[BioC] MetaData packages online

[Gordon Smyth]

>Greetings all,
>
>The meta data packages are again available on www.bioconductor.org.
>
>All packages were rebuilt so that they will work properly when used on
>Windows.  This release contains data packages updated to public domain
>databases as of January 2005 and can be identified by a version number
>matching 1.7.x.

Thanks very much for this, but what has happened to the packages for the 
Mouse Genome 430 2.0 Array (aka "mouse4302" or "moe430_2"), which seem to 
have disappeared altogether?

>Still Missing
>=========
>
>The following packages are not yet available, but will be in the near
>future (next week):
>humanLLMappings
>mouseLLMappings
>ratLLMappings
>
>The release meta data repository
>==========================
>
>Browse the release repository here:
><http://www.bioconductor.org/data/metaData/html/>http://www.bioconductor.org/data/metaData/html/
>
>NOTE: Because we used the latest version of R to build the packages,
>you will see a warning message when installing these packages into the
>stable version of R.  Our testing did not uncover any problems using
>the packages with the stable version of R.  We plan to update the
>release meta data repository with packages built using R stable next
>week.
>
>The devel meta data repository
>========================
>
>Browse the devel repository here:
><http://www.bioconductor.org/data/metaData-devel/html/>http://www.bioconductor.org/data/metaData-devel/html/
>
>NOTE: At the present time, these packages are identical to those in the
>release repository.  As we add new meta data packages and update
>existing meta data packages, they will appear here first before moving
>to the release repository.

Now that the MetaData packages have forked into release and developmental 
versions, can you say a few words about this distinction will work? I 
understand that the developmental versions will be built for the 
developmental version of R, at least once R-devel is into alpha and beta 
versions. Is it the intention that the packages in the release MetaData 
repository will, in future, be aligned with the current Bioconductor 
release, i.e., the packages will be frozen at the time of the official 
release and that the release MetaData packages will change only once every 
six months? Or will they be updated more often, as at present, and simply 
built for the same version of R as the current Bioconductor release? Will 
there be a fixed length cycle for the MetaData developmental packages as 
for the functional packages?

Thanks
Gordon

>Thanks for your patience everyone.
>
>+ seth