, um, but a lot of what we've done in the past, you know, we have like the Scholar's Guides program at the conference, a lot of those things have come up and things we've talked about doing in the future around dude, I'm scared to wear support, um, support, um, different smaller Ruby communities or around supporting education around Ruby. You know, those things sort of come up as we hear from as we hear from the Ruby community as the Ruby community ebbs and flows in in a variety of in a variety of different ways.

Collin: 5:09

So you guys have both been doing this for a minute. What's that ride been like recently? I feel like a lot's been happening in the community in the last several years. Like what was that? What does that look like

Adarsh: 5:19

I think that's an understatement. Um, you know, there's, uh, Alice, I could talk to some of the more specifics, but running in person conferences in general over the last three years is, everyone has been touched by that and affected by that. We have experimented with all different forms. of conference from totally virtual to hybrid, uh, live stream plus in person. Um, you know, we've, we've changed a lot of things and experimented. I think that the days of the past where we could just put up a conference, um, ticketing link, and then it would sell out within a few weeks. are gone. And I think that has, I know that that's forced us to think a lot about what is the experiments, experience that we want to have uh, at the conference and what will attract people to get out of their houses, which now are their workplaces and pay for travel and hotel and the conference ticket. And be away from their families and take time off of work. What is valuable enough someone to be motivated to do that?

Allison: 6:28

Yeah, and I just it's also I mean, it's been, it's been tough financially, right, to like, make sure that we are running a, a stable nonprofit that's still, that's still moving forward in light of all of the conferences being our main revenue stream, in light of sort of all of the changes, um, but also the Ruby community as a whole has gone through changes, right? There used to Uh, a whole lot of regional conferences. Um, I mean, I started speaking at conferences I think in 2015 at Ruby Nation, which was like the DC Mid Atlantic Regional Conference, and you could go to a Ruby conference, like, every six weeks somewhere else in the country for an entire year. Uh, you know, there were at, at the times when I was speaking more frequently there were times that I would see, like, my Ruby friends from across the country or even around the world more frequently than I would see my local friends, right? And there were a lot of positives to that. You know, I think that the ecosystem of having more regional Ruby conferences meant that people came to... They came to RubyConf or RailsConf sort of with a crew, right? We had new people, we had people that didn't know anyone. But, um, you know, a lot of people sort of came, came already having some familiar faces from their regional conferences. And I think as region, and some of them are coming back now, which we're like, I think about both in the states and around the world. Um, but that also, you know, as the regional conferences go up, go down, etc. You know, even that impacts not just RubyConf and RailsConf, but how we think about the Ruby community, how we think about Ruby Central and what Ruby Central needs to provide and what... Folks are, who are experienced, just coming into the community, like, what are they, what are they getting and what are they not getting that we maybe got when we were starting out, or that we didn't get when we were starting out?

Collin: 8:29

Yeah, I think that mirrors my experience exactly with the regional conferences is that, um, I used to do a lot of speaking at like iOS conferences for several years. And then, uh, yeah, since the pandemic, it's just like gone. Like it just doesn't happen where I used to do like, yeah, it felt like once a quarter at least. So yeah, I kind of had like my, my speaker buddies, like we all go hang out and we'd all kind of be doing, I don't know, a circuit, I guess. Um, not, not so much anymore. I feel like what you were saying about the um, It's hard just to get people out of like the couch lock, I guess, or whatever, like you're at your house, cause. So RailsConf, when it was in Portland, was actually the first thing that I did since the pandemic, and it was specifically actually because I felt like you guys did like kind of a maximalist COVID policy that year. you were like you got to have not just the quick test, you have like the PCR test, and you got to be this and you got to be the third thing and you got to wear a mask. And that made me actually feel comfortable doing it. Uh, which was very fortunate.

Adarsh: 9:28

Yeah, that was a ton of work on the part of the organizers as well as the staff to make that happen. People still had exposures and, and so on, but I feel like it was. much mitigated. And I think that that was another, uh, point where we really do try to care for our attendees and think about them as, um, as people who want to feel comfortable in the space. Um, and so, yeah, that was, that was very challenging. And even, you know, as, as conferences continue, um, that's the COVID stuff is certainly very challenging.

