:+1: for this overall Pull Request to prefer usage of `gem_package` when available, and for the approach of checking the chef version to see if it's available.

However I'd like to note that `Gem::Version.new` is only available in ruby 1.9, which although this is packaged with the current omnibus installer into /opt/chef/, older chef client installations may not be using an isolated ruby, and could have ruby 1.8 - perhaps a straight string compare against Chef::VERSION might be more compatible in that regard?