Why is bundler requiring an extremely old version of a gem when version not specified?

Question

I have a Gemfile that looks like this:

gem 'google-api-client', :require => 'google/api_client'
gem 'my_baseimage', '0.0.3', :git => 'https://github.com/xxx/BaseImage.git'

I have a base gem that requires a bunch of common gems across projects.

However, when I run bundle install, I see errors like this:

  In Gemfile:
    activerecord (>= 0) ruby depends on
      activemodel (= 4.1.11) ruby depends on
        activesupport (= 4.1.11) ruby

    activerecord (>= 0) ruby depends on
      activemodel (= 4.1.11) ruby depends on
        activesupport (= 4.1.11) ruby

    google-api-client (>= 0) ruby depends on
      activesupport (~> 3.2) ruby
Bundler could not find compatible versions for gem "rack":
  In Gemfile:
    rack-contrib (= 1.1.0) ruby depends on
      rack (>= 0.9.1) ruby

    sinatra (>= 0) ruby depends on
      rack (~> 1.4) ruby

    google-api-client (>= 0) ruby depends on
      rack (= 1.2.0) ruby

    rack (>= 0) ruby

google-api-client hasn't required rack 1.2 since, like, version 0.1, and moreover my_baseimage requires 0.7.1. When I run a gem dependency -R, I see this:

    google-api-client-0.7.1 (addressable (>= 2.3.2))
    google-api-client-0.7.1 (autoparse (>= 0.3.3))
    google-api-client-0.7.1 (extlib (>= 0.9.15))
    google-api-client-0.7.1 (faraday (>= 0.9.0))
Gem google-api-client-0.7.1
    google-api-client-0.7.1 (jwt (>= 0.1.5))
    google-api-client-0.7.1 (launchy (>= 2.1.1))
    google-api-client-0.7.1 (multi_json (>= 1.0.0))
    google-api-client-0.7.1 (rake (>= 0.9.0, development))
    google-api-client-0.7.1 (rake (>= 0.9.0, development))
    google-api-client-0.7.1 (retriable (>= 1.4))
    google-api-client-0.7.1 (rspec (>= 2.11.0, development))
    google-api-client-0.7.1 (signet (>= 0.5.0))
    google-api-client-0.7.1 (uuidtools (>= 2.1.0))

I was able to work around this issue by, in my Gemfile, specifying 0.7.1, as follows:

gem 'google-api-client', '0.7.1', :require => 'google/api_client'
gem 'my_baseimage', '0.0.3', :git => 'https://github.com/xxx/BaseImage.git'

However, I was hoping that in my project-specific gemfiles I would not have to specified gem versions, they'd just take them from my_baseimage as-is.

Can anyone suggest why it would appear that bundle install is defaulting to a very old version of google-api-client when the dependency graph specifies the one I want (0.7.1) and my_baseimage also specifies the one I want (0.7.1)?

Answer 1

Bundler uses rubygems, which, when not given a specific version, defaults to the last version marked 'stable', which, if the tag isn't maintained, can mean even terribly deprecated builds.