Trans wrote:
> I was poking around in the /usr/lib/ruby/gems directory today and
> noticed that many of the installed libs/apps include Rakefiles in them.
> Now, I was thinking about this very thing in the distribution of my own
> packages. I'm not so sure that's a good idea. It's probably best not to
> include the build scripts in the release distribution since it's of no
> value there. In fact it could be dangerous even. Running a rake task
> from an installation could expect file system locations only the
> developer is setup-for.
> 
> What do others think about this?

It's fully within the unix tradition of including the whole source in 
release tarballs. It's true that unix 'make install' doesn't usually 
install the makefile somewhere, though. I wouldn't worry about it, in 
any case. If your rakefile is dangerous then you might want to rethink 
it or put some sanity checks in. If you're worried about Joe Clueless 
running a dangerous non-default rake target in some obscure directory...