[R-pkg-devel] Change package name

[Tim Salabim]

I second Dirk's suggestion to address this issue directly to CRAN. I had
one of my packages changed once from "Reot" to "remote" (which enables
calculation of empirical orthogonal teleconnections as introduced by van
den Dool 2000) and had to present some convincing arguments to do so (in
quite a long email conversation). The point that finally convinced CRAN in
my case was that a reviewer of the complementing publication about the
package in jss requested that name change as Reot could easily be
misinterpreted as rotated eot, analogous to EOF and rotated EOF. And jss
apparently has the policy to only publish papers about packages available
from CRAN.

So, as Dirk said, it is possible to convince CRAN, but you need good
arguments.

Best
Tim

On Tue, Jun 20, 2023, 18:00 Dirk Eddelbuettel <edd using debian.org> wrote:

>
> Hi William,
>
> On 20 June 2023 at 16:06, William Becker wrote:
> | I am the maintainer of a package which is unfortunately involved in a
> complicated dispute regarding its intellectual property (since the package
> was partly built under a contract with an organisation), but also the
> "branding" of the package, i.e. the name.
> |
> | The story is long and complicated, but suffice to say that the name of
> the package is apparently creating a misleading connection with the
> organisation, and this is causing difficulties on both sides.
> |
> | I am aware that changing the name of a package is very disruptive, and I
> am not considering it lightly. However just for information at this stage,
> I wonder if anyone could tell me whether packages have ever changed names
> on CRAN, what the rules are in these cases, and if there is any advice for
> minimising the disruption.
> |
> | To reiterate, I am not (yet) planning to do this, but exploring options
> and looking for advice.
>
> You presented the reasoning convincingly and are aware of the general "we
> would rather not do this" sentiment. Ultimately, this (as so often) is
> CRAN's
> call so you have to do that (directly and not via this list).  My sense is
> that you have a case but only CRAN can tell.
>
> Good luck,  Dirk
>
> --
> dirk.eddelbuettel.com | @eddelbuettel | edd using debian.org
>
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