The stub packages ctest eda lqs mle modreg mva nls stepfun ts will be removed from the R-devel sources during the next week. They are already special-cased in library() and are no longer installed. This does affect the many package maintainers who have declared a dependence on one of those packages in the Depends: field of their DESCRIPTION file -- such packages now fail R CMD check under a fresh installation of R-devel. As the standard packages (base tools utils graphics stats methods grid splines stats4 tcltk) are guaranteed to be available in every R installation, it is not necessary to include them in the Depends: field. However, it is a good idea to require() them (or import their namespace), and often necessary. Please look over the Depends: field in your packages and check it is still appropriate. An incomplete list of failing packages is NISTnls PHYLOGR Rcmdr bim car cclust clim.pact dse e1071 exactRankTests forward fpc gbm grasper maptree mscalib multidim mvnormtest pastecs pcurve pear pgam sgeostat simpleboot spatstat splancs tseries vcd -- Brian D. Ripley, ripley@stats.ox.ac.uk Professor of Applied Statistics, http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/ University of Oxford, Tel: +44 1865 272861 (self) 1 South Parks Road, +44 1865 272866 (PA) Oxford OX1 3TG, UK Fax: +44 1865 272595