Shopify and/or its technical leadership worked its connections to oust a Rubygems maintainer they saw as a threat to Ruby projects Shopify has invested in.

This was especially provocative because it involved Ruby Central asserting control over Rubygems, which it does not own.

It was (by credible accounts) a "preemptive strike" on this maintainer, and thus was not communicated to other RG maintainers, who were understandably angry.

The statement from RC at the time sounded like lot of CYA, and this doesn't read as all that sincere either.