Comparing the behavior of using install to replace /sbin/halt to /bin/ls
is apples to oranges. This is about the sane behavior of packages and
the way they are configured.

http://pkg-ruby-extras.alioth.debian.org/rubygems.html - Debian's
stance, and it is valid.

Ubuntu's responsibility is to give packages sane defaults that are not
going to flood a system with garbage. Both CPAN and PEAR respect the
FHS, and install into /usr/local even though their binaries go into
/usr.  Ruby on the other hand rejects the FHS, and if installs to /usr,
will install its modules to /usr, possibly overriding system files and
having complete disregard for the package maintainer.

A (competent) system administrator installing gems from source would
install to /usr/local which avoids the problem since there is no chance
of Ruby overriding critical system files.

The only sane alternative then to make gems available and not violate
the FHS w.r.t. to /usr/local is to install out of the /usr or /usr/local
hierarchies which is currently how gems work. While possibly adding gems
to the path is a valid option (I'm not going to weigh one way or
another), RubyGems's developers have stated they do not wish to fix the
(in my opinion, horrid) design issues with the way gems are installed,
thus making it dangerous to offer gems configured for any path other
then its own where it can't possibly hose someones system because they
install a bad gem.

-- 
rubygems bin in PATH potentially breaks other applications and violates all 
sense of decency in packaging.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/262063
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