Allison: 10:05

Yeah, well, it's funny, so I was actually one of the co chairs for the Portland conferences, and it was the first, it was the first in person thing that I had done. Um, and so, uh, I have two little kids, I can't remember if my youngest was eight. I was able to be vaccinated at that point, I can't remember the vaccination timeline, but I remember being like, cool, uh, I would like X, Y, Z, A, B, C, like, give me all of the things, uh, to, you know, to, I mean, yeah, and I think it was in, and different conferences took different approaches at that point in time, and again, like the COVID, it's ever evolving. It is, I think, one of the things that make, that makes conferences... That much more difficult. A lot of people that plan conferences, including us, like, it's volunteer based. Um, you know, and the regional conferences and these, like, it's, it's mostly people spending their, their own time to put these things together, and I think that is one of the pieces is that, like, Each complication that you add is sort of like, Do I still want to be doing this? Do I still want to be spending the time? Um, and, you know, just that, that balance is hard. It's hard from like a work life balance perspective. Not even like a, I wish I could be doing this from my

Adarsh: 11:28

Yeah, and, and it's also difficult because you do get, and we solicit a lot of feedback about, you know, what is the experience like? And I want to say the vast, vast majority of it is extremely positive and people see us and they, they know many of us. And they know how much work we put in and they pull us aside and they say, thanks so much. We know how this is great. But there are also some noisy folks who are not happy with our code and policy or other policies. And so, you know, there's, there's some of that that happens to you, but that just, that's part for the course. And it's just really nice to get those messages of gratitude and like, like Alison was saying to see your old Ruby friends again after many years,

Collin: 12:08

Yeah. Well, one of my Ruby friends, uh, who I'm going to be meeting for the first time in person is, uh, is also here. His name's Joel. Uh, we're going to be, we're going to be, uh, meeting for the first time in San Diego and then also doing a live episode of this very podcast. Uh, so we're, I know we're both very excited about that

Joel: 12:26

yeah. it's gonna be awesome.

Collin: 12:28

Yeah. I think we, we have some pretty good ideas. Um, well, we think they're good ideas. We'll see how it goes.

Joel: 12:33

We'll see how they pan

Collin: 12:34

Yeah, we think we're pretty excited though. Um, and then also we just found out that we're actually gonna Well, you told me you're not allowed to Endorse it or anything. So maybe you don't have to say anything But we also just found out that we're actually gonna be able to do a little rooftop Ruby party. We got some sponsors So we're also very excited about that. It's gonna be a really good time in San Diego one thing I wanted to ask you about was the So the first day of this is going to be a community day Can you talk about that? Like, what's, what is that?

Allison: 13:06

Yeah, um, so for this conference, you know, again, as we've been Thinking about conferences, always thinking about how we evolve, how we change, what we, like, what we do differently, um, You know, one of the things that, uh, Chelsea's the other co chair and I really wanted to capture was sort of the, the community aspect, right? And the fact that, like, a lot of people come to, uh, rubyConf and RailsConf to really, To connect with one another, um, and yes, to learn and to go to talks, but to, to really engage, to really interact, um, and, and to, to have a great time, right, like to make those Ruby friends that we, you know, we're always talking about, like, hashtag Ruby friends at the conference and between, the conference, right, and it's like, how do you create those connections, how do you help foster those connections, and how do we capture those a little bit of, you know, some of the, the historic magic of the, of the Ruby community. And so, what we decided to do this year, um, was start on Monday with a community day, and then, you know, have sort of the, the conference with some special stuff, but a lot of what people are used to on Tuesday and Wednesday. And so, Monday is mostly, um, comprised of two parts. The first is workshops. So people have seen workshops before, but we've gotten a lot of feedback about how it's really hard to participate in a workshop because you have to miss so many talks during the, like, during the conference day. Um, so we decided to, you know, pull, pull those out into, into the first day. Um, And then the second piece is sort of this hacking space. So it's a place where people can really come together and, and hack together and work on things. And there will be a variety of, um, you know, well known community members, folks that are responsible for open source projects that people can sort of jump into. People can also bring their own project to work on. They can bring their own project and they can Um, and then we'll have, like, an option for other people to jump into. Um, so really an open space, and there'll be people sort of, you know, like, bopping around and helping if somebody needs assistance, or somebody gets stuck, and sort of really capturing, like, that, that magic of what, like, hacking together on Ruby Things as a Ruby community can be and has been, and, you know, that we, that we want people to be able to engage with.

