R devel - Apr 2003 - [ENH] Clarify rsync flavors (PR#2886)

The 1.7.0 (2003-04-16) "R Installation and Adminsistration"
manual mentions various flavors of R available from rsync (section
1.2, p. 1).  These are also referred to in various other sources on
and offline (e.g., the FAQ).

The meaning of r-release vs r-patched was not entirely clear to me.
How is the patched version patched?  Should it just have bug fixes,
and so likely be more reliable than r-release?  Or is it patched with
a lot of development changes, so that it's quite like r-devel?

It would be helpful to say a little more about these matters.

ross@biostat.ucsf.edu writes:
> The 1.7.0 (2003-04-16) "R Installation and Adminsistration"
> manual mentions various flavors of R available from rsync (section
> 1.2, p. 1).  These are also referred to in various other sources on
> and offline (e.g., the FAQ).
> 
> The meaning of r-release vs r-patched was not entirely clear to me.
> How is the patched version patched?  Should it just have bug fixes,
> and so likely be more reliable than r-release?  Or is it patched with
> a lot of development changes, so that it's quite like r-devel?
> 
> It would be helpful to say a little more about these matters.
It's basically bug fixes. It's somewhere on the road between x.y.z and
x.y.z+1 so glancing at the NEWS file might give you an idea of what
typically gets changed. The policy is quite conservative, bug fixes go
in if considered safe, but we do allow adding "obviously missing"
functionality to be added, and also some development in areas that
have been labeled "experimental". Of course, since they are not actual
releases, there is always some risk of a bad fix or catching the
repository in a half-updated state.

-- 
   O__  ---- Peter Dalgaard             Blegdamsvej 3  
  c/ /'_ --- Dept. of Biostatistics     2200 Cph. N   
 (*) \(*) -- University of Copenhagen   Denmark      Ph: (+45) 35327918
~~~~~~~~~~ - (p.dalgaard@biostat.ku.dk)             FAX: (+45) 35327907

ross@biostat.ucsf.edu writes:
> The 1.7.0 (2003-04-16) "R Installation and Adminsistration"
> manual mentions various flavors of R available from rsync (section
> 1.2, p. 1).  These are also referred to in various other sources on
> and offline (e.g., the FAQ).
> 
> The meaning of r-release vs r-patched was not entirely clear to me.
> How is the patched version patched?  Should it just have bug fixes,
> and so likely be more reliable than r-release?  Or is it patched with
> a lot of development changes, so that it's quite like r-devel?
R-patched = original sources plus bug-fix patches
R-devel = development sources that include bug-fix patches _and_ new
capabilities

We had rather hoped that our choice of names would make this
distinction clear.