are R packages safe?
Thank you, Marc. That's helpful! I think, in this case it's mostly: That they are virus/malware free. And that they don't send out some info that they are not supposed to. Thank you! Dimitri
On Thu, Dec 8, 2016 at 1:04 PM, Marc Schwartz <marc_schwartz at me.com> wrote:
On Dec 8, 2016, at 11:47 AM, Dimitri Liakhovitski <dimitri.liakhovitski at gmail.com> wrote: Guys, suddenly, I am being asked for a proof that R packages that are not '"base" are safe. I've never been asked this question before. Is there some documentation on CRAN that discusses how it's ensured that all "official" R packages have been "vetted" and are safe? Thanks a lot! -- Dimitri Liakhovitski Dimitri, You are going to need to define "safe". Also, note that the notion of "official R packages" is not defined, other than for those that bear the copyright of The R Foundation (Base + Recommended), as per: https://www.r-project.org/certification.html That packages are available on CRAN does not infer, implicitly or explicitly, that the packages are endorsed/certified/validated by any party. You can review the CRAN Policy here: https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/policies.html. which provides a standardized framework for CRAN submissions. Does "safe" mean that they are virus/malware free? Does "safe" mean that they are extensively tested/validated, bug free and yield documented evidence of consistent and correct results, possibly having also been tested for "edge cases"? Regards, Marc Schwartz
Dimitri Liakhovitski