So is this stuff getting folded into Ruby proper? If not, why not?
The uptake of Ruby 1.9.1 has been slow, and people are staying on 1.8.7 for compatibility reasons. Thus, these patches are trying to bring better memory performance to the old but widely used 1.8.7.
1.8.7 is being developed; 1.8.6 is in maintenance mode by way of EngineYard.
* Ruby 1.9 - Edge version of Ruby
o Ruby 1.9.1 - The latest stable release of Ruby 1.9 series.
* Ruby 1.8 - Stable development version of Ruby
o Ruby 1.8.6 - An ancient stable release of Ruby that Rails users love
o Ruby 1.8.7 - A stable release of Ruby for bridging a gap between the 1.8 and 1.9.
* Ruby - Version-independent topicsAlso, Matz has been very loyal to the core group of Ruby maintainers even after Ruby has gone beyond fad status. Matz has been reluctant to put Ruby on a distributed SCM as well.
I expect all of these issues to be resolved within the next few years...
Also, I don't really care if these community enhancements make it to the "proper" Ruby or not. The main thing is that it is available to the community, whether christened as the "Matz" Ruby or not.