[RsR] New maintainer? Package 'robust' (original S+ "Library 'robust') orphaned on CRAN

[Martin Maechler]

>>>>> Valentin Todorov 
>>>>>     on Fri, 28 Feb 2020 22:31:21 +0100 writes:

    > Dear Martin,
    > I was thinking of this since Kjell
    > abandoned the package, but I was not sure to what extent would this be
    > necessary - most of the functionality of 'robust' we already moved to
    > 'robustbase' and/or 'rrcov', therefore it suggests/imports these packages.
    > Let us see in the next days what still remains there and is valuable and
    > decide what to do.

    > Best regards,
    > Valentin

Thank you, Valentin.

I had similar thoughts a long time ago, I think prompted
indepedently by  Kjell  and Doug Martin ...

I vaguely remember I found that there have been things in
'Robust' which looked valuable and notably good to have for
comparison reasons,
*but* that were a lot work to "tear out" of the robust package
(including the necessary underlying Fortran code, but *not*
 taking all the Fortran code that would *not* be needed ...).

In the mean time the CRAN team has archived the package
'robust', and  I must adapt the 'Robustness' CRAN task view
considerably (and remove the 'Suggests: robust'  from my
robustbase package.

I'd be grateful for help and suggestions in still trying
'salvage' valuable resources out of 'robust'.

BTW:  Why has  rrcovNA  be archived?

Best,
Martin


    > On Fri, 28 Feb 2020, 11:03 am Martin Maechler, <maechler using stat.math.ethz.ch>
    > wrote:

    >> Dear R Robustniks,
    >> 
    >> as I am the maintainer of package 'robustbase' and am submitting
    >> a new version of it to CRAN,
    >> it came to my knowledge that package 'robust' (= the original
    >> S-plus "Library 'robust', then released to CRAN, maintained by
    >> Kjell Konis for time) has been orphaned on CRAN relatively
    >> recently.
    >> As I have 'robust' among the 'Suggests: ' entries of "my"
    >> package 'robustbase' I now get a  NOTE   about suggesting an
    >> orphaned package.
    >> I've been formally a co-author of that package (togeth
    >> 
    >> I personally would think it to be a loss for the "robustnik
    >> community" if this package would not remain easily available
    >> (notably on Windows, also the Mac where most people cannot
    >> install package from the source but are used to install the
    >> binary built package from CRAN).
    >> 
    >> Are some you willing and capable to become the maintainer of
    >> 'robust' (with the perspective to do this for a couple of years)?
    >> 
    >> Best,
    >> Martin