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

[Martin Maechler]

>>>>> Valentin Todorov 
>>>>>     on Thu, 5 Mar 2020 19:07:19 +0100 writes:

    > Dear Martin, The most interesting functionality in
    > 'robust', that I see, is the possibility to compare
    > visually two or more different models.  And maybe some
    > people are used to and prefer the interface of
    > 'robust'. Or some data sets.

    > I rebuilt it and can take over the maintenance for the
    > next "couple of years" as you said.

To close this thread:

In the mean time, Valentin Todorov, has already become the new
maintainer of 'robust'.

With many thanks to him -- and to everyone else who mentioned
what they found important in package 'robust' and not easily
available in other places:

Best,
Martin 


    > And no, rrcovNA is not archived, see
    > https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/rrcovNA/index.html

    > Best regards, Valentin


    > On Thu, 5 Mar 2020 at 17:20, Martin Maechler
    > <maechler using stat.math.ethz.ch> wrote:

    >> >>>>> 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
    >>