Perhaps the best thing Brian ever did for RubySpec might be pouring a significant chunk of his life into starting and maintaining the project? Whatever you think of the politics, the value RubySpec has now is in large part due to him, and very likely wouldn't be around for someone else to pick up now if he hadn't invested so much into it.

Now that MRI is using it and others have picked up where he left off, the work done before is realizing its true value and is finally fulfilling the original goal. Quitting was the catalyst for change that may have never occurred otherwise. Perhaps both were very important.

It’s a decent summary, but—as someone who was part of the team back when we started the project—the goal of RubySpec was always to be the test suite and specification of the Ruby language, and for the Ruby community. It wasn’t about Rubinius, and it wasn’t an afterthought.

I’ve been out of the Rubinius (and Ruby) scene for several years now, so I can’t speak much to the rest… but unfortunately the personality clashing seems sadly familiar.