Adarsh: 15:29

Yeah. So, I mean, if we think about the long history of RubyConf, uh, itself, what we really have thought, I mean, in the new context, as I was saying, uh, that in person events have to evolve, right? Restaurants have to create outdoor seating, um, or at least we see a lot of that in California, um, and, and other, other people who are in these spaces have to, have to adapt with the times. And so... Like I said, it's a big lift and it's a big ask for people to commit to coming to the conference. And so we wanted to honor that and, um, we have basically been doing the same shape of conference for a very long time. And as I've gotten to know other people in other programming conference communities, Um, I've gotten to know a lot of folks in Python, among others. Uh, what they've heard, as we've talked about, Hey, how has your attendance changed over the course of the pandemic? What's, what's been happening? What trends do you see? There's sort of a non scientific feeling that there are a couple different archetypes of conference attendees. One is sort of the scholar, I'll call that person the scholar, where they show up at 8. You know, they have their, their notebook and pencil and their sketch noting, or they're taking notes and they're there attending talks all day. They clock out at five, maybe have a half a beer and head back right to the hotel. And that's, that's, they're there for entirely for the content. Then there's sort of more the way that I and others approach the conference, which is that I'll usually see the opening keynote. I'll drift into a talk maybe in the morning. I'll grab a cookie. I'll see Alison. We'll catch up. We'll talk about our kids. We'll get lunch, and then I will go back to the hotel, have some quiet time, come back around three or four, meet some folks, and start to make dinner plans, and figure out where Ruby Karaoke's happening. Maybe there's a happy hour, we do that, and then, um, so really it is about the in person connection. And what I've heard, and what I feel like we have seen a little bit of, Is that the scholars, the people that are there just for the content. The pandemic was enough for them to say, you know what, I can wait for the videos. I'm not going to, I'm not going to show up. And so I think that that segment is, uh, is no longer willing to come to conferences. And so we have, we have to do is make sure that we're drawing in. The other group and enhancing the experience for for things that are already happening. I talked to a friend of mine who's like a community leader in the Lego space and I was like, oh, how do we grow our community and how do we engage with them? And he's like, you kind of can't like they're going to do what they do because that's how community is. It's organic and people find connection. And all you can do is just encourage them and foster what's already happening. And so to a sense, like, that's kind of what community is. Is that those, some of those connections and some of those conversations have always been happening. Some of the hacking has always been happening. But they're sitting on the carpet next to an outlet in the hallway, right? Now we're gonna give you a desk and a sign and wifi and, and a power cable and, you know, cookies and, and, and coffee and, and take turns and have a schedule and put a little bit of loose schedule around it. And I think that our, our hope with this experiment is it's really gonna bring what's already there, kind of, uh, more to life.

Collin: 19:06

Yeah, and then is doing things like, you know, like live podcasts, is that also kind of a part of that thinking of bringing more community stuff into it?

