Dear all, With the recent discussions about community, it seems an apposite time to announce the formation of the comprehensive Common Lisp archive network, and request contributions for same. The goal is to facilitate the distribution of Lisp software (and attendant utilities) in an integrated manner, much as CTAN[1] does for (La)TeX or CPAN[2] for perl. In short, that the user be able to type a single command to download, compile and install a module or application, including all the libraries that it depends on. We are presently targetting Unix-like operating systems. The prototype implementation does not yet embody the concept in all its glory. The prototype is currently 25 or so packages for Debian's `unstable/testing' Linux distribution, initially available on i386 and Alpha platforms, and from a single host. If you have root access on a Debian `unstable/testing' machine, then the addition of the lines --- cut here --- deb http://www-jcsu.jesus.cam.ac.uk/ftp/pub/debian local lisp deb-src http://www-jcsu.jesus.cam.ac.uk/ftp/pub/debian local lisp --- cut here --- to your /etc/apt/sources.list, followed by the usual apt-get incantations, will allow you to download the packages; alternatively, the packages may be directly downloaded from <URL:http://www-jcsu.jesus.cam.ac.uk/ftp/pub/debian/lisp/>. A proof-of-concept experiment has been conducted with a RedHat system; for now, instructions and files may be found at <URL:http://www-jcsu.jesus.cam.ac.uk/ftp/pub/redhat/lisp/>; this should be fairly applicable to other RPM-based systems. Currently, packages of note include - ILISP - various bits of CLOCC[5] - onShore's[6] IMHO and UncommonSQL, and various helper packages Packaging software is not particularly hard, just fiddly. Volunteers are welcome. What do we need? 1) Help porting the packages to other packaging systems. The Debian infrastructure works as follows: the systems follow the common-lisp-controller[3] policy with respect to their file placement (essentially, the Lisp implementations have translations for the logical hosts "CL-LIBRARY" and "CL-SYSTEMS"); then the post-installation script in the packages arranges for the compilation of the package for every relevant Lisp implementation. Advice on the best layout for non-Debian systems would also be welcome. 2) We have a problem currently with CLISP[4] in that its implementation of pathnames is not sufficiently close to the ANSI specification to work with common-lisp-controller. We'd love to have CLISP support in cCLan, but need assistance from clisp hackers to make it happen. 3) Aside from this - more code. Of course, software of this kind is generally written to service a need rather than out of the goodness of one's own heart, but should people be willing to contribute they would be most welcome. 4) N is for "Network": we have an offer of a second site at ftp.linux.org.uk, and plan to use rsync servers to keep things consistent between them. If you run an FTP server and would like to provide another mirror - especially if your user community is not network-local to either of the existing sites, please contact us. How can you get in touch? This effort has sprung forth from CLiki and the people on the #lisp OpenProjects IRC channel[7]. The best way to leave a message is to edit the cliki cCLan page[8], or to show up on IRC. We expect also to set up a mailing list in the very near future, the formation of which will be trailed here. Thank you, Christophe et al [1] http://www.tex.ac.uk/ [2] http://www.cpan.org/ [3] http://ww.telent.net/cliki/common-lisp-controller [4] http://clisp.sourceforge.net/ [5] http://clocc.sourceforge.net/ [6] http://alpha.onshored.com/lisp-software/ [7] http://ww.telent.net/cliki/IRC [8] http://ww.telent.net/cliki/cclan
cclan-draft-announce
Announcement of the cclan project.