Editor's Notes

1. About 3 or 4 years ago, about the time Rubyconf conference proposals were due, I had the idea to mirror all the gems that were on rubyforge, extract all the meta data that was in them and talk about it. That talk didn't happen. Fast forward to this year, 10th conference, maybe now is a more appropriate time to mirror all of the gems on rubygems, and dig through all that data and see what we can find. Although I have given this talk in an inapproriate name. And I should have known this, because my sister is an anthropologist. There is no anthropology in this talk. There is no studying of humankind here. Its the study of ruby gems.
34. How many of you have published a gem on rubygems.org? Keep those hands up, we're going to find out who the old gem publishers are. Think back to the first gem you ever published. Drop your hands if it was since the Rubyconf 2009, Rubyconf 2008, Rubyconf 2007? Rubyconf 2006, 2005? 2004? The history of rubygems starts with Rubyconf 2003, and the first rubygem server, on rubyforge, was up probably around rubyconf 2004. So a really old rubygem has been around for 6 years.