Allison: 19:14

Yeah, yeah, definitely. And I mean throughout the conference days, so throughout Tuesday and Wednesday, we are going to have something new called Open Spaces as well, which is really highlighting different projects, different things, different areas, like different things that people, really, really cool things that people in the community are doing. Because, you know, like they're out there promoting themselves. They're out there sort of getting people involved, but not everybody So, um, it's a really cool way to are happening. And it's a really, um, without having to like stand up and do a talk or blah blah blah. It's just a really cool way to highlight all of the, all of the different things. So yeah, podcasts are part of that. The open spaces are part of that. The hack, you know, the hacking on day one is part of that. Um, so we were just, when we thought about the Ruby community, we were like, This community is still the best. Like, it's still, people are still doing really amazing, awesome things, and how do we like, and we know it as Ruby Central or as people that are very involved who happen to know a lot of other Rubyists, but how do we make sure that everybody else, you know, the people that aren't as connected, the people that aren't as involved, the people that don't 30 other Rubyists that have been doing Ruby for, you know, a decade or whatever. Like, how do we make sure that they know it too, and that they can hook into it? That it's not something that is over there for them, but that it's theirs too, and that they can get involved.

Collin: 20:39

I found integrating into the community to be very easy for me. Um, it's, it's been a really great group of people, because I, yeah, I was working at Apple, and then in like 2021, I wasn't working at Apple, and I was like... I'm going to learn web development or whatever and, uh, and I decided like, you know, this would be the thing or no, it's 2020, but regardless, uh, I decided, you know, this is the one that spoke to me the most. And then I just immediately started meeting people and making friends. And, uh, and now it's like a whole thing I do, you know, so, uh, I, I found it to be a really great community.

Adarsh: 21:11

That's really just what keeps us motivated is all, um, um, you know, I've been in the Ruby community since 2011 when I bought the pickaxe and you know, agile development of Ruby on Rails, you know, in, in dead tree thick book format and taught myself web development. And I went to RubyConf, I'm going to say 2013 in Portland, or sorry, that would be RailsConf 2013 in Portland. And immediately everybody. was so friendly and welcoming and I learned a ton. I did a TDD workshop with a buddy and that's, that was kind of a big turning point for me in my professional career. Joe, how long have you been in the Ruby community?

Joel: 21:56

Oh, um, not very long. I think maybe since 2017? But I wasn't, that's, I mean, that's since I started doing Ruby. I think I probably... Went to my first Ruby conference in maybe 2018, something like that. Yeah, not, not very long. I guess, I guess that is quite a while now.

Allison: 22:17

What is time? Anyway, again, it's Yeah, um, so the hack day is just, that's just on the first day and we have a number of folks from Opens that will be involved in, like, in, in the hack day. OpenSpaces is, it's really, instead of like having to sit down with a project, it's really sort of like, it's access to the maintainers, it's access to these, you know, people in the community, it's access to ask them questions, to have conversations, to have discussions, um, you know, and we're, we're working very closely, we have an amazing program committee, um, that sort of helped shape this as well, and so we're also working very closely with the program committee, Um, and, and the folks that they've talked to, to sort of figure out, like, Do we have an agenda for OpenSpaces? Are there, I know there's sort of different themes, and those themes are going to have blocks of time. Um, but, you know, it's like, Are there mini talks? Is it just like discussion conversation? Is it Q& A? Um, so I think it will probably end up being all of those things. And, you know, the idea is that it's just this really... Accessible part that again is like is woven throughout the conference.

Collin: 23:27

So is that something where you've, like, picked the projects and stuff that you're gonna have represented there? Or, like, can anybody with a project sort of show up and engage?

Allison: 23:37

Yeah for the open spaces. Um, we have approached specific people we've tried to be pretty holistic of like grab people from a whole variety of areas, you know, whether they're sort of doing community development or, you know, Ruby, like, programming focused, or content, or, so we've tried to grab from, um, grab from a bunch of different places. Um, but that is, there are people that we've, uh, sort of deliberately reached, reached out to and, and chatted with. That being said, I mean, like, you know, the whole idea of this conference is that people can, Um, you know, I think part of the, actually, purposefully, the room that the open space is taking place in is sort of open and unutilized outside of those clumped times, and the reason that we're doing that is so that people can Organically, like pop in there or you know, say like, Hey, if anyone wants to talk about blah, blah, blah, I'm gonna be in the open spaces room this day and this time. Um, so, you know, we have sort of like some program chunks out. Um, but we're, we're trying to leave that room pretty like freeform so that people can, can use

