Since rspec 1.1.11 there are no dependency needed by Rspec. But in rpsec-1.1.11.ebuild there are a depends of hoe-1.8.1 Reproducible: Always
According to the metadata in the gem rspec 1.1.11 still depends on hoe 1.8.1 or better. It is a marked as a development dependency, but those don't work as expected with rubygems < 1.3.0. dependencies: - !ruby/object:Gem::Dependency name: hoe type: :development version_requirement: version_requirements: !ruby/object:Gem::Requirement requirements: - - ">=" - !ruby/object:Gem::Version version: 1.8.1 version: If I'm missing something here then please reopen and let me know, but the lack of hoe 1.8.1 was causing real problems for me when working with rspec and related tools this weekend.