[Bioc-devel] permanent address for packages

Hi Sean,

This is actually a tiny bit more complicated than one might imagine...

Sean Davis <sdavis2 at mail.nih.gov> writes:

Is there a way in the current website scheme to link to a permanent URL for 
released packages that would give a page like:

http://bioconductor.org/packages/1.8/bioc/html/Biobase.html

but is not tagged to the 1.8 release?   Something like:

http://bioconductor.org/packages/CURRENT/bioc/html/Biobase.html

The following URL, implemented as a symlink to the current release is
already available:

http://www.bioconductor.org/packages/release/BiocViews.html
http://bioconductor.org/packages/release/bioc/html/Biobase.html

It is a minor point, but it does make citing somewhat simpler. 

It seems important that the version number of a package be part of
what gets cited.  The problem with the 'release' symlink is that a
given package may not make it into a particular release in the
future.  Or perhaps a package will merge with another.  So it may
not be permanent.

I would discourage the use of such URLs going directly to the package
because of these reasons.  

+ seth