[R-pkg-devel] Change package name

Hi William,

On 20 June 2023 at 16:06, William Becker wrote:
| I am the maintainer of a package which is unfortunately involved in a
complicated dispute regarding its intellectual property (since the package
was partly built under a contract with an organisation), but also the
"branding" of the package, i.e. the name.
|
| The story is long and complicated, but suffice to say that the name of
the package is apparently creating a misleading connection with the
organisation, and this is causing difficulties on both sides.
|
| I am aware that changing the name of a package is very disruptive, and I
am not considering it lightly. However just for information at this stage,
I wonder if anyone could tell me whether packages have ever changed names
on CRAN, what the rules are in these cases, and if there is any advice for
minimising the disruption.
|
| To reiterate, I am not (yet) planning to do this, but exploring options
and looking for advice.

You presented the reasoning convincingly and are aware of the general "we
would rather not do this" sentiment. Ultimately, this (as so often) is
CRAN's
call so you have to do that (directly and not via this list).  My sense is
that you have a case but only CRAN can tell.

Good luck,  Dirk

--
dirk.eddelbuettel.com | @eddelbuettel | edd at debian.org

Hi William,

On 20 June 2023 at 16:06, William Becker wrote:
| I am the maintainer of a package which is unfortunately involved in a complicated dispute regarding its intellectual property (since the package was partly built under a contract with an organisation), but also the "branding" of the package, i.e. the name.
|
| The story is long and complicated, but suffice to say that the name of the package is apparently creating a misleading connection with the organisation, and this is causing difficulties on both sides.
|
| I am aware that changing the name of a package is very disruptive, and I am not considering it lightly. However just for information at this stage, I wonder if anyone could tell me whether packages have ever changed names on CRAN, what the rules are in these cases, and if there is any advice for minimising the disruption.
|
| To reiterate, I am not (yet) planning to do this, but exploring options and looking for advice.

You presented the reasoning convincingly and are aware of the general "we
would rather not do this" sentiment. Ultimately, this (as so often) is CRAN's
call so you have to do that (directly and not via this list).  My sense is
that you have a case but only CRAN can tell.

Good luck,  Dirk

On 20/06/2023 19:36 CEST Uwe Ligges <ligges at statistik.tu-dortmund.de> wrote:

 
On 20.06.2023 18:00, Dirk Eddelbuettel wrote:

Hi William,

On 20 June 2023 at 16:06, William Becker wrote:
| I am the maintainer of a package which is unfortunately involved in a complicated dispute regarding its intellectual property (since the package was partly built under a contract with an organisation), but also the "branding" of the package, i.e. the name.
|
| The story is long and complicated, but suffice to say that the name of the package is apparently creating a misleading connection with the organisation, and this is causing difficulties on both sides.
|
| I am aware that changing the name of a package is very disruptive, and I am not considering it lightly. However just for information at this stage, I wonder if anyone could tell me whether packages have ever changed names on CRAN, what the rules are in these cases, and if there is any advice for minimising the disruption.
|
| To reiterate, I am not (yet) planning to do this, but exploring options and looking for advice.

You presented the reasoning convincingly and are aware of the general "we
would rather not do this" sentiment. Ultimately, this (as so often) is CRAN's
call so you have to do that (directly and not via this list).  My sense is
that you have a case but only CRAN can tell.

Yes, CRAN will accept this case.

Best,
Uwe Ligges

Good luck,  Dirk

If you really need a new package name, is there an accepted way to
update the old name to at least provide a message for a while as to
the new name to use and perhaps have the load otherwise fail?

.onAttach <- function(lib, pkg) {
	ver <- read.dcf(file.path(lib, pkg, "DESCRIPTION"), "Version")
        packageStartupMessage(paste(pkg, ver))
        msg <- paste("\n     This package, \"foo\" is now",
                     " deprecated.  Users",
                     "\n     should install and use its",
                     " successor  \"bar\".\n")
        packageStartupMessage(msg) }

On Tue, 20 Jun 2023 17:39:48 -0400
<avi.e.gross at gmail.com> wrote:

If you really need a new package name, is there an accepted way to
update the old name to at least provide a message for a while as to
the new name to use and perhaps have the load otherwise fail?

I don't know about "accepted", but the following paradigm seems to me
to be sensible and reasonably efficacious:

* you have a package "foo" the name of which you wish to change to "bar"
* create a new package "bar" which is the same as "foo" except for its
   name
* now replace foo with a skeleton package which has only the file
   First.R in its R directory
* the file First.R should be something like:

.onAttach <- function(lib, pkg) {
	ver <- read.dcf(file.path(lib, pkg, "DESCRIPTION"), "Version")
         packageStartupMessage(paste(pkg, ver))
         msg <- paste("\n     This package, \"foo\" is now",
                      " deprecated.  Users",
                      "\n     should install and use its",
                      " successor  \"bar\".\n")
         packageStartupMessage(msg) }

* submit both "bar" and "foo" to CRAN

cheers,

Rolf Turner