Adarsh: 24:46

And to put a little bit more specificity on this, um, We, as Ruby Central, are not the, like, monolith dictators of what gets done. What we do, and Allison and co chairs and folk did, did an amazing job with this, is we recruit a program committee. And in this case, we had kind of subcommittees who were in charge of, uh, community day and open spaces. And they, we delegate to them. We're part of the group, uh, but we're one voice among many. And so it really is a community led effort. And so that group has conversations and does a lot, a ton of work to invite people to talk about what kind of vibe you want, what kind of theme they're looking for, what projects are, what are we represented, they do the outreach, they talk to all kinds of folks. So it's really been an awesome collaborative effort. And the, the program committee has been amazing this, this round. They always are, but particularly, I think given this kind of meaty challenge, they really dug into it.

Collin: 25:53

Yeah, I, I, I feel as though, uh, you know, you always hear people say that like the hallway track is like their favorite part of these, you know, just making friends, making connections. And it seems like, uh, you've all really leaned into that, uh, this year, which I think, which I think is great. When you're picking the cities for these things, like, how does that go? You know, like, what are the considerations? I, I, I feel like you're not just throwing a dart at a, at a board, um, at a map. You know, what, what does that look like?

Adarsh: 26:22

Um, so, okay. So there's a lot of factors that go into it and, um, ultimately it's, it's a quite a complicated process. So first, uh, historically we have booked hotel and conference centers, which typically will book, uh, two plus years in advance. So we have to think through things far ahead. Um, we, Uh, have eliminated a number of states from our hosting, our potential hosting, um, areas because those folks, those states are not, uh, conducive to our, uh, a number of our community members, especially LGBTQ folks, and we heard loud and clear as things have changed over the last few years, like, that some of our conference venues and locations were prohibitive. And so that's sort of the first filter. Then we think about, um, you know, what will draw people, what is an interesting place that people would be interested to travel to? Um, it is kind of half a vacation of sorts to see a new city, travel around and see what their airport is like and how to get from here to there. Um, so that's a factor, uh, the ability to fly there. So we think about costs a lot. So whenever we can, we try to pick a place. Where the, it is easy enough to get there by air, typically, uh, without taking a number of, you know, additional, um, uh, connecting flights, because that can add to the cost. Um, so we think about that as much as we can. We try also to think about where our community is and how close we can be to them. So we move around between kind of the West Coast, East Coast, and parts of the Midwest. Um, then it's sort of like places that are, then there's, you get to kind of the logistics where you're like, okay, well, doing one in Denver, we've done a ton in Denver, and we know how to do that really easily in Portland and, um, other places like that. So we have experience in some places and we know how those playbooks, playbooks work. Um, that being said, changing the city every year is. An enormous amount of extra work and cost. If we were, uh, Andy and Brighton, you know, running the same show, uh, year after year, not to take anything away from him, he does an enormous amount of work, but it would cut down a lot on logistics. But, you know, for now we're pretty happy moving it around and giving other cities a chance. I think in the future we're probably going to look at some less traditional venues, um, to try and mix things up. And also I think it changes the cost structure for us as well. Did I cover all the factors, Allison? It's like a real Rube Goldberg situation.

Collin: 29:13

I didn't, I didn't realize that it was a two years in advance thing. I, I figured at some point, you're all like. Where's a cool place we all want to go? And then you just decide, and then, you know, you book it. Um,

Allison: 29:25

I mean, two years is also recent. It used to be that we were booked three, four years in advance. Like, it's actually with, with COVID, um, was when we started saying like, maybe what if we only booked two years in advance instead of four years

Joel: 29:39

Mm

Collin: 29:39

I find the idea of thinking about anything four years in advance to be, to be very con uh, be very fraught for me. Um. Yeah, so that makes a lot of sense that what you're saying about accessibility and everything because like Atlanta and San Diego in particular, right, are both kind of hubs, like very easy to get to. So that makes a lot of sense from an accessibility standpoint. Um, and then also, uh, yeah, I think it's great that you're, you listen to the community and it's like, maybe there's a couple of places that we should not go towards as much. Um, so I think that's really great.

