Should I include the binary in a Rails plugin or not?

Question

Hello.

I'm trying to roll out a little Rails plugin that is basically is just a wrapper to a 7zip archiver.

Should I include the 7zip binaries for windows, mac and linux with it or explain to user that it's a dependency and they need to get it working. I know it's not that difficult to install a 7zip, but what is the best practice in general. The reason I'm asking is cause I've ran so many times into gems that need some sort of dependency that doesn't compile properly or is not available in ready form for the OS in question and then I end up spending have a day hunting down for a binary or a way to compile the program. (Have happened to me both on Mac and Windows, not on Debian so far. )

Answer 1

There are several plugins that have dependancies on platform specific libraries. Maybe looking at how they are packaged as a gem will help. T name a few: mysql, mongo, ruby-libxml, etc