[R-pkg-devel] Help in getting past CRAN submission rejections

We've been struggling to get past CRAN's rejections for a new upload of
CVXR.  The new version makes essentially one change to the existing
version on CRAN: the addition of a DOI to an article to appear in JSS.
We realize that CRAN may tighten policies in the meantime forcing some
changes to be made, which we are happy to do. But we are not sure what.

The automated check
<
https://win-builder.r-project.org/incoming_pretest/CVXR_1.0-6_20200908_223033/>

came back with 2 notes on Debian and Windows, both addressed in replies
and submission comments. (Solaris failures are expected, also noted.)

The communications with CRAN indicates that the problem might be that
our package (the current version too) _suggests_ solvers not available
on CRAN. These are either on github or on vendor websites (free to
academics after login).  One reply from CRAN suggested that we either
use the "Additional_repositories" field or provide some text in
Description. The former is not applicable---these are not CRAN-like
repositories---so we added text in the description with URL links.

What could we be missing?

Thanks.

-Naras

Hi Naras
I had a similar issue recently with 
https://cloud.r-project.org/web/packages/nc/ --- it Suggests: re2r 
which is a package that is no longer on CRAN, but available on github. 
To solve the issue I just copied the re2r into a drat repo, which is a 
CRAN-like repository hosted on github. More info on drat here 
http://eddelbuettel.github.io/drat/DratForPackageAuthors.html So if 
those solver packages you have in Suggests are open-source, you can 
just copy them to your drat repo, and list that drat repo in 
Additional_repositories. If they aren't open-source then you should 
provide a description of how to obtain those packages in Description. 
Something like "gurobi package is not available in any public 
open-source repositories but can be downloaded for academic use free 
of charge from $GUROBI_URL"
BTW thanks for your efforts in getting CVXR on CRAN, that is really 
important work!
Toby


On Wed, Sep 9, 2020 at 10:40 AM Balasubramanian Narasimhan 
<naras at stanford.edu <mailto:naras at stanford.edu>> wrote:

    We've been struggling to get past CRAN's rejections for a new
    upload of
    CVXR.? The new version makes essentially one change to the existing
    version on CRAN: the addition of a DOI to an article to appear in
    JSS.
    We realize that CRAN may tighten policies in the meantime forcing
    some
    changes to be made, which we are happy to do. But we are not sure
    what.

    The automated check
    <https://win-builder.r-project.org/incoming_pretest/CVXR_1.0-6_20200908_223033/>

    came back with 2 notes on Debian and Windows, both addressed in
    replies
    and submission comments. (Solaris failures are expected, also noted.)

    The communications with CRAN indicates that the problem might be that
    our package (the current version too) _suggests_ solvers not
    available
    on CRAN. These are either on github or on vendor websites (free to
    academics after login).? One reply from CRAN suggested that we either
    use the "Additional_repositories" field or provide some text in
    Description. The former is not applicable---these are not CRAN-like
    repositories---so we added text in the description with URL links.

    What could we be missing?

    Thanks.

    -Naras

Thanks Toby, so there is hope.? The drat suggestion for rcbc is worth a
try, gurobi is noted as you recommend.

-Naras

On 9/9/20 4:38 PM, Toby Hocking wrote:

Hi Naras
I had a similar issue recently with
https://cloud.r-project.org/web/packages/nc/ --- it Suggests: re2r
which is a package that is no longer on CRAN, but available on github.
To solve the issue I just copied the re2r into a drat repo, which is a
CRAN-like repository hosted on github. More info on drat here
http://eddelbuettel.github.io/drat/DratForPackageAuthors.html So if
those solver packages you have in Suggests are open-source, you can
just copy them to your drat repo, and list that drat repo in
Additional_repositories. If they aren't open-source then you should
provide a description of how to obtain those packages in Description.
Something like "gurobi package is not available in any public
open-source repositories but can be downloaded for academic use free
of charge from $GUROBI_URL"
BTW thanks for your efforts in getting CVXR on CRAN, that is really
important work!
Toby


On Wed, Sep 9, 2020 at 10:40 AM Balasubramanian Narasimhan
<naras at stanford.edu <mailto:naras at stanford.edu>> wrote:

     We've been struggling to get past CRAN's rejections for a new
     upload of
     CVXR.? The new version makes essentially one change to the existing
     version on CRAN: the addition of a DOI to an article to appear in
     JSS.
     We realize that CRAN may tighten policies in the meantime forcing
     some
     changes to be made, which we are happy to do. But we are not sure
     what.

     The automated check
     <https://win-builder.r-project.org/incoming_pretest/CVXR_1.0-6_20200908_223033/>

     came back with 2 notes on Debian and Windows, both addressed in
     replies
     and submission comments. (Solaris failures are expected, also noted.)

     The communications with CRAN indicates that the problem might be that
     our package (the current version too) _suggests_ solvers not
     available
     on CRAN. These are either on github or on vendor websites (free to
     academics after login).? One reply from CRAN suggested that we either
     use the "Additional_repositories" field or provide some text in
     Description. The former is not applicable---these are not CRAN-like
     repositories---so we added text in the description with URL links.

     What could we be missing?

     Thanks.

     -Naras

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