While studying Computer Science at Copenhagen Business School David helped out a man named Jason with some web programming issues he was having.

Just a few years after meeting Jason Fried online David Heinemeier Hansson is a partner at 37 Signals, living in Chicago, creator of the popular website development framework RubyOnRails (whose users refer to him by the 3 letter acronym DHH), co-author of Agile Web Development with Rails and Getting Real, was ranked 34th among ‘50 people who matter now’ by Business 2.0 Magazine and by WIRED Magazine - “The Hottest Hacker On Earth.”

Why did you decide to open source RubyOnRails? Did you expect the community to develop it in the direction they have?

I decided to open source Ruby on Rails for a variety of reasons. First, it felt like the right thing to do. I’ve been using open source software for a long time. From PHP to Apache to Ruby to MySQL. Pretty much my entire development stack is based on open source. It felt selfish to keep something like Ruby on Rails to myself in the face of all what I’ve received from that wonderfully sharing world.

Second, the only alternative to making it open source was keeping it private. It would never have worked as a commercial product. The only company that can successfully market closed-source, proprietary infrastructure software for this slice of the market is Microsoft. Everyone else has already gone open source or are losing badly.

The community participation has been staggering. We’ve had thousands of contributors work on the parts they cared about. But it all happened under the same overarching vision and design, which continues the style laid out in the very first release. We’re very protective of having a coherent feel.

What technologies are you most excited about right now?

The rise of REST for machine collaboration over the web has been an exciting ride. Especially as we’ve done our part to help it gain momentum as a counter to the lunacy of WS-* (or as I joked at a Rails conference, WS-DeathStar). It’s an area of Rails that I’ve spent a good amount of time putting to good use at 37signals lately. Tying applications together behind the scene, providing public APIs, and so forth.

In Ruby land, it’s great to see the burst of energy around making the language faster and integrate wider from both the official C-Ruby implementation and JRuby and Rubinius and what have you.

What is the biggest problem you are working on right now?

There’s not one big problem that has caught my attention lately, but there’s always lots of little problems. We’re working hard to ensure that the army of contributors continue to be happy helping everyone solve all those little problems. I get as much a kick out of the small, steady improvements that occur all the time as the big movements we get occasionally.

What has been your best experience working at 37 Signals?

Working with amazing people. Everyone is so at the top of their game that you’re constantly forced and encouraged to stay fresh. I also much enjoy the complete lack of bullcrap that comes from running your own show. If something doesn’t sit right, we change it.

What will DHH be doing in 2020?

I don’t believe in neither functional specs nor road maps for software and life is so much more complex that it would make even less sense to apply those terms that generally. I hope that I continue to be happy doing what I’m doing at the time and making a difference. Yeah, yeah, I too hear fuzzy teddy bears dancing to the tune of harps saying that, but none the less.

Interviewed by Ross Hill, an Australian entrepreneur with a strong interest in the social web - his current projects include Yabble, Rentoid, CoverHunt and The Hive.

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Posted on November 14th, 2007 by Ross