Windows versus Unix packages in CRAN (Was Re: [R] Rmetrics)

[Ajay Shah]

> Rmetrics - New Version is available for R 1.9 !!

> in R-binary and R-source form from the site "http://www.rmetrics.org",
> and install the binary "zip" files in the usual way via the menu

I'm confused - does the fact that you are only distributing ".zip"
files means that (shudder) I need Microsoft Windows in order to run
this? (I hunted on the website but you seemed to only have .zip
files. That's very odd; normally on Unix we don't ship .zip files).

More generally: Do all R packages automatically run on Unix, or are we
fragmenting the CRAN code base into Unix and non-Unix packages? One of
my reasons for shifting to R was that it felt like a system that was
built by Unix people (roots in Bell Labs etc.). So it will have a
function like sink() as a nice counterpart to a function like source()
:-)

Ox, for example, has nice functionality but it felt like it was done
by Windows guys, so it wasn't going to be useful to me, and I kept
away.

If R packages are actually in two (intersecting) sets : those that run
on Unix and those that run on Windows, then do we need a CRAN/Unix and
CRAN/M$ directories to distinguish them? It will avoid a lot of wasted
time... e.g. I blew half an hour on investigating Rmetrics before
deciding they're a Windows crowd.

-- 
Ajay Shah                                                   Consultant
ajayshah at mayin.org                      Department of Economic Affairs
http://www.mayin.org/ajayshah           Ministry of Finance, New Delhi