Adarsh: 30:14

Yeah, I mean, I've, I've said this and it's, I think when you're in the middle of it and you know, Um, all kinds of different details when you're planning a conference. I think it's easy to forget that you're throwing a party, really. And like, I've been trying to bring that, um, bring that reminder back to the team and to the board and everybody and to say, you know, a lot of that is, first of all, it should be fun. It should be fun, not just for us, but for everybody who's going to be there. And we have to think a lot about our guests. We have to think a lot about what would be. helpful for them? How would they feel most cared for? How would they feel like, oh wow, Ruby Central's really thought through this as much as they possibly can, and these are nice additional touches, or you know, I didn't know that I would need this, you know, this accommodation or that accommodation, and they were right there, you know, with us. So it is, it is a kind of exercise in trying to think about other people and accommodate them, just as you would when you invite people to your house for a party. Think about like, oh, What would they enjoy? Or what things are they allergic to? Things like that.

Collin: 31:19

Yeah, this will be my third Ruby Central hosted conference I've been to and I, I found the first two I thought were very, uh, I, I felt very cared for, so, so thank you.

Adarsh: 31:30

I kind of wanted to just touch a little bit on one thing that I think, as board members, we have struggled with over the years. Which is that not a lot of people know that we put the conference on, or that we administer and, um, pay for Bundler and RubyGems. And, you know, I think we've hidden ourselves in the background for a long time, um, just kind of taking care of things. And as we've asked people, hey, do you know who organizes this conference or do you know anything about who, you know, sometimes people will be talking to me and they'll be like, oh, I wonder who pays a bandwidth bill on rubygems. org. That's probably pretty. And I'm like, we do, you know, and so what that, what, stepping back, what that was really was a marketing and awareness, um, shortcoming. So we have focused a lot in the last year and so trying to bring our name back into the fold and to, so we're going to have. As part of Community Day, we're going to have the Bundler and RubyGems team there, so you can ask them all your favorite, um, gem questions, gem oriented questions. Um, I'm sure they'll be happy to answer them. Um, there's a ton that goes on a behind the scenes, uh, that keeps... All of that running, which would blow your mind. Um, and then we are going to have Andre, uh, or I think it's Andre, uh, speak, some people from our open source team speaking and doing what we're calling a sponsored, uh, talk. So in a sense, we are sponsoring their talk. They just are existing outside the CFP process, but we are taking, um, liberties with the fact that we're organizing a conference and we want to share all the good work that they've been doing, um, on everyone's behalf. So that's really one thing that I think is really important, um, is to just bring, you know, cause we work for the community, we respond to the community's needs and. We try to do things that, uh, grow and connect and enrich our, our world. So the people in our world. So that's really what Ruby central is about. We try to, we've been doing a lot more in terms of promoting what we're up to and, um, marketing and creating a lot more transparency. And a lot of things have changed pretty quickly. Some boring stuff. Changes in the back end that nobody knows about like accounting stuff or integrating the open source program into the broader organization. You know, we moved from like a Jekyll, a series of Jekyll and Rails apps. Which we were maintaining and, you know, that was insanely time consuming for a non profit. I moved all that over to a CMS. And it's not Ruby, but saves us a ton of time, energy, and money. Um, but there's a lot of community facing stuff that is changing also. So, you know, we have a community day and that's a big experiment. We're curious to hear how that goes and how people feel about that. You know, we've got a lot more open source funding. Um, from Shopify, from the German Sovereign Tech Fund. We have an unannounced residency, um, which might be hopefully funded by the time, uh, the conference comes around. Um, so we can have a full time person working on, uh, our shared infrastructure. Um, we have a membership community where people can join in kind of an NPR couple bucks a month, um, capacity to help defray some of the costs, um, administrative and otherwise. Um, and we're recruiting new board members as well. We're looking for new leadership and, and I've had a great time being on the board for a long time and it's a lot of familiar faces, but, you know, it's good to have new faces in there too and new perspectives. So. There's just, there's just a lot going on, and if you catch me at RubyConf, I will talk your ear off about all of it.

