[Rd] Proposal: 'global' package refactoring

[Duncan Murdoch]

On Mon, 24 Nov 2003 17:12:24 -0500, you wrote:


>I propose that from time to time the R community go through the complete set
>of packages and 'refactor' the functions and data sets into packages that
>have clearly defined goals. 

Package 'foreign' is currently such a multi-author common purpose
package.  One of the problems is that there isn't a single maintainer:
users who have problems with any of the functions write to all of the
authors for help.  All of the authors are still active, so this gets a
response, but I can see problems in some other package where an author
moves on and doesn't want to maintain the code.  

If that happens to a package then the package will disappear from
CRAN, once it stops passing tests in new releases.  If it's just a
function or two, what happens when it needs maintenance, or when it
gets orphaned?

Duncan Murdoch