Rob Conery's Blog

I’ve Forked IronRuby: A Tragedy In 3 Acts

On a whim I asked Miguel de Icaza if he would put the weight of the Mono project behind IronRuby. I did it too hastily, and I probably should have thought more about it.

But I didn’t. I just did what came to mind, which is to muster the sentiment of the community behind it.

As I do from time to time, I may very well have muddled the words and ideas. I get that they don’t have the bandwidth and time - of course they can’t just take on primary development. Miguel said as much.

But that’s not what I was asking for. Not what *I am* asking for. Mono is open source - a confederation of very cool tools bundled nicely under a really swell umbrella. 

Mono is poised to be the “People’s .NET Revolution” - a chance to take the language and framework in a direction of public choosing. I think that’s rad.

I also think it’s the perfect place for a project like IronRuby. Note that I am not suggesting they build IronRuby - just that it lives as a fork with the Mono gang.

I’ll run the project. I’ll coordinate and work with whomever wants to help out. I’ll step up and do this - for some reason people are thinking that I’m “begging”.

“Sad”, “Tragic” - and this lovely gem:

Sad that people think all they have left is begging for charity from Miguel

I just forked IronRuby. I’m happy to do my best to carry it forward as many people already know - I really like the Ruby language.

I love the notion of being able to fire up a Rails site, use the productivity of it, while at the same time having the depth, flexibility and power of C# and .NET.

I think that’s pretty damn cool. And I want to see it live. And I know that to do that I need to fire up the community. 

I also know that no matter how much the community supports it - adoption will only come if a name is attached to it. I don’t have that name - not even close.

The last thing I need is for people to get in the way. If you don’t like it you can have a seat. I’d rather do something about this then spend my time in a piss fight.