[Rd] Can DESCRIPTION Maintainer: field contain general URL instead of only email address?

[Uwe Ligges]

William Dunlap wrote:
> Our firm would like to route support requests through
> a website instead of using email.  However R will refuse
> to install a package if DESCRIPTION's Maintainer field
> does not have a valid email adress or the special value
> "ORPHANED".  (The check is done with
> tools:::.valid_maintainer_field_regexp.)
> 
> I imagine a typical Maintainer line for the package "foo"
> might be something like
>    Maintainer: Amalgamated Widget's Support Team
> <http://support.amalgamatedwidgets.com/spackage?name=foo>
> 
> How much does the package system (or CRAN) depend on
> the Maintainer field being an email address?  I can imagine
> programs would find mailing to an address easier than
> dealing with a website, but humans would have a better experience
> with a well designed website.  Perhaps we could add an optional
> %s field to the website so a program could post a small message.

Bill,

as already pointed out by Christophe Dutang, there is the URL field.

CRAN maintainers rely on the e-mail address given in the package's 
Maintainer field, particularly to notify (partly automatically like I 
do) package maintainers if there packages are broken in a new version of 
R or because the packages they depend on changed.

Best wishes,
Uwe


> Bill Dunlap
> TIBCO Spotfire Inc.
> wdunlap tibco.com 
> 
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