"the code he released under an MIT License in July 2007 should be considered the first RoR open source code."

I hope that's a typo. If the writer honestly believes that sentence, he has no business writing for TechCrunch (or anyone, really).

I think he's talking about "the first RoR open source code for a social network." But even that is a sketchy claim. I've contributed to open source RoR projects that were loose social networks as early as 2005.