[DRE-maint] Bug#448639: /usr/local

[Daigo Moriwaki]

Thank you all for the invaluable comments.

We, the Debian Ruby packagers, have decided to make a change on this issue.

As of Ruby 1.9.2, we are merging the rubygems1.9.1 package into the new
ruby1.9.1 (1.9.2.0-1) package since the upstream seems to have integrated
Rubygems with the core more tightly[1]. You will no longer install rubygems1.9.1
as a separate package.

The ruby1.8 package is another story. We will not make significant changes on
ruby1.8 since ruby1.9.1 is (hopefully) getting into the main stream and we'd
like to make more efforts on ruby1.9.1

Anyway, is it correct for me to say that the following locations are our consensus?

default_dir: /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1
default_bindir: /usr/local/bin

A drawback of using /usr/local/bin is that users/administrators have to decide
what executables they want to use. It is up to them to be aware of what they are
installing and manage possible conflicts with other packages or what comes from
other Ruby versions. Fortunately, since gems for ruby1.8 still remains under
/var, ruby1.9.1 and ruby1.8 can co-exist, which, however, may or may not be
doable with future Ruby versions[2].

The advantage of this behavior is that it matches other user-land packaging
systems such as CPAN, pipy, Ruby installed bases on other Operating Systems and
etc. Therefore, users will not be confused about the Debian proprietary locations.


[1] http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=588125
[2] I hope that future Rubygems (upstream) solve this issue. Adding new features
with large patches is beyond Ruby packager's scope.


Regards,
Daigo

-- 
Daigo Moriwaki
daigo at debian dot org