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Handle situation properly when publishing a gem whose name already exists on Rubygems.org

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Jędrzej

30 Apr, 2018 08:47 PM

I have just created a gem 'password_generator' and tried to publish it on Rubygems.org but got a message "You do not have permissions to manage this gem" I was really puzzled because it was my newly created gem. I checked onwership of my gem and it told me that the owner of my gem was some guy named "[email blocked]". I have no idea who it was. I could not add myself to the owners of the gem nor could I remove this person as the owner so I got stuck completely. Finally it turned out that that a gem with this name already exists on Rubygems.org. I think that a simple message saying "A gem with this name already exists on Rubygems.org. Please provide a different name" would be more appropriate than changing ownership of a gem that somebody just created. I can unerstand the reasoning behind checking for the existence of the same name of a gem, I also realize that one should first check for the existence of a gem that he/she is going to publish because contribution is publishing something that does not exist yet however not always two the same libraries do exactly the same thing. To me current approach is unacceptable and wrong and has to be changed. Right now there is nothing left for me to do except recreating the whole thing from scrach and naming the gem differently.

1. Support Staff 1 Posted by kerrizor on 04 May, 2018 05:09 PM

   

   Hi Jędrzej, thanks for writing in! I'm sorry that you found the gem name you wanted previously taken! We do have a policy, like most library repository systems, of globally unique library names. You can, of course, still create your library with your non-unique name, but will be unable to publish it through RubyGems.org. To allow multiple libraries with the same name would cause endless confusion for developers trying to maintain systems, manage updates, etc.

   I'm sorry for the hassle you've encountered with this - I've run into it myself on occasion! Renaming your gem should be fairly straightforward; a quick Google search didn't turn up any automated tools for it, but plenty of articles on how to do it manually.

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2. kerrizor closed this discussion on 04 May, 2018 05:09 PM.

3. Jędrzej re-opened this discussion on 04 May, 2018 08:12 PM

4. 2 Posted by Jędrzej on 04 May, 2018 08:12 PM

   

   What's the solution to this problem? When you create a gem with a non-unique name you clearly change ownership of the gem to the owner of the gem that already exists on Rubygems.org and that is not cool at all. I would like to ask if you will change this.

   Thanx
   Jędrek

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5. Support Staff 3 Posted by kerrizor on 19 May, 2018 03:22 PM

   

   Hi Jędrek,

   The only ownership of a gem is only important in terms of the gem that is registered in the Rubygems.org system; if you want to have your own game of the same name, you are certainly welcome to, and can even allow others to use it by specifying a git location option in a Gemfile, or through manually downloading and installing. However, we have a "first in time" policy for the ownership of gem namespaces; if the gem in question is old, empty, etc, we encourage you to contact and work with the current owner to release the name to you (or add you as an owner so you can develop the tool in your own direction.)

   // kerri

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6. kerrizor closed this discussion on 19 May, 2018 03:22 PM.