[Rubygems-developers] Binary distribution

[Chad Fowler]

On Wed, 3 Dec 2003, Paul Brannan wrote:

# On Tue, Dec 02, 2003 at 10:10:53PM -0500, Chad Fowler wrote:
# > How do you all feel we should deal with binary files (like compiled C 
# > extensions)?  We currently have the capability to differentiate gems by 
# > platform and load shared objects.  So, it would be very simple to support 
# > downloading and installing the right gem for the platform you're on.
# 
# I don't know if it's the best solution, but we could deal with this the
# way RPM does: distinguish between "source gems" and "binary gems".  C
# extensions would generally be distributed as source gems but could be
# distributed as binary gems if a particular target platform is popular
# enough to warrant it.


Rich and I were discussing something similar.  I think it's a good idea to 
actually see how source RPMs work now. My carpool partner knows quite a 
bit about them so maybe I can get a braindump on the way home. :)

# 
# A nice side effect of this is that it allows us to fairly easily convert
# the "source gem" to a source package of another package format (e.g. an
# srpm), which will then let us build a binary package in another package
# format.  People will want to be able to integrate gems into their native
# packaging system, and I think this is a feasible goal.
# 

I think so too.  

Any other issues anyone can think of in distributing binaries?

Chad