Okay, I can absolutely appreciate how hard making a distro is. Point taken. However, your comment also indicates exactly what Zed was furious about.
Debian is a piece of software that people depend on. They have a right to be upset when there are bugs. The proper response is to apologize and fix the bug. Period. Instead, your response is to blame the (already angry) user on the basis that they didn't submit a bug report. I would be livid if you responded that way. Yes, you do voluntary work. You get credit when you do good work. It's only fair that you take on the responsibility when your work isn't so good.
The Debian community can consider Zed's post a bug report. Now, go fix it please.
Sorry, Debian is not telepathic, so while yes, they should fix the bug, if it hadn't been reported, they couldn't have fixed it. It's absolutely the proper thing to do to file a bug if you find one. That's not "blaming the user".
Also, "I'm imagining a mass petition, maybe some funny ad campaigns, in-person confrontations meant to embarrass package maintainers, SEO tricks to get people off Debian, promotion of any alternative to Debian, anything to make them pay, apologize, and listen." is not something likely to make most people apologize, fix the problem and move on. It's rude and uncalled for.
Actually, what he says is "Gems can't even run because the gems needs openssl and net/scp, but the Debian (not Ubuntu) package doesn't install it along with rubygems.", which means that there is likely a missing dependency: rubygems should require ruby-ssl.
Of course, the more general point stands that the current state of the Debian/rubygems integration is far from ideal. However, fixing it takes people thinking about the problem and working on it, not just moaning and calling for boycotts. What a pissy attitude: it's easy to say "this sucks!", but much harder to create something better, or fix the broken thing.
I would have been quite comprehending of a "I'm very frustrated by X, Y, and Z about Debian". I mean, it certainly has its flaws (I ended up moving to Ubuntu myself). Another thing is this entitled attitude of "let's hurt them!"
All I'm saying is that the non-functioning state of ruby/rubygems on debian and/or ubuntu is not news. This is not something that Zed just uncovered that was previously unknown. Everybody in the Ruby community knows this, and has known it, for many years.
Thus, Zed offering a polite "bug report" rather than bitch and moan about it probably wouldn't have been all that much more effective -- seeing as how it has remained in the current non-functioning state for many years.
> Thus, Zed offering a polite "bug report" rather than bitch and moan about it probably wouldn't have been all that much more effective -- seeing as how it has remained in the current non-functioning state for many years.
And trying to round up a lynch mob is more effective how?
The state of the ruby/rubygems distribution is clearly not viewed as a bug by its maintainers, which is why neither hard work nor a bug report will fix it. Let's give discussion and attention a go.
Did you read what Zed wrote? That's not discussion, that's threatening people. It won't work.
Also, if you read the Debian guy's opinion, it is clear that, behind the scenes, and away from all the kerfluffle, people are doing work to improve the situation.
Also, you people seem awfully sure of yourself. If you peruse the bug reports, you might find some interesting nuggets:
The proposed solution (an environment variable) is crap. That any of the Debian maintainers think that it's a good idea is an indication of how badly broken the Debian process is, and I know that Lucas was trying to do a good thing there. I don't blame him, it's at least an attempt at a fix.
There's already a working solution provided by Apple for Mac OS X and improved upon by the RubyGems team. There's concepts of vendor gems, system gems, user gems, and I think one other level. The Debian team has never considered it despite being told that it's there. The Debian team has also never offered patches that would help RubyGems come more in line with what Debian thinks it should be doing.
Why should the RubyGems guys bother working with uncooperative Debian maintainers?
Zed didn't file a bug report, he wrote a rant. Writing a scathing blog post isn't very helpful and probably won't reach the actual person who can fix his bug. Filing a bug report will.
I suppose next time someone has a mongrel2 bug they should write a scathing rant on how much they hate the guy instead of filing a bug at http://mongrel2.org/reportlist
Debian is a piece of software that people depend on. They have a right to be upset when there are bugs. The proper response is to apologize and fix the bug. Period. Instead, your response is to blame the (already angry) user on the basis that they didn't submit a bug report. I would be livid if you responded that way. Yes, you do voluntary work. You get credit when you do good work. It's only fair that you take on the responsibility when your work isn't so good.
The Debian community can consider Zed's post a bug report. Now, go fix it please.