[Rd] [RFC] A case for freezing CRAN

[Joshua Ulrich]

On Wed, Mar 19, 2014 at 5:16 PM, Jeroen Ooms <jeroen.ooms at stat.ucla.edu> wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 19, 2014 at 2:59 PM, Joshua Ulrich <josh.m.ulrich at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> So implementation isn't a problem.  The problem is that you need a way
>> to force people not to be able to use different package versions than
>> what existed at the time of each R release.  I said this in my
>> previous email, but you removed and did not address it: "However, you
>> would need to find a way to actively _prevent_ people from installing
>> newer versions of packages with the stable R releases."  Frankly, I
>> would stop using CRAN if this policy were adopted.
>
> I am not proposing to "force" anything to anyone, those are your
> words. Please read the proposal more carefully before derailing the
> discussion. Below *verbatim* a section from the paper:
>
<snip>

Yes "force" is too strong a word.  You want a barrier (however small)
to prevent people from installing newer (or older) versions of
packages than those that correspond to a given R release.

I still think you're going to have a very hard time convincing CRAN
maintainers to take up your cause, even if you were to build support
for it.  Especially because there's nothing stopping anyone else from
doing it.

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