Re: Future maintenance of RubyGems packages with native extensions

On 13/06/2026 08:40, Daisuke Fujimura via Cygwin-apps wrote:
> Hello all,
> 
> I would like to discuss the future maintenance of Ruby-related
> packages in Cygwin and gather feedback from the community.
> 
> Currently, I maintain not only the core Ruby packages, such as Ruby
> itself, RubyGems, and RDoc, but also a number of RubyGems-based
> packages that include native extensions.
> 
> However, the maintenance cost of these packages has been increasing
> over time. Each Ruby upgrade typically requires rebuilding and
> updating packages with native extensions to follow ABI/SOVERSION
> changes. In addition, upstream changes in gem packaging, build
> systems, or dependencies often require package-specific investigation
> and adjustments.
> 
> These packages are also tightly coupled to Ruby releases. After a Ruby
> upgrade, packages that have not yet been rebuilt can leave users in a
> broken or partially unusable state, which means timely updates are
> often required.
> 
> To be honest, I personally use only Ruby itself and the core
> libraries. When I need additional gems, I typically install them
> directly using RubyGems rather than through Cygwin packages. As a
> result, I do not have much real-world usage or operational experience
> with many of the packaged gems.
> 
> My impression is that many Ruby users today may follow a similar
> workflow and install gems directly from RubyGems, rather than through
> Cygwin Setup. Therefore, I suspect that the number of users relying on
> packaged gems from the Cygwin distribution may be relatively small.
> However, this is only my perception, and I would be interested in
> hearing from others about actual usage and expectations.
> 
> Because of these factors, I intend to continue maintaining Ruby itself
> and the core Ruby packages. However, I do not believe I can continue
> providing the same level of active maintenance for RubyGems packages
> with native extensions.
> 
> I have considered whether transferring some of these packages to other
> maintainers would help. In practice, however, such packages still need
> to track Ruby upgrades closely and often require coordinated updates
> around Ruby releases. Given the communication and synchronization
> overhead involved, I am not convinced that this would significantly
> reduce the overall maintenance burden.
> 
> Unless there is clear demand from users, I am inclined to treat these
> packages on a best-effort basis going forward and focus my maintenance
> efforts on the core Ruby packages.
> 
> I would appreciate any feedback, concerns, or suggestions from the community.

This seems like a reasonable step to take.

In the longer term, it probably makes sense to remove those unmaintained 
ruby packages from the cygwin distro (generally we have far too many of 
those anyhow), so users don't get forced down to an older ruby and/or to 
make it clearer that they should be installed as a gem.


Thanks for all your work on cygwin Ruby packages so far.