Issue #20859 has been updated by mame (Yusuke Endoh). My understanding is that default gems are transitional to eventually being promoted to bundled gems. So, I didn't think there was an option to make it a default gem permanently. As a matter of fact, mirroring repositories is a pain. In terms of base64, it is not expected to add any features in the future, and it is quite unlikely that it will be even updated. (I am the current maintainer of base64 gem.) And it is a very small library. Therefore, I do not think it is worth making it a bundled gem. I think it would be better to make it built-in or revert to the standard library (not a default gem). (I am not opposed to reverting back to the default gem as a temporary measure, since we are close to release.) ---------------------------------------- Feature #20859: Make Base64 to core class https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/20859#change-110428 * Author: hsbt (Hiroshi SHIBATA) * Status: Assigned * Assignee: hsbt (Hiroshi SHIBATA) ---------------------------------------- From https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/20857#note-12 I also heard that `base64` gem has some issue for eco-system like https://github.com/ddnexus/pagy/pull/618. My fist intention is simply added `base64` gem into gem dependency by `Gem::Specification#add_dependency`. But some people rewrite `Base64.encode64` to `Array#pack`. It means gemification of `base64` is miss-direciton by me. I withdraw that and propose to make `Base64` into core class. https://github.com/ruby/ruby/pull/11977 It resolve dependency issues of `base64` as the default gems. TODO: * To release new version of `base64` gem that skip to load if `Base64` is available. * make `require "base64"` same as `require "enumerator"` -- https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/