From geoffjentry at hexdump.org  Wed Mar 19 16:22:22 2014
From: geoffjentry at hexdump.org (Geoff Jentry)
Date: Wed, 19 Mar 2014 08:22:22 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [Rd] [RFC] A case for freezing CRAN
In-Reply-To: <CABFfbXt0PjHEw-4=VfeWeeosm_wOBH-fVsj85j9LMe81Lx0gWQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CABFfbXt0PjHEw-4=VfeWeeosm_wOBH-fVsj85j9LMe81Lx0gWQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <alpine.DEB.2.00.1403190818200.31617@cardinals.dreamhost.com>

> using the identical version of each CRAN package. The bioconductor
> project uses similar policies.

While I agree that this can be an issue, I don't think it is fair to 
compare CRAN to BioC. Unless things have changed, the latter has a more 
rigorous barrier to entry which includes buy in of various ideals (e.g. 
interoperability w/ other BioC packages, making use of BioC constructs, 
the official release cycle). All of that requires extra management 
overhead (read: human effort) which considering that CRAN isn't exactly 
swimming in spare cycles seems unlikely to happen.

It seems like one could set up a curated CRAN-a-like quite easily, 
advertise the heck out of it and let the "market" decide. That is, IMO, 
the beauty of open source.

-J



[Rd] [RFC] A case for freezing CRAN
Geoff Jentry