From: Wilson Bilkovich <wilsonb@...>
Date: 2006-12-22T09:07:07+09:00
Subject: Re: [debian rant ?] Remove Ruby 1.8.5?

On 12/21/06, Vincent Fourmond <vincent.fourmond@9online.fr> wrote:
> Wilson Bilkovich wrote:
> >>   Could you state precisely what you mean under this ? As I participate
> >> to debian developing, there might be things I could help with in here ;-)
> >
> > :~$ dpkg -l |grep ruby
> > ii  libdbm-ruby1.8 1.8.4-5        DBM interface for Ruby 1.8
> > ii  libgdbm-ruby1. 1.8.4-5        GDBM interface for Ruby 1.8
> > ii  libruby1.8     1.8.4-5        Libraries necessary to run Ruby 1.8
> > ii  libruby1.8-dbg 1.8.4-5        Debugging symbols for Ruby 1.8
> > ii  libtcltk-ruby1 1.8.4-5        Tcl/Tk interface for Ruby 1.8
> > ii  ruby1.8        1.8.4-5        Interpreter of object-oriented
> > scripting lan
> > ii  ruby1.8-dev    1.8.4-5        Header files for compiling extension
> > modules
> > ii  ruby1.8-elisp  1.8.4-5        ruby-mode for Emacsen
> > ii  ruby1.8-exampl 1.8.4-5        Examples for Ruby 1.8
>
>   I see your point, but for instance, you wouldn't want to pull in
> database dependencies when you don't actually need any databases, or
> even worse tk/x.org dependencies for a purely remote server... Do you
> know a better way to do so ?

I'm not totally sold on the idea that the package should be
drastically modified from the upstream. It adds support load to the
upstream maintainers.

However, if we assume that that goal is worth attaining, I think
Gentoo has the best implementation of it. You just set a flag saying
'no Tk', or 'no gdbm', and the package is created without those
features.

I think subtraction makes more sense than addition here.  The Debian
Ruby packages have been the cause of countless hours of free support
here and on other Ruby-related mailing lists.  'Catastrophic' is not
too large a word here, in my opinion.