I don't think this is off-topic, in the sense that it is the contribution of
the developers of the multitude of packages available that has led to the
success of R. How packages are maintained, forked, etc., is an important
issue. I should say that I am not a developer, only a user appreciative of
the tremendous effort it takes to develop and maintain packages. In the
past, however, when I have inquired about developing a BioConductor package
for R, I was told that should I do so I should commit to maintain the
package. It seems to me, again as a matter of courtesy and cooperation, that
should someone wish to make substantive changes to a package that someone
else is maintaining, then they should do so in concert with the package
maintainer. If the package is "orphaned", however, then the story would be
different. If the original developer/maintainer is still active and does not
agree with suggested changes, then a fork, with a different name would be
the wisest course of action.

I am not taking sides here, I have no idea which of my hypothetical
scenarios might have in reality taken place with this particular package. I
just wanted to say that I think the issue is important, that good
communication is important, and that there are some basic principals that
seem reasonable to uphold should we wish the R community to continue to be
developer friendly.

Mark

Mark W. Kimpel MD  ** Neuroinformatics ** Dept. of Psychiatry
Indiana University School of Medicine

15032 Hunter Court, Westfield, IN  46074

(317) 490-5129 Work, & Mobile & VoiceMail
(317) 399-1219 Skype No Voicemail please


On Wed, Dec 23, 2009 at 12:32 AM, Jeff Ryan <jeff.a.ryan@gmail.com> wrote:

> This is fantastically off-topic, and has nothing to do with *R*.
>
> Out of "courtesy" to this list, the subscribers, and future readers,
> please take this off-list where it belongs.
>
> Jeff
>
> On Tue, Dec 22, 2009 at 11:27 PM, Dominick Samperi
> <djsamperi@earthlink.net> wrote:
> > Stavros Macrakis wrote:
> >>
> >> That said, as a matter of courtesy and clarity, I'd think that a fork
> >> should use a different name.
> >
> > Yes, the point is that this is not a legal or technical matter, it is a
> > matter of professional courtesy.
> >
> > I take this as one vote for the name change.
> >
> > On US copyright law, this should not be confused with "copyright" notices
> > that appear in GPL
> > source code. Remember that these are really "copyleft" notices, and
> copyleft
> > is designed to
> > protect the rights of copiers, not original contributors. My concern
> about
> > the copyright notice
> > should be viewed in the same spirit as the name change (professional
> > courtesy).
> >
> > Since GPL is largely silent on these issues I have asked the R community
> to
> > vote...
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Dominick
> >
> > ______________________________________________
> > R-devel@r-project.org mailing list
> > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Jeffrey Ryan
> jeffrey.ryan@insightalgo.com
>
> ia: insight algorithmics
> www.insightalgo.com
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-devel@r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
>

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