R help - Oct 2021 - I'd like to request that my R CRAN package is not tested on Solaris OS

Hi,

Just to add some additional comments that may be helpful.

1. The CRAN repository policy here:

   https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/policies.html

notes:

"Package authors should make all reasonable efforts to provide 
cross-platform portable code. Packages will not normally be accepted 
that do not run on at least two of the major R platforms. Cases for 
Windows-only packages will be considered, but CRAN may not be the most 
appropriate place to host them."

That would seem to infer that, with reasonable justification, one may be 
able to make a request of the CRAN maintainers to exclude at least one 
of the OS platforms from testing. A request that would be at the 
discretion of the CRAN maintainers and Solaris, in light of the low 
market prevalence, may be a more common exclusion as you have noted below.


2. If you wish to test your package on Solaris, in the absence of using 
a VM, there is a blog post here:

   https://blog.r-hub.io/2020/05/14/checking-your-r-package-on-solaris/

that you may find helpful.


Eric has suggested posting to r-package-devel, and I would agree in 
terms of a larger and focused R package development audience. Albeit, 
you would eventually need to make a direct request to the CRAN 
maintainers (CRAN at R-project.org) to exclude Solaris from testing.

You have specified a deadline below which is only 5 days away, and not 
likely a reasonable constraint, given the volunteer service nature of 
the folks that maintain CRAN. I would suggest that you contact them 
using the e-mail address above, without the deadline, and afford them 
the opportunity to reply to you with what may be reasonable next steps 
given the issues you face.

Regards,

Marc Schwartz



Eric Berger wrote on 10/22/21 9:01 AM:
> Hi Lampros,
> I cannot answer your question but I believe the correct place to post
> such a question would be the r-package-devel list
> 
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-package-devel
> 
> Good luck
> 
> 
> On Fri, Oct 22, 2021 at 2:13 PM lampros mouselimis
> <mouselimislampros at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Dear R-help team,
>>
>> I'm the maintainer of the textTinyR package. Currently the package
fails on
>> the Solaris Operating System (OS), you can see the results in the
following
>> weblink:
https://cran.r-project.org/web/checks/check_results_textTinyR.html
>>
>> All my packages are tested on Solaris OS automatically but I never
check my
>> R packages before submitting to CRAN on Solaris OS because I don't
have any
>> experience using it. I also won't be in place to fix this error
(even if I
>> utilize a Virtual Machine). Due to the fact that my package works on
Linux,
>> Windows and Macintosh (I can fix the errors in all these three OS
because I
>> have installations in my Computer) can I request to exclude the
textTinyR
>> package from the Solaris OS testing / CRAN checking (that means the
Solaris
>> test frameworks will not appear in the CRAN Package test results page)?
>> Moreover, whom should I send an e-mail to make this request?
>>
>> I processed the data of all current packages on CRAN
>>
<https://cran.r-project.org/web/checks/check_summary_by_package.html> and
>> there are 153 submitted packages that are not tested on Solaris (I
attach
>> the csv file of these packages in this e-mail), which means it's
possible
>> for a package to not be tested on this OS.
>>
>> I'd like an answer before the 27th October otherwise the package
will be
>> removed from CRAN.
>>
>> Thank you in advance and for your time,
>> Lampros Mouselimis

Just to add my personal cent to this:  I've had similar issues with an R
package some time ago, which kept crashing somewhat unpredictably in the Solaris
tests.

Debugging was hard because it only happened on Solaris, but in the end it turned
out to be due to serious bugs in the code that only happened to surface in the
Solaris tests.   I would think that it's likely to be the same for your
package, so the segfaults shouldn't be accepted too readily as a platform
quirk.

Best
SE

> On 22 Oct 2021, at 15:47, Marc Schwartz via R-help <r-help at
r-project.org> wrote:
> 
> 
> 1. The CRAN repository policy here:
> 
>  https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/policies.html
> 
> notes:
> 
> "Package authors should make all reasonable efforts to provide
cross-platform portable code. Packages will not normally be accepted that do not
run on at least two of the major R platforms. Cases for Windows-only packages
will be considered, but CRAN may not be the most appropriate place to host
them."
> 
> That would seem to infer that, with reasonable justification, one may be
able to make a request of the CRAN maintainers to exclude at least one of the OS
platforms from testing. A request that would be at the discretion of the CRAN
maintainers and Solaris, in light of the low market prevalence, may be a more
common exclusion as you have noted below.