From oliver at first.in-berlin.de  Tue Jan 15 00:32:21 2013
From: oliver at first.in-berlin.de (oliver)
Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2013 00:32:21 +0100
Subject: [Rd] Who does develop the R core and libs,
 and how / where is it hosted?
In-Reply-To: <828A41A8-186F-4601-8D0E-C52CCA6F5162@r-project.org>
References: <20130114202932.GA1806@siouxsie>
	<828A41A8-186F-4601-8D0E-C52CCA6F5162@r-project.org>
Message-ID: <20130114233221.GC26703@siouxsie>

On Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 03:50:04PM -0500, Simon Urbanek wrote:
> On Jan 14, 2013, at 3:29 PM, oliver wrote:
> 
> > Hello,
> > 
> > I saw Binaries, stable release-souzrces and daily snapshots of R, but
> > not something like a repository, visible for the public (like on githb for example).
> > 
> 
> Ehm, I would expect a bit better from someone who is on the list for several
> years ;) - the reading the docs - in particular you'll find answers to most of
> your questions in the FAQ ...
[...]

Well, most often, I just save the mailinglist postings into the folder where it belongs to...
(Less than even lurking, only sometimes reading some postings.)


...and... when I'm not involved in a task, things start to disappear in from mind.
Much traffic in my inbox ;-)

Also I thought, sending a direct question might trigger certain responses.
There are much FAQs around in the web.
A FAQ is less direct, and just one of the many text documents around...

Something like "Future plans in development of R" I would not await to be inside a FAQ.


> 
> 
> > How is the R development handled, what repositories / source code versioning tools
> > are used, who are the developers?
> > 
> > And is there something like a plan with future goals,
> > which are planned for the next releases?
> > 
> 
> See developer.r-project.org, other than that features are typically announced in NEWS as they are being implemented.

Future goals I would expect not being part of NEWS.
NEWS is like "what we already have done", not "what our future plans are".

> 
> 
> > Are there areas, where help is needed?
> 
> If you have someone with a good R knowledge, check out the wish list.

OK, wish list seems to be the right thing.


> 
> 
> > And in which way could support be done?
> > 
> 
> Write good packages, provide patches to R, donate to R foundation?
[...]


"Good packages" might be good (in quality), but not necessarily give
the R project a boost, if only a handful of users would need such a package.

Providing patches maybe would make sense to me.

Donate to R foundation? Hmhh, I would rather donate with via source code.



BTW: I looked up the string "wish list" in some of the mentioned docs (mentioned in this thread)
     but did not found it.
     Can you please point me to it directly?
     Googling for "R wish list" brings me links to a producer of toys.

     Or did you mean I should ask R users for their wishes??!

     (Some R users - on this list - asked for Julia language as a speedup alternative for R a while ago...)
      

Thanks for the response.

All in all it seems like no special things need to be done.
The FSF for example has a page where they ask for support in certain areas,
so, this looks rather urgent.
R seems not to have such urgent needs for support....

=> Question answered.

Ciao,
   Oliver



[Rd] Who does develop the R core and libs, and how / where is it hosted?
oliver