This is obviously not a big deal, but the clean-up might be welcome...
ruby -v: ruby 1.9.3dev (2010-06-29 trunk 28473) [x86_64-linux]

From b09d0e800d332d62bced6e387e3883602caea6db Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Jim Meyering <meyering / redhat.com>
Date: Tue, 29 Jun 2010 10:56:31 +0200
Subject: [PATCH] lib/rexml/text.rb: remove unused definition of EREFERENCE

* lib/rexml/text.rb (EREFERENCE): Remove definition; unused.
Remove stale comment.
---
 lib/rexml/text.rb |    2 --
 1 files changed, 0 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/lib/rexml/text.rb b/lib/rexml/text.rb
index 05d5341..6adb456 100644
--- a/lib/rexml/text.rb
+++ b/lib/rexml/text.rb
@@ -355,12 +355,10 @@ module REXML
       copy
     end

-    EREFERENCE = /&(?!#{Entity::NAME};)/
     # Escapes all possible entities
     def Text::normalize( input, doctype=nil, entity_filter=nil )
       copy = input.to_s
       # Doing it like this rather than in a loop improves the speed
-      #copy = copy.gsub( EREFERENCE, '&amp;' )
       copy = copy.gsub( "&", "&amp;" )
       if doctype
         # Replace all ampersands that aren't part of an entity
--
1.7.2.rc0.206.g3336