Actually, I think the first question is:
 
Who do we talk to to first ensure that the information starting this panic is correct?
 
No offense to the OP, but the original information seems quite unsubstantiated. I had previously heard (from unreliable sources) that Tiger *did* include 1.8

________________________________

From: Carl Youngblood [mailto:carl.youngblood / gmail.com]
Sent: Mon 11/1/2004 1:26 PM
To: ruby-talk ML
Subject: Re: OS X Tiger still including ruby 1.6



The question is, who do we talk to to change it?

On Tue, 2 Nov 2004 05:08:50 +0900, Phil Tomson <ptkwt / aracnet.com> wrote:
> In article <e5ed7b69041101112361adf896 / mail.gmail.com>,
> Carl Youngblood  <carl.youngblood / gmail.com> wrote:
> >I'm not sure who to talk to about this, but in my correspondence with
> >some of the Apple developers on the carbon-dev mailing list, I have
> >discovered that the current beta release of OS X Tiger is still using
> >Ruby 1.6.  We should really remedy this situation.
> >
>
> Tiger still having 1.6 would be really bad.  When are they looking to
> release the Tiger?  Seems I heard something about February 2005.  There
> _should_ be enough time to get it changed before then.
>
> Phil