[Rubygems-developers] Gem::Platform

[Grant Hollingworth]

* Eric Hodel <drbrain at segment7.net> [2006-12-08 01:05]:
>mswin32 has been outrageously successful, but linux and darwin less-so.

Linux and Darwin don't have so many special cases.  Or at least they're far more likely to have a compiler.

>I think we'll need a DARWIN_INTEL and DARWIN_UNIVERSAL, a more- 
>generic linux, and ...?

Separating architecture and OS might be a good idea.  And perhaps a distinction between source and binary packages?

What does a platform of i586-linux mean, exactly?  That it's compiled already?  That it contains assembly that only works on i586?  Special compiler flags?