From: Eric Hodel <drbrain@...7.net>
Date: 2010-03-18T10:31:23+09:00
Subject: Re: Debian vs Rubygems (Was: Recommended way to install Rubygems)

On Mar 17, 2010, at 14:32, Lucas Nussbaum wrote:

> I hope this clarifies the status of Ruby in Debian and Ubuntu a bit.
> Also, it would be great if all the sarcasm and nasty comments on this
> list each time someone brings up Ruby and Debian or Ubuntu could be
> reduced a bit. I am working on providing Ruby packages in Debian and
> Ubuntu as a volunteer, and don't really enjoy all the flames I get on
> this list. Constructive criticism is welcomed (preferably as bug
> reports), but is very rare here, unfortunately.

Unfortunately I end up having to handle most of the issues that Debian creates due to their splitting up Ruby into multiple packages because of the way it affects Ruby and RubyGems.  I can reduce my support load and increase my free time by saying "install all of Ruby and RubyGems by hand on Debian and Ubuntu".  Once RubyGems is installed it's fairly smooth sailing on Debian unless you install a gem that needs to compile against missing headers.

It's especially frustrating when features are added to RubyGems that have the express goal of helping Debian and Ubuntu are either ignored (rubygems/defaults/operating_system, added in 1.2.0) or are rejected for what seems to boil down to policy reasons (Neil Wilson's work in http://bugs.debian.org/403407).

When you say things like:

> The problem is that the upstream rubygems developers don't care, and that it's impossible to change that without their cooperation.

I don't see how we (that work on RubyGems) could possibly have ever cared if you're not subscribed to the mailing list where you would raise those concerns nor have you filed any bugs with any of these concerns.

We certainly can't cooperate when you don't bother to raise any issues in the places we're looking for them.

PS:

Not taking advantage of rubygems/defaults/operating_system is especially odd to me as it would allow upgrades of RubyGems to continue to work while maintaining Debian's customizations.  Last I checked the only changes made to RubyGems by Debian could be encapsulated in this one file.

PPS:

Maybe you get so much sarcasm and nasty comments because people are genuinely frustrated with what Debian provides by default.  Maybe installing ruby-full by default instead of the minimal ruby will reduce your frustrations.

Oftentimes people are following instructions they found on the web that were written for non-Debian/Ubuntu.  On OS X, BSD, and most other Linux versions those instructions will work without modification, but since Debian is subtly different they end up coming here and we end up answering the same questions over and over, which will inevitably lead to us making sarcastic, nasty comments.

From maintaining RubyGems I've learned that maintaining a large, popular open-source library requires a thick skin and the ability to say "yeah, what I'm doing is not what people want" sometimes.