Standardizing lua names on *nix systems (and their distributions)

[Enrico Tassi <gares@...>]

Dear Lua packagers, one of the results of the nice BOF event at FOSDEM
Hisham organized is that we had the opportunity to discuss the names
that are used for the Lua binaries and support files in Debian and
NetBSD.  Guess what, we don't use the same conventions :-/

I think it is a good time to standardise that.

Given that different Lua versions are not 100% compatible, whatever we
choose must contain the version number.  

Why is it needed?
=================

I can think of two annoyances for Lua users:

- shebang line: You write script that runs on Lua 5.1 only.
  What do you put?  "#!/usr/bin/lua5.1", "#!/usr/bin/lua-5.1",
  "#!/usr/bin/lua51" ... ?

- .pc files: You write a C software that links to Lua 5.1 in the build
  process.  To get the right CFLAGS and LDFLAGS from pkg-config what
  do you write? "pkg-config lua5.1", "pkg-config lua-5.1" ... ?

Things to standardise (and status in Debian)
============================================

1. Name of the Lua interpreter and bytecode compiler

   Debian uses lua5.1, luac5.1

   Debian provides (via the so called alternatives mechanism) a user
   configurable symlink called lua pointing (by default) to the most
   recent Lua version.

2. Name of the .pc file
   2.1 for Lua compiled with C (the standard)
   
   Debian uses lua5.1.pc
   Debian also provides the symlink lua-5.1.pc

   2.2 for Lua compiler with C++ (to get proper stack unwinding in C++ apps)

   Debian uses lua5.1-c++.pc
   Debian also provides the symlink lua-5.1-c++.pc

If you are packaging Lua for a *nix distribution, please share your
naming schema so that we can find a common ground.

Best,
-- 
Enrico Tassi