The Internet Communications Engine (Ice) provides a robust, proven platform for developing mission-critical networked applications with minimal effort. Let Ice handle all of the low-level details such as network connections, serialization, and concurrency so that you can focus on your application logic. This package includes the Ice extension for Ruby, the standard Slice definition files, and the Slice-to-Ruby compiler. You will need to install a full Ice distribution if you want to use other Ice language mappings, or Ice services such as IceGrid, IceStorm and Glacier2. We provide extensive online documentation for Ice, the Ruby extension, and the other Ice language mappings and services. Join us on our user forums if you have questions about Ice.