Write to the CRAN maintainers and let them know about the situation,
hopefully that would prevent archiving.
On 6/2/21 4:16 PM, Ben Staton wrote:
Hi Everyone, thank you all for your responses.
I agree that I can replicate the three functions within matrixcalc that I
need with ease, even without copying and pasting the original code found in
that package and thus not creating any licensing issues.
I have checked the CRAN incoming boards (here
<https://lockedata.github.io/cransays/articles/dashboard.html>), and they
actually have a new version of matrixcalc coming through so hopefully this
issue will be resolved without my intervention.
On a related note, suppose that this issue does not get resolved before the
archival date, and my package gets archived. What would be the path for me
to have CRAN remove it from the archived list? Is it basically (1) fix the
issue that caused initial archival and (2) resubmit?
Thank you,
Ben
On Wed, Jun 2, 2021 at 12:48 PM Spencer Graves <
spencer.gra...@effectivedefense.org> wrote:
The CRAN maintainers almost certainly have tried to contact the
maintainer. You can ask if he plans to fix the bug. If not, if it's
that easy to fix, you could offer to both the maintainers of both
matrixcalc and CRAN to take over maintenance.
Spencer
On 6/2/21 2:41 PM, Roy Mendelssohn - NOAA Federal via R-package-devel
wrote:
After looking up matrixcalc on CRAN, I would recommend contacting the
maintainer, who is listed as:
Frederick Novomestky <fnovomes at poly.edu>
The reason I say this is what is blowing up the package in the nightly
builds is a careless error in one Example:
> x <- matrix( c( 2, 4, 2, 1, 3, 1, 5, 2, 1, 2, 3, 3 ), nrow=4,
ncol=4, byrow=TRUE )
Error in matrix(c(2, 4, 2, 1, 3, 1, 5, 2, 1, 2, 3, 3), nrow = 4,
ncol = 4, :
data length differs from size of matrix: [12 != 4 x 4]
That should be pretty easy for the maintainer to fix and to resubmit.
-Roy
On Jun 2, 2021, at 10:36 AM, Ben Staton <stato...@gmail.com> wrote:
My package uses the MIT license, so would that not meet the
compatibility
requirements?
I will attempt to reach out to the package author - thanks for your
help!
On Wed, Jun 2, 2021 at 10:31 AM Ben Bolker <bbol...@gmail.com> wrote:
That all sounds exactly right.
GPL >= 2 allows you to use the material without asking permission as
long as your package is compatibly licensed (e.g. also GPL).
Under normal circumstances it would be polite to ask permission, but
if the reason for doing this is that the maintainer is unreachable in
the first place ...
If you want to try a little harder, it seems quite possible that you
can reach the matrixcalc maintainer at the (personal) e-mail address
shown in this page:
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10208324530363130&set=ecnf.1000413042
(Possibly an identity confusion, but I rate that as unlikely based
on
other facebook snooping)
I don't think a short, polite e-mail request would be out of bounds,
they can always ignore it or tell you to go away.
cheers
Ben Bolker
On 6/2/21 1:15 PM, Ben Staton wrote:
Hello,
Thank you for your detailed list of solutions.
I was initially tempted to go with option 1 (move matrixcalc to
suggests
and check for its existence before using functions that rely on it),
but
as
mentioned, this is not a long term fix.
I unfortunately can't take on the responsibilities of option 2
(becoming
the package maintainer) -- there is much that this package does that
I do
not understand, and do not wish to feign authority!
I plan to take option 3 (copy the needed functions into my package).
There
are only three functions I need from matrixcalc, and all three are
fairly
simple (is.square.matrix
<https://rdrr.io/cran/matrixcalc/src/R/is.square.matrix.R>,
is.symmetric.matrix
<https://rdrr.io/cran/matrixcalc/src/R/is.symmetric.matrix.R>, and
is.positive.definite
<https://rdrr.io/cran/matrixcalc/src/R/is.positive.definite.R>) and
there
is only one function in postpack that needs them. I plan to define
them
within the postpack function. matrixcalc is licensed under GPL >= 2
and
based on my scan of the license text, this is allowed. Is that
correct?
Regarding option 4 (contacting the matrixcalc maintainer), the
original
email from CRAN mentioned that they have attempted to contact the
package
author with no response.
Thank you!
On Wed, Jun 2, 2021 at 9:52 AM J C Nash <profjcn...@gmail.com> wrote:
I just downloaded the source matrixcalc package to see what it
contained.
The functions
I looked at seem fairly straightforward and the OP could likely
develop
equivalent features
in his own code, possibly avoiding a function call. Avoiding the
function
call means NAMESPACE etc. are not involved, so fewer places for
getting
into
trouble, assuming the inline code works properly.
JN
On 2021-06-02 12:37 p.m., Duncan Murdoch wrote:
On 02/06/2021 12:13 p.m., Ben Staton wrote:
Hello,
I received an email notice from CRAN indicating that my R package
('postpack') will be archived soon if I do not take any action and
I
want
to avoid that outcome. The issue is not caused by my package, but
instead a
package that my package depends on:
"... package 'matrixcalc' is now scheduled for archival on
2021-06-09,
and archiving this will necessitate also archiving its strong
reverse
dependencies."
Evidently, xyz has been returning errors on new R builds prompting
CRAN
to
list it as a package to be archived. My package, 'postpack' has
'matrixcalc' listed in the Imports field, which I assume is why I
received
this email.
I want to keep 'postpack' active and don't want it to be archived.
I
still
need package 'matrixcalc' for my package, but not for most
functions.
Could
I simply move package 'matrixcalc' to the Suggests list and submit
the
new
version to CRAN to remove the "Strong Reverse Dependency" issue
that
triggered this email to avoid CRAN from archiving my package?
That's part of one solution, but not the best solution.
If you move it to Suggests, you should make sure that your package
checks for it before every use, and falls back to
some other calculation if it is not present. Be aware that once it
is
archived, almost none of your users will have it
available, so this is kind of like dropping the functions that it
supports.
Another solution which would be great for the community might be for
you
to offer to take over as maintainer of
matrixcalc. Then you'd fix whatever problems it has, and you
wouldn't
need to worry about it. I haven't looked at the
issues so I don't know if this is feasible.
A third choice would be for you to copy the functions you need from
matrixcalc into your own package so you can drop the
dependency. This is generally legal under the licenses that CRAN
accepts, but you should check anyway.
A fourth choice would be for you to contact the matrixcalc
maintainer,
and help them to fix the issues so that
matrixcalc doesn't get archived. They may or may not be willing to
work
with you.
I'd say my third choice is the best choice in the short term, and
2nd
or
4th would be good long term solutions.
Duncan Murdoch
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**********************
"The contents of this message do not reflect any position of the U.S.
Government or NOAA."
**********************
Roy Mendelssohn
Supervisory Operations Research Analyst
NOAA/NMFS
Environmental Research Division
Southwest Fisheries Science Center
***Note new street address***
110 McAllister Way
Santa Cruz, CA 95060
Phone: (831)-420-3666
Fax: (831) 420-3980
e-mail: roy.mendelss...@noaa.gov www: https://www.pfeg.noaa.gov/
"Old age and treachery will overcome youth and skill."
"From those who have been given much, much will be expected"
"the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice"
-MLK Jr.
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