Re: Lua 5.1 packaging -- how to participate?

[John Belmonte <john@...>]

Asko Kauppi wrote:
> 
> With the emergence of Lua 5.1 I'd like to bring the packaging issue 
> back on table.
> 
> In my opinion, the Lua Binaries project would be the best forum to 
> provide "official" packages to leading distributions, as well. 
> Personally, I am most worried/interested about Debian, and Fink  packaging.
> 
> Is this already being taken care of appropriately (both packaging 
> itself, and pushing those packages to main repositories) or is there 
> something I could help with?
> 
> Some technical issues, I would rather have the binary program name be 
> 'lua51', and possibly a link from 'lua' to the most recent (or: any) 
> version currently installed. With Lua, it is extremely important 
> multiple versions can peacefully co-exist (think application packages 
> dependent on some particular version).

Hi Asko,

At least for Debian, there are many packaging rules to follow, and the
details are best left up to package maintainers assigned by the
organization producing the distribution.

Regarding the binary naming and symlinks, the pattern you mentioned has
already been done in the past Debian Lua packages (4.0 and 5.0 series,
which by the way can be installed in parallel), and I'm sure it will be
continued.  Debian, as likely do other distros, has an infrastructure
for dealing with alternative flavors of a resource.

I've filed a Debian intent-to-package record for Lua 5.1, as it looks
like Daniel Silverstone won't be taking it on this time around.  I could
probably have a rudimentary version of the package ready in a few days
(and available to anyone wishing to tinker), but having something worthy
of submission to the repository will take longer.

Regards,
--John