From: Austin Ziegler Date: 2005-01-26T04:59:32+09:00 Subject: Re: [Rails] Installation trouble On Wed, 26 Jan 2005 03:15:50 +0900, Eric Schwartz wrote: > Ghislain MARY writes: >> The missing package was libdrb-ruby. >> >> Can't understand why these packages are not installed when >> installing ruby... > Debian, and most distros derived from it, try to factor out > dependencies as much as humanly possible. It's not a matter of > being arrogant and thinking, "We know better than you how to > distribute ruby", it's a matter of allowing someone who doesn't > care about ruby to install the very minimum required to run a > program that itself requires ruby. That's a fine sentiment, but there are plenty of demonstrable cases where it's just *wrong*, Eric. Ruby has a standard library for a reason: so that developers can expect that if Ruby is installed, anything in that library will be there already. This isn't guaranteed to stay static, and it will probably change over release versions (e.g., the deprecation and removing of some libraries between 1.6 and 1.8). So yes, it *does* become a matter of "we know better how to distribute Ruby than you (the language designer and maintainer) do." If packaging policies cause programs to fail that should simply work, then the packaging policy is quite simply put broken. There are definitely auxiliary parts of Ruby (e.g., the ri documentation *data*, but *not* the ri program and libraries), but the sheer number of libraries that Ruby is broken into on Debian and Debian- based distributions is stupid, and that's the absolute *nicest* thing that I can say about it. The broken application doesn't make Debian look bad, it makes the application developer and the language look bad. I'm sorry, but the developer didn't actually make a mistake. Either the user did for choosing Debian or a Debian-based distro (because of stupid packaging policies) or the Debian repackagers did. Personally, I'm leaning toward blaming the repackagers rather than the users or developers in this case. -austin -- Austin Ziegler * halostatue@gmail.com * Alternate: austin@halostatue.ca