Main Inclusion Report for r-base

Requirements

1. Availability: http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/universe/r/r-base; available for all supported architectures.

2. Rationale:

   • r-base adds backend support for R in the new KDE Education module package, Cantor
   • r-base is a build dependency of the Cantor package which is part of the kdeedu module in KDE 4.

3. Security:

   • CVE entries: 0 results

   • Secunia history: 0 results

   • Any binaries running as root or suid/sgid ? Any daemons ? No

   • Network activity: does it open any port ? Does it handle incoming network data ? No

   • Does it directly (not through a library) process binary (video, audio, etc) or structured (PDF, etc) data ? No

   • Any source code review performed ? No

4. Quality assurance:

   • In what situations does the package not work out of the box without configuration ? None

   • Does the package ask any debconf questions higher than priority 'medium' ? No

   • Debian bugs: 0 bugs, all listed on bug page are resolved

   • Maintenance in Debian is calm but steady

   • Upstream is calm but steady

   • Upstream bug tracker: None

   • Hardware: Does this package deal with hardware and if so how exotic is it? No

   • Is there a test suite in the upstream source or packaging? Yes Is it enabled to run in the build? ??

5. UI standards:

   • User-visible strings are internationalized using standard gettext system? Yes

   • Package with translatable strings builds a PO template during package build? Yes

   • End-user applications ship a desktop file? No

6. Standards compliance:

   • FHS, Debian Policy compliance? Yes

   • Packaging system (debhelper/cdbs/dbs) ? Patch system ? Any packaging oddities ? debhelper | simple-patchsys | none

7. Dependencies:

   • gcc (>= 4:4.1.0), g++ (>= 4:4.1.0), gfortran (>= 4:4.1.0), libblas-dev, liblapack-dev (>= 3.1.1), tcl8.5-dev, tk8.5-dev, bison, groff-base, libncurses5-dev, libreadline-dev, debhelper (>= 7.2.3), texi2html, texinfo (>= 4.1-2), libbz2-dev, libpcre3-dev, xdg-utils, zlib1g-dev, libpng12-dev, libjpeg62-dev, libx11-dev, libxt-dev, x11proto-core-dev, libpango1.0-dev, libcairo2-dev, libtiff4-dev, xvfb, xauth, xfonts-base, texlive-base, texlive-latex-base, texlive-generic-recommended, texlive-fonts-recommended, texlive-extra-utils, texlive-latex-recommended, texlive-latex-extra, texinfo, texi2html, openjdk-6-jdk [!arm !hppa !kfreebsd-i386 !kfreebsd-amd64 !hurd-i386]

   • Are these all in main ? Yes

8. Maintenance:

   • How much maintenance is this package likely to need ? Advanced package, however it is well maintained in both Debian and Ubuntu by Dirk Eddelbuettel

   • Who is responsible for monitoring the quality of this package and fixing its bugs ? Are they Ubuntu or Debian developers ? Dirk Eddelbuettel - Debian Developer

   • Who is the package bug contact in Ubuntu? Nobody - MOTU Science is notified of reports at this time

9. Background information:

   • The general purpose and context of the package should be clear from the package's debian/control file. If it isn't then please explain.

   •  R is a system for statistical computation and graphics.  It consists
      of a language plus a run-time environment with graphics, a debugger,
      access to certain system functions, and the ability to run programs
      stored in script files.
      .
      The design of R has been heavily influenced by two existing languages:
      Becker, Chambers & Wilks' S and Sussman's Scheme.  Whereas the
      resulting language is very similar in appearance to S, the underlying
      implementation and semantics are derived from Scheme.
      .
      The core of R is an interpreted computer language which allows
      branching and looping as well as modular programming using functions.
      Most of the user-visible functions in R are written in R.  It is
      possible for the user to interface to procedures written in the
      C, C++, or FORTRAN languages for efficiency, and many of R's core
      functions do so.  The R distribution contains functionality for a
      large number of statistical procedures and underlying applied math
      computations.  There is also a large set of functions which provide
      a flexible graphical environment for creating various kinds of data
      presentations.
      .
      Additionally, over thousand extension "packages" are available from
      CRAN, the Comprehensive R Archive Network, many also as Debian packages,
      named 'r-cran-<name>'.
      .
      This package is a metapackage which eases the transition from the
      pre-1.5.0 package setup with its larger r-base package. Once installed, it
      can be safely removed and apt-get will automatically upgrade its components
      during future upgrades.  Providing this packages gives a way to users to
      then only install r-base-core (but not, say, r-base-latex) if they so desire.

   • What do upstream call this software ? Has it had different names in the past ? R, no different names

10. Internationalization:

    • Are graphical applications translatable? Do they support gettext? Yes

Reviewers

MIR bug: https://launchpad.net/bugs/497158

Author: Richard Johnson (nixternal)