[R-pkg-devel] Two packages with the same name

[Peter Carbonetto]

Thanks, Dirk and Uwe, for your helpful replies.

I have learned from this situation that there is some risk involved in
depending on a package that is not available in CRAN or on Bioconductor.

Peter

On Mon, Nov 28, 2022 at 1:18 PM Uwe Ligges <ligges using statistik.tu-dortmund.de>
wrote:

>
>
> On 28.11.2022 19:36, Dirk Eddelbuettel wrote:
> >
> > On 28 November 2022 at 12:15, Peter Carbonetto wrote:
> > | I maintain the mashr R package (
> https://cran.r-project.org/package=mashr),
> > | which has been on CRAN a little over 2 years. The mashr package
> depends on
> > | another package, flashr, which is available from an external repository
> > | (via *Additional_repositories*).
> > |
> > | Very recently, we have found ourselves in the awkward situation that
> there
> > | are now two flashr packages:
> > |
> > | https://cran.r-project.org/package=flashr
> > |
> > | (mashr is listed as one of the reverse dependencies of this package,
> which
> > | is incorrect.)
> > |
> > | Does anyone have any suggestions for how to navigate this awkward
> > | situation? The problem needs to be fixed by Dec 7 otherwise mashr will
> be
> > | taken off CRAN. On the other hand, the new "flashr" seems like a nice
> > | package, and I don't see any reason why it shouldn't exist on CRAN.
> >
> > Yikes. My tendency would be to work with what is under your control and
> have
> > your 'flashr' package renamed in its 'additional repository'. Also keep
> the
> > existing one (for existing users), and new one (say, 'flashr2' or any
> other
> > name, maybe even 'flashr4mashr'), upload to the 'additional repository'
> and
> > then update 'mashr'.
> >
> > As far as CRAN is concerned, there is really only one 'flashr'.
>
> Indeed, and CRAN makes sure that a new package does not take a name from
> CRAN nor BioC, which are what we call mainstream repositories.
> In order to prevent what happened, choose a rather unique name - and
> perhaps consider to submit that to CRAN, too.
>
> We see "flashr" and similar names are also used in other projects, so
> one more point for a new name.
>
> Best,
> Uwe Ligges
>
> > Hth,  Dirk
> >
>

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