But that having been said, Loren is one of the few people qualified to really speak on these issues. He's studied the internals of RubyGems, he is aware of many of the problems with the previous ways of doing things. In particular, he's a proponent for stable APIs so that breakage becomes a thing of the past. I've spoken with literally hundreds of people over the last two weeks about this issue, and I'll be the first to admit it's one that needs to be solved. The question now is not whether it must be done, but when and how the changes need to be introduced.
These are questions that I feel I must at least strongly consider the opinions of the current maintainers of RubyGems on, because for example, Eric Hodel has been the core team for 4 years and knows more about RubyGems than anyone on the planet. There is no denying that Eric+Ryan have had personal conflicts with Loren, which would make an immediate appointment of Loren on the core team unrealistic.
However, Evan Phoenix (another of RubyGems maintainers) and I are trying to see if we can find a way to solve this problem outside of RubyGems first through a compatibility gem, in a minimally invasive way to users. We have already talked with Loren some, but I hope that dialogue continues so that he can possibly help us with our ideas and build something that everyone can be happy with. This to me would be much better than the division that would be caused by a fork, and is something I think we should at least try before we make any sweeping changes in leadership.
I've promised to back off the diplomacy and start hacking to solve the problem, and that's what I'll do in the coming weeks. But I felt it was necessary to share my thoughts here simply because I've been listening to so many people about what their concerns are with RubyGems, and that makes me really want to find a solution that works. If Loren can be part of that solution, I'd love to see him working for RubyGems rather than against it, for sure.