[R-pkg-devel] new maintainer for CRAN package XML

[Uwe Ligges]

On 24.01.2024 15:59, Jeroen Ooms wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 22, 2024 at 3:51 PM Uwe Ligges
> <ligges using statistik.tu-dortmund.de> wrote:
>>
>> Dear package developers,
>>
>> the CRAN team (and Professor Ripley in particular) has been the defacto
>> maintainer of CRAN package 'XML'.
>> Our hope was that maintainers of packages depending on XML will migrate
>> to other packages for reading XML structures. This has not happened and
>> we still see dozens of strong dependencies on XML.
> 
> How is this hope communicated? Many R users assume that XML package is
> in great shape and the preferable choice because it is maintained by
> the CRAN team and r-core members.
> 
> Perhaps one could follow the precedent from the rgdal retirement, and
> set a deadline.
> 
> One way to communicate this effectively would be by introducing a
> formal deprecation field in the package description. This could then
> be displayed on the XML CRAN html page, and when loading the package
> interactively. Other packages that import such a deprecated package
> could be given a CMD check warning.

Sure, the new maintainer may do all these things.

Best,
Uwe Ligges