Plans for distribution updates

[Ken Hornstein]

Everyone,

So now that we've started the release cycle process (thanks, David!) I
am wondering what the plans are for getting 1.8 packages into various
distributions.  I did the Homebrew formula for MacOS X and I'm glad
to do it for 1.8.  But I am wondering what other operating systems we
should target.  Ones that come to mind are:

- Various RPM-based distributions (Fedora, RedHat, CentOS, Rocky, and I am
  sure others)
- Debian (and anything else that uses .deb files)
- FreeBSD/NetBSD/OpenBSD 'ports' systems

I am sure there are others.  I guess I am wondering what needs to be done
to "turn the crank" so 1.8 makes it into the packaging distributions.
I know for Homebrew once the pull request is accepted all Homebrew users
should get the new version relatively quickly, and I think the ports systems
are similar but I don't know what needs to happen for the others.

--Ken