That kinda proves that competition was and is good for Rails. However, I’m not naive to think that just because the two groups are coming together that innovation will stop – it *might* not be as it would, if were merb to say on it’s own. We’ll just have to wait and see.

“I can understand why you would think this way. However, I strongly believe that at the opposite, our ideologies that you help build is now going to be part of Rails itself. I think what bothers you more is that you don’t believe Rails can change and adopt the merb’s philosophy. There is nothing I can say that will convince you, we would just have to wait and see.”

I really, really don’t like when people tell me what I think or feel. What I was saying didn’t have anything to do with Rails specifically. It was more about how the Merb Team decided, without the community, to merge with Rails. Merb has always been “the community” framework while Rails had been known to be DHH’s framework. Nothing is wrong with either, it’s just how it was and yes, I know Rails has become more than just a framework to scratch DHH’s itch.

I’ve had a few opportunities to talk with David and my overall impression has always been that if you can convince him that something is better than he is all for it. It wasn’t something that just radically changed in the last few months nor is it anything different then how most of us are. So, as I said, it’s not that I don’t think DHH or Rails cannot be convinced that something might be better, it was just how Merb made such a sudden shift (less than a week) from talking about Merb’s future, 2.0, better/different than Rails (which it pride itself on) to signing kumbaja together. In that timeframe, the merb community, the ones who have been there since 0.3 or earlier, were left.

Anyways, I’m over it. Good luck with the merge!

I am eager to see the awesome work, and hope you feel lucky and happy when rails3 release.
finally, thank you for your work again.

Regarding people saying we need competition… well, that’s true, in a selfish culture and society where everyone is looking out for themselves only (which is most of the business world, and many political circles, and is core to human nature to some extent), then the friction of everyone pulling against each other makes them pull harder and do greater things. However, in a more altruistic culture (which includes some open source communities) cooperation can actually accomplish a lot more than competition ever could, because you’re not wasting energy pulling against someone else, but pulling with them, everyone together to reach common goals together. It’s a doubling of effort, instead of duplication. Of course that assumes the cooperation actually *works* and isn’t broken down by some sort of internal struggles (personality clashes, personal selfishness, egos, laziness, lack of ability, lack of vision, getting stuck in a rut and comfortable with tradition, insecure or misguided leadership, etc). If any of that happens then competition will be back soon enough to shake things up, I’m sure. I’ve also found that competition with myself (trying to out-do myself) can be just as good of a personal motivator as trying to out-do anyone else, if I approach it with the right mind set, and this can allow me to cooperate with other people too at the same time instead of compete against them. Perhaps I should be taking such philosophical debates elsewhere though… ;o)

So we’ll see how it all turns out, so far it’s sounding pretty cool though.

“From a technical point of view, I have one important question. For new apps, should we choose Merb 1.x or Rails 2.x?”
It depends on your needs. If you need the modularity and performance, the go with Merb, if you want a stable, full stack experience, go with rails.

“What is going to be easier, a transition from Merb 2.0 to Rails 3.0 or from Rails 2.x to Rails 3.0?”
It should be easy in both situation. Again, it depends on your needs.

@claus

Rails 3.0 will support Ruby 1.9 and at least 1.8.6/7

@Robert

“One day Merb Core is telling everyone that Merb is the alternative, with a differently philosophy and goals. The very next day – from the eyes of the community – the community is told that really Merb has the same goal and ideas as Rails and, in fact, they are merging.”

Merb did not change its view philosophy and goals. I believe what happened was that the merb community as a whole convinced the rails team that we had a good point and there is a big chunk of the Ruby community interested in something different than a full stack. At the same time, we (the core team) have been focusing on making an opinionated full stack since 0.9.x.

“Either way, I feel the community was sold out by the Merb Core team. We bought your ideologies, we sold them, we helped build Merb and contribute to it, only to have, as Luke stated, the rug pulled out from under us.”

I can understand why you would think this way. However, I strongly believe that at the opposite, our ideologies that you help build is now going to be part of Rails itself. I think what bothers you more is that you don’t believe Rails can change and adopt the merb’s philosophy. There is nothing I can say that will convince you, we would just have to wait and see.

Many people in the community, including myself, have written patches and contributed to Merb. We’ve sold the idea as it was sold to us. Now the idea will fade away, as it is.

Dismissing these feelings and emotions as being “emo” – as did some of the core team in #merb – shows a lack of caring for those who [the community] actually made Merb popular – the community got behind it.

One day Merb Core is telling everyone that Merb is the alternative, with a differently philosophy and goals. The very next day – from the eyes of the community – the community is told that really Merb has the same goal and ideas as Rails and, in fact, they are merging.

Now, from my point of view, something changed. Either what the Merb Core team told everyone was a lie and Merb was really intended to be Rails, the idea of being a Rails Core Team member was too attractive, money or fame was involved, or the Merb Core sold out. I doubt it was being on the rails core team or money/fame – that leaves me with two choices, from my point of view and I doubt I’m the only one that sees it that way.

Either way, I feel the community was sold out by the Merb Core team. We bought your ideologies, we sold them, we helped build Merb and contribute to it, only to have, as Luke stated, the rug pulled out from under us.

I’m sure Rails 3.0 will be great, and my post here isn’t really about how the “code” will be, but rather the politics that went on. Also, this isn’t anger, but rather disappointment. It doesn’t seem like the Merb Core team thought about the community [Merb Community] in this decision – we had no say in what we helped to build and sell. Merb was suppose to be about community, while Rails *was* about scratching DHH’s itch.

We all appreciate your effort in trying to explain the decision; however, there are still a lot of angry people because they’ve spent a lot of their time working on merb-based applications and now continuing their work doesn’t make any sense because of the merge.

We were waiting for the first stable release of Merb struggling with constant API changes and when things have finally settled down by releasing Merb 1.0 we’ve got highly unexpected news about the merge…

Personally I think it would be much better if the community was aware of your merb-rails discussions about the merge. The shock could be smaller.

You have completely ignored the community. Very DHHish

From a technical point of view, I have one important question. For new apps, should we choose Merb 1.x or Rails 2.x? What is going to be easier, a transition from Merb 2.0 to Rails 3.0 or from Rails 2.x to Rails 3.0?

Thanks,

solnic

At Merb Camp, I never heard the Merb core team say they were merely striving to mimic the “goodies” of Rails. I believed that Merb 2.0 would have attained even higher levels of customization and performance.

What critical capabilities does Rails have that Merb is missing? I have read no technological explanation, only cheerleading in praise of amassing more team members. In my experience, overgrowing a team by even only one can stall out a perfectly running machine.

I planned to work a ton on my Merb Slices this holiday. Instead, I find myself obsessively rereading senseless blog posts and holding back from spewing venomous comments. I just don’t have to heart to work on projects that now seem a waste of time.

@Stephen http://github.com/rails/rails/tree/3-0-unstable and http://github.com/wycats/rails/tree/master

- Matt