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No trans-fat, no issues with cholesterol, fat-binaries are something proposed by Aaron Patterson to workaround some RubyGems limitations shipping gems for Ruby 1.8 and 1.9.

You can read his initial experiment here

While working on sqlite3-ruby and mysql-gem, raised by concerns here in RubyGems mailing list back in April, exposing a issue generating binaries compatible with both Ruby 1.8 and 1.9 are tricky, kind of impossible with current solutions like plain RubyGems and packages Hoe or Echoe.

rake-compiler was born with the concept to simplify creation of Windows gems form Linux or OSX, and again, Aaron Patterson helped me out simplifying his original post in a simple example:

http://github.com/tenderlove/simple/tree/master

Now, I’ve managed to integrate part of those changes, but there are still some lack of (cough, cough) documentation and examples.

I’ve published to GitHub the beta gem (version 0.6.0) or rake-compiler for testing, and I’m playing with it to proper build sqlite3-ruby and mysql-gem for Windows from OSX

In theory, thanks to Cucumber and RSpec, nothing is going to break on existing projects. Those that wants to take advantage of this functionality will need to minor adapt the entry point of your gems and properly fire the rake commands.

I’ll love get some feedback of those projects using rake-compiler to release binaries, mostly if I broke something

So I went ahead and cleared up the idea I had for this. To give more fairness and openness, decided to run this as a competition.

Most of the details are in the Pledgie here , but just to clarify:

Designers that want to participate, need to create a homepage image mockup of the website. These mockups are going to be exposed to everybody and a open poll is going to be held.

The mockup with most votes and that share the idea of the RubyInstaller project and guidelines is going to be awarded with the total money of the pledgie.

Money is going to be send over Paypal when HTML and CSS elements are shared publicly (GitHub or any type of code repository).

Designers will remain the copyright holders of the design and credits will be displayed in the website with permission of usage for RubyInstaller project.

I believe this is fair, and also can let people’s mind fly, so go ahead, mock something that can fit these needs and add those to the following wiki page at GitHub:

Website Contest – RubyInstaller

Once again, if you want to contribute with some money, please use the badge at the bottom of the page or this one:

And for those Linux and Mac users that want to contribute, you can do it anonymously

Good luck everybody!

I must say that my skills to ask for something are really lacking, and my design skills are even worse.

So, I’m bringing this topic to the table, seeking for ideas on how to improve the Ruby on Windows image beyond just code.

I’m willing to offer money to pay for it, since I’m quite aware that Open Source and contributions don’t put food on the table.

Of course, I’m not rich, so the balance needs to be found

So, what is the idea:

• Build the website with Radiant or a simple CMS over Ruby
• Design needs to be simple and provide access to:
1. News feed (small articles)
2. Download info and links
3. Getting Started Resources (info and links)
4. Contribute (RubyForge and GitHub info)
5. Support (access to mailing list and forums of interest)
• Initial artwork (logo and iso) already exist
• Application icons can be highly improved

For the record: there is no need to be a Windows user or designer, so people on Linux and OSX are welcome

If there is more interest, maybe a Bounty can be opened, but time, feedback and community response will tell.

Please, comment and pass the message!

Well, well, less than 24 hours since my last blog post, I have more updates for you!

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