I personally would not link to rdocumentation. They update packages rather 
erratically and the information can be months or even years old, without any 
indication. The drop down list "Other versions" at the top of the package page 
is a misnomer, it should be "Older versions".

My main objection though is that, in my opinion, they blatantly disrespect the 
GPL license. Their pages are like a trap, with all their links 
pointing back to their site. They do not put even a link to CRAN, the place 
where they take the files from. Even the authors' names are linked them! The 
only way to ensure a prominent link to CRAN is to have a badge or link at the 
top of the README file, which they show. This is one of the reasons a put a 
CRAN badge at the top of my README file, even though it looks strange on CRAN. 

I alerted them about this a couple of years ago in their 'Comments' area but 
they did not respond. 


Georgi Boshnakov
 

-----Original Message-----
From: Spencer Graves [mailto:spencer.gra...@effectivedefense.org] 
Sent: 01 September 2019 20:19
To: Duncan Murdoch; Georgi Boshnakov; Jeff Newmiller; 
r-package-devel@r-project.org
Subject: Re: [R-pkg-devel] URL of a frame (or a vignette)?

       I just learned that finding the package on "rdocumentation.org", 
then clicking on the vignette I want at the end of the page, "bssm.Rmd", 
gave me a URL that is portable, at least for the moment:


https://www.rdocumentation.org/packages/bssm/versions/0.1.7/vignettes/bssm.Rmd


       This seems less likely to be trapped by CRAN checks unless it 
actually stops working ;-)


       Thanks to all who replied to my question.
       Spencer


On 2019-09-01 10:49, Duncan Murdoch wrote:
> On 01/09/2019 11:33 a.m., Spencer Graves wrote:
>>         What's the difference between
>>
>>
>> https://cran.r-project.org/package=bssm/vignettes/bssm.pdf
>>
>>
>>         and
>>
>>
>> https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/bssm/vignettes/bssm.pdf
>>
>>
>>         When I tried the former, it automatically changed to the latter.
>> Is the former considered to be more stable?
>
> CRAN puts this on every package page:
>
> "Please use the canonical form https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=xxxx 
> to link to this page."
>
> I think one of the checks will complain if it notices you give the 
> link in a different form.  I forget which URLs it checks.
>
> Duncan Murdoch
>

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