[Debian-med-packaging] We need a global decision about R data in binary format, and stick to it.

[Andreas Tille]

On Mon, Aug 05, 2013 at 05:44:16PM -0700, Don Armstrong wrote:
>  
> > My last question is, given the answers to the previous questions, what
> > do we do with the R packages that are already in the archive and also
> > contain data that is editable as is but do have an original source,
> > who will do it, and what is the timeline in case of inaction.
> 
> The package maintainer should handle it; in the case of inaction from
> upstream, the package maintainer can then either remove the data, split
> the package, move the package to non-free, or remove the package from
> Debian entirely. The timeline should be the standard one that is used
> for all RC bugs.
> 
> > In the current situation, that I describe as "active bitrotting", we
> > do not apply the same rules to the packages that enter the archive and
> > the packages that are already in, which cause the packages under
> > active development to become obsolete each time new dependancies can
> > not enter in Debian.
> 
> We actually do and should apply the same rules. Sometimes violations of
> the rules are missed for a while, though, and we have to come back and
> file bugs with severity serious to deal with the problem.

Just to provide the number and names of source packages in main/unstable
that are containing at least one *.rda file:

$ echo "deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ unstable main" > sources.list.main_sources_unstable
$ sudo apt-file --architecture source --sources-list sources.list.main_sources_unstable update
$ apt-file --architecture source --sources-list sources.list.main_sources_unstable search ".rda" | sed 's/: .*$//' | uniq
boot
car
cluster
dichromat
effects
erm
fportfolio
gdata
gplots
gtools
hmisc
lattice
latticeextra
lme4
lmtest
mcmcpack
mgcv
misc3d
multcomp
nlme
permute
r-base
r-bioc-biobase
r-cran-bayesm
r-cran-boolnet
r-cran-coda
r-cran-colorspace
r-cran-deal
r-cran-diagnosismed
r-cran-epi
r-cran-epicalc
r-cran-epitools
r-cran-evd
r-cran-genetics
r-cran-ggplot2
r-cran-gss
r-cran-mapdata
r-cran-maps
r-cran-mass
r-cran-plotrix
r-cran-plyr
r-cran-pscl
r-cran-psy
r-cran-randomforest
r-cran-reshape
r-cran-reshape2
r-cran-rocr
r-cran-sn
r-cran-sp
r-cran-teachingdemos
r-cran-timeseries
r-cran-vcd
r-cran-vegan
r-cran-vgam
r-other-bio3d
r-zoo
raschsampler
rggobi
rmatrix
robustbase
rpart
sandwich
sm
strucchange
survival
tseries
urca


These are 67 packages.  I have no numbers whether the *.rda files were
added in a later version than the one accepted by ftpmaster.
 
> > Currently, my take would be to move packages to non-free. This would
> > also allow us to ship the PDF documentation that we currently delete.
> 
> In these cases, we should split the package out into a non-free
> component and a free component.

I personally would agree with the ftpmaster policy used in the past to
accept these packages in main.
 
> I should note that I'm currently distributing via debian-r.debian.net a
> few hundred packages which probably have this particular problem too.

... in case you really regard this as "problem".

Kind regards

        Andreas. 

-- 
http://fam-tille.de