Issue #19972 has been reported by vo.x (Vit Ondruch). ---------------------------------------- Bug #19972: Install default/bundled gems into dedicated directories https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/19972 * Author: vo.x (Vit Ondruch) * Status: Open * Priority: Normal * ruby -v: ruby 3.3.0dev (2023-10-24 master c44d65427e) [x86_64-linux] * Backport: 3.0: UNKNOWN, 3.1: UNKNOWN, 3.2: UNKNOWN ---------------------------------------- I think that the current situation, where the same directory (lets call it `Gem.default_dir`) is used for default/bundled gems as well as for user installed gems, is suboptimal. During the times, this has caused us quite some issue on Fedora. Historically, we redefined the `Gem.default_dir` to user home directory, to avoid the mixing of system gems and user installed gems. Unfortunately, with advent of default/bundled gems, we were facing issues that these gems were suddenly not listed, etc. I am realizing this issue in full once again since the "user install" RubyGems feature has landed [1]. I also think that we have arrived to this situation by evolution, not by design. Therefore my proposal is: Keep the `Gem.default_dir` for user `gem install`ed gems and lets install default and bundled gems into separate dedicated directories. Have separate `Gem.bundled_gems_dir` and `Gem.default_gems_dir` structures. Of course, if `Gem.default_dir == Gem.bundled_gems_dir == Gem.default_gems_dir`, we still can have the current layout. I have a simple POC here: https://github.com/ruby/ruby/pull/8761 BTW I have reported it here, because I think that RubyGems provides all it is needed. So it is not RubyGems ticket after all. However, I believe that RubyGems could benefit from this long term and some simplifications/cleanups would be possible. [1]: https://github.com/rubygems/rubygems/pull/5327 -- https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/