I have started a new project on RubyForge.org called ‘rinit’.  It is a development project to recreate the Linux sysvinit scripts using the Ruby Programming language. So far, I have a working ‘/etc/rc.sysinit’  and replacement rc.conf in YAML format working on ArchLinux. This project is still in early development and not ready for production. By using Ruby, I hope to be able to leverage some features of that language to streamline, simplify, and extend the current way Linux systems bootscripts are designed. This project is not intended as a replacement for sysvinit such as Upstart. You can visit the project page here: http://rubyforge.org/projects/rinit/