Yeah, that's the kind of attitude that has allowed this situation to persist for so long. Quibble about details when the bottom line is that I don't dare a minor upgrade of even the smallest gem for fear of having to spend a day on some wild goose chase. So perhaps Rake was never responsible for any of the breakage. I misremember or misattributed: so what? It doesn't matter, because I don't trust Rake either. You want examples of other breakages? Follow Some of the mailing listst and Google groups. Stuff breaks a zillion times more often than in the Java and Python communities.