Today (2012-08-23) on CRAN [1]: "Currently, the CRAN package repository features 4001 available packages." These packages are maintained by approximately 2350 different folks. Previous milestones: 2011-05-12: 3,000 packages [1] 2009-10-04: 2,000 packages [2] 2007-04-12: 1,000 packages [3] 2004-10-01: 500 packages [4] 2003-04-01: 250 packages [4] [1] cran.r-project.org/web/packages [2] stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-devel/2009-October/055049.html [3] stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-devel/2007-April/045359.html [4] My private in-house data. [5] cran.r-project.org/web/checks/check_summary_by_maintainer.html /Henrik PS. This count includes only packages on CRAN. There are more packages elsewhere.
R-release: edd at max:~$ r -e 'AP <- available.packages(contrib.url("cran.r-project.org")); print(dim(AP)[1])' [1] 3988 edd at max:~$ R-devel (version as of a few days ago): edd at max:~$ ~/bin/Rscript-devel.sh -e 'AP <- available.packages(contrib.url("cran.r-project.org")); print(dim(AP)[1])' [1] 3988 edd at max:~$ There is a bug somewhere if another count gives 4001. Dirk -- Dirk Eddelbuettel | edd at debian.org | dirk.eddelbuettel.com