Message-ID: <loom.20111126T233913-971@post.gmane.org>
Date: 2011-11-26T22:58:22Z
From: Ben Bolker
Subject: Case: package removed from CRAN, but not orphaned
Joris Meys <jorismeys <at> gmail.com> writes:
>
> I agree completely with Uwe on this one. Yet, the idea of Rainer is
> useful if you replace "remove the package" by "orphan the package".
> Some sort of automated orphanization. The package remains available
> that way if I understood it right, and can more easily be adopted by
> another developer that feels responsible. It might also make the
> manual cleanup (i.e. detecting poorly maintained packages without a
> responsive developer) a bit easier. After all, clicking a link once
> every so often to indicate you're still following the package isn't
> too much work for a package developer, and it could help the CRAN
> maintainers. Or am I completely off here?
>
Just a tiny update:
Thanks to the great new "packdep" package, it's very easy
to find out how many of the packages on CRAN have *no* reverse
dependencies:
library(packdep)
d1 <- map.depends()
c <- dependencies(d1)
sum(c$reverse==0)/nrow(c)
66%. Furthermore, I would guess that orphaned packages would be
more likely to be in this 66%. What about exempting packages with
any reverse dependencies from the auto-orphanization process?
Ben Bolker