Joel: 35:31

You've also got RubyShield, uh, which is another initiative that, um, you've been working on with, uh, is it Shopify?

Adarsh: 35:38

That's right. So Shopify committed to support us, uh, to the tune of a million dollars over four years, specifically to work on security. And so, uh, that has been a complete game changer for Bundler and RubyGems. And it's the first time we've been able to... Uh, support a follow the sun, um, on call team of people who are awake at all times keeping an eye on all of our infrastructure. So if it goes down, that they're there and ready to make sure it gets back up and running. Um, we have done a ton more in terms of... The technical tools that help ensure that the package that you request is the one that you receive and then there's no malware and funny business in the middle. Um, that's a, you know, that's also known as a software security supply chain. That is a primary concern for a lot of our, uh, corporate community members. And so they, uh, are very supportive of that. And so we put a lot of effort into that as well. But it's, you know, it's all kinds of stuff. Feature enhancements, speed, improving the resolver, all kinds of stuff. And again, if you talk to Andre about that, or see his talk, or bend his ear at community day, he'll be happy to talk to you about that. Or Sam or any of the other folks will be there from our team. I think so. I know there is a ton of work that goes into that,

Joel: 37:07

Yeah.

Adarsh: 37:07

namespacing and all kinds of stuff. I don't even want to pretend that I can speak to that in an informed way. Um, I would hate to get that wrong.

Collin: 37:18

Yeah, and I think, uh, we should definitely put a stake in the ground, uh, that we had Andre on a few episodes ago. Uh, and I, I thought that was a really great episode, and you were saying there's just a ton that goes on in the background of that, and it's, uh, I think my favorite part was when they were trying to figure out who was, uh, somebody had like a, uh, you know, like a retry thing where they were Spinning in a tight loop kind of hitting the server and the way they resolved it to figure out who it was was Sending JSON back that said something like you're bleeding us dry or something. Please get in touch But um if people haven't heard that one, I think that's a good

Adarsh: 37:56

yeah, that's a hilarious story. I mean, it's, it's great to hear on the back end that everything came out fine. But, you know, the fact is, is if we didn't have an on call team working on that, that we wouldn't have known that for a long time. Um, that's an interesting one because you don't have to have... Any amount of authentication to bundle your gems and to download, um, and resolve your, your, uh, gem file, you know, that's something where we, you know, we're kicking around ideas in terms of like, would that be useful or helpful or, um, would that be something that we would want to do for high volume users so that we can communicate in a two way fashion? Um, cause we don't have, um, you know, we have IP addresses, but those don't always Because, you directly map to, um, you know, an email address or a phone number or a way to contact people. So there's a lot of growth in the infrastructure that definitely could happen.

Collin: 38:54

hmm Well, I think this is all great. I think you guys should keep up what you're doing. Or anything? We want to make sure we touch on

Allison: 39:03

Yeah, buy your tickets if you haven't yet, um, because RubyConf is definitely coming up very soon, uh, so that is rubyconf. org, um, and if you want to check out more about Ruby Central, uh, support Ruby Central in any way, that's rubycentral.

Collin: 39:23

Hello friends, this is Colin speaking. Today we are joined by Adarsh Pandit and Allison McMillan from Ruby Central. We will be talking with them about Ruby Central.

Allison: 39:39

org.

Collin: 39:39

That's great. And also, uh, go to the RooftopRuby live episode after lunch on Tuesday. And then it seems as though we will be having a party that night. I'm sure we will say something else on the podcast about it. Uh, but just thank both of you so much for coming on. Um, I think this is really interesting and I know I'm, I'm really excited, uh, thank you so much.