The reason for a rename is that Ruby locks the .so file on load which prevents the user from updating the extension from within Sketchup. The solution to this is to copy the .so file on startup and then load the copy. This copy can be in another directory with the same name but I would prefer to have the copy in the same directory as the original with a new name. The problem is this:
It is possible to load the .so with Fiddle and then make an explicit call to Init_... but I’ve had problems with Fiddle and non-standard characters in the load path, I’m thus a bit reluctant to use it.