[Pkg-ruby-extras-maintainers] r106 - website/src

[Lucas Nussbaum]

Author: lucas-guest
Date: 2005-11-01 22:57:18 +0000 (Tue, 01 Nov 2005)
New Revision: 106

Added:
   website/src/40.rubygems.page
Log:
Textilized the common position on rubygems and added it to the website.
Please review it and send feedback. When everybody here agrees, we could seek
larger approval and/or publish it.


Added: website/src/40.rubygems.page
===================================================================
--- website/src/40.rubygems.page	2005-11-01 22:22:55 UTC (rev 105)
+++ website/src/40.rubygems.page	2005-11-01 22:57:18 UTC (rev 106)
@@ -0,0 +1,129 @@
+---
+title: Position on RubyGems
+inMenu: false
+---
+h1. Common Position on RubyGems
+
+h2. RubyGems
+
+"RubyGems":http://docs.rubygems.org/ is a packaging system for Ruby
+applications and libraries (similar to CPAN for Perl). It is widely used inside
+the Ruby community (especially inside the "Ruby on
+Rails":http://www.rubyonrails.org/ community), and solves lots of issue
+regarding packaging and distribution of Ruby software.  Rubygems will be
+included in Ruby's standard library in Ruby 1.8.4, and chances are high that it
+will become the de-facto standard for Ruby packaging.
+
+However, the Debian/Ruby Extras team fear that Rubygems will make it much more
+difficult to package and distribute Ruby software in Debian (similar concerns
+have been raised by other individuals and GNU/Linux distributions) :
+
+* Rubygems packages are not compatible with the FHS. Rubygems follows the "one
+directory per package and version" rule.
+* It is not possible to do "normal" (FHS-compatible) installations of rubygems,
+and some ruby software developers have started to distribute their software as
+gems only.
+* Rubygems is source-intrusive. The *require* instruction is replaced by a
+*require_gem* instruction to allow for versioned dependencies. Debian and most
+other systems think that dealing with versioned dependencies outside of the
+source is a better idea.
+* Rubygems developers have been (quite) difficult to deal with, and seem to
+have some griefs against Debian and GNU/Linux in general. They are not willing
+to make changes to RubyGems to make it easier to convert gems to Debian or RPM
+packages.
+
+h2. Position of the Debian/Ruby Extras team
+
+# We do not oppose Ruby having a packaging system. However, since Debian has
+its own system already, we prefer to use upstream sources so that we can
+create Debian packages following our current policies.
+# Since we have to follow the FHS, the current RubyGems way of installing the
+gem's contents in one directory is incompatible with our setup (and toolchain)
+and thus cannot be used.
+# For the moment we will continue to package Ruby applications and libraries as
+Debian packages from (preferably pristine) upstream sources as it always has
+been done (using *setup.rb* or *install.rb* for example). Users could then
+continue to install their apps the way they are used to (using apt-get), since
+most of them do not care about the language their apps are written in or about
+other ways this application/library is made available.
+# For Ruby developers requiring bleeding edge library versions or libraries
+that haven't been packaged (yet), a *rubygems* package will be made
+available. This package provides the gem command to be able to install/remove
+gems at the developer's own discretion and risk. The gems will be installed
+using the normal gem installation procedure, in usr/lib/ruby/gems.
+# No package in Debian shall use the gem command during package installation
+or build.
+# Other utilities are written to couple the packaging process to the RubyGem
+system, i.e. utilities to help convert a gem to a Debian source package.
+These utilites would not solve any problems, just ease the initial
+(re)packaging work a bit. 
+
+h2. For reference : file system layout of the rmail package
+
+h3. Content of /usr/lib/ruby/gems added after the execution of **gem install rmail**
+
+<code><pre>/usr/lib/ruby
+/usr/lib/ruby/gems/
+/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8
+/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/cache
+/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/cache/rmail-0.17.gem
+/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/doc
+/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/doc/rmail-0.17
+/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/doc/rmail-0.17/rdoc
+/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/doc/rmail-0.17/rdoc/created.rid
+/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/doc/rmail-0.17/rdoc/rdoc-style.css
+/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/doc/rmail-0.17/rdoc/files
+/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/doc/rmail-0.17/rdoc/files/lib
+/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/doc/rmail-0.17/rdoc/files/lib/rmail_rb.html</pre></code>
+
+[ ... this directory contains all the rdoc documentation provided by the librmail-ruby-doc on Debian ]
+
+<code><pre>/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rmail-0.17
+/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rmail-0.17/NEWS
+/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rmail-0.17/TODO
+/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rmail-0.17/NOTES
+/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rmail-0.17/README
+/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rmail-0.17/THANKS
+/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rmail-0.17/install.rb
+/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rmail-0.17/rmail.gemspec
+/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rmail-0.17/lib/rmail.rb
+/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rmail-0.17/lib/rmail/parser.rb
+/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rmail-0.17/lib/rmail/message.rb
+/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rmail-0.17/lib/rmail/header.rb
+/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rmail-0.17/lib/rmail/address.rb
+/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rmail-0.17/lib/rmail/mailbox.rb
+/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rmail-0.17/lib/rmail/serialize.rb
+/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rmail-0.17/lib/rmail/utils.rb
+/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rmail-0.17/lib/rmail/mailbox/mboxreader.rb
+/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rmail-0.17/lib/rmail/parser/multipart.rb
+/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rmail-0.17/lib/rmail/parser/pushbackreader.rb
+/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rmail-0.17/guide/MIME.txt
+/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rmail-0.17/guide/TableOfContents.txt
+/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rmail-0.17/guide/Intro.txt
+/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rmail-0.17/tests/addrgrammar.txt
+/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rmail-0.17/tests/testmboxreader.rb</pre></code>
+
+[ ... this directory contains all rmail's unit tests, which are packaged as examples in librmail-ruby-doc in Debian ]
+
+<code><pre>/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/specifications/rmail-0.17.gemspec
+/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/source_cache</pre></code>
+
+h3. Files in the Debian package librmail-ruby1.8
+<code><pre>/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/rmail.rb
+/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/rmail/parser.rb
+/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/rmail/message.rb
+/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/rmail/header.rb
+/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/rmail/address.rb
+/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/rmail/mailbox.rb
+/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/rmail/serialize.rb
+/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/rmail/utils.rb
+/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/rmail/mailbox/mboxreader.rb
+/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/rmail/parser/multipart.rb
+/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/rmail/parser/pushbackreader.rb
+/usr/share/doc/librmail-ruby1.8/NOTES
+/usr/share/doc/librmail-ruby1.8/README
+/usr/share/doc/librmail-ruby1.8/THANKS
+/usr/share/doc/librmail-ruby1.8/TODO
+/usr/share/doc/librmail-ruby1.8/copyright
+/usr/share/doc/librmail-ruby1.8/NEWS.gz
+/usr/share/doc/librmail-ruby1.8/changelog.Debian.gz</pre></code>