When I was younger, around high school, I thought leadership wasn't very important. I thought things like football coaches mostly acted as a drill sergeant, and what really mattered was the individuals on the team and whether they pulled together and made it happen.<p>I have since learned that this is unmitigated bullshit. The team's performance is bounded at the top by the raw talent of the team, but the coach is the primary factor determining how much that talent actually manifests. A leader sets the tone for the community, no matter what the community is, but most especially in voluntary communities.<p>Those who like the leaders stay, those who don't leave. Over time, the community becomes a reflection of the leader. Not a direct reflection in all cases, as some leaders can build diverse communities, as the Ruby leaders indeed have, but nevertheless, over time the community is largely determined by its leaders.<p>Leadership matters, and the damage done by the leadership here is quite significant, and no amount of protest by the ones led can really change this. (And remember the damage here was the reaction, not the initial problem; one guy can make a bad choice and we'd have all pretty much moved on; the choice to double-down was the bit that is the real problem.)<p>If you are seriously concerned by this, I would suggest the path of least community effort is for some of those names to step up and become the leaders. Open source leadership is quite fungible. The path of least individual effort is to go join the Python or Perl communities. Because yes, leadership <i>does</i> in fact set the tone for the entire community, and if the community doesn't like that, it's time to change leaders, or change communities.