I would like to create a new project on common-lisp.net called "external-program". There is a cliki page (http://www.cliki.net/ external-program) with a tarball. As it says there, this is a compatibility layer for running external programs from within CL. It wraps vendor-specific implementations like SB-EXT:RUN-PROGRAM. The software is released under the LLGPL.
I already have a couple projects setup on c-l.net (namely Bordeaux- threads and berkeley-db), so you should have my PGP key on file already. My username is gpfeil.
I would like to use darcs and trac with this project as well.
Please let me know if I need to send you anything else. Thanks.