Orphaned package etiquette

Question

I just-now noticed that a package I use has been "orphaned", meaning it no longer has an active maintainer. The reasons this can happen are (from this document):

1) The current maintainer actively wants to orphanize the package,
e.g., due to no longer having time or interest to act as package
maintainer.

2) Emails sent to the current maintainer by the CRAN admins bounced, or were not answered for longer periods of time.

The same document also reads (emphasis added):

Everybody is more than welcome to take over as maintainer of an orphaned package. Simply download the package sources, make changes if necessary (respecting original author and license!) and resubmit the package to CRAN with your name as maintainer in the DESCRIPTION file of the package.

I find this package useful, and would hate to see it archived because it fails R CMD CHECK in the future, so here are my questions:

• What is the general attitude towards assuming "maintainer" status of an orphaned package?

• What if reason (2) is the culprit, but the last maintainer still wants the responsibility and [insert hypothetical situation]?

• Are there any examples of this situation I can take a look at?

Answer 1

The first step is to contact the current maintainer and offer to help. Speaking from my own experience, package maintainers are grateful to know that there is at least one other person who values their work, and gladly accept offers to help maintain an ageing code base.

If you don't get a response from the current maintainer, then I suggest you assume the mantle and submit an updated version to CRAN. CRAN have policies for these events, and will still try to contact the previous maintainer.

In the unlikely event that the current maintainer doesn't want to co-operate, then you have the option of forking the package and create your own version.

Answer 2

Andrie's answer mentions contacting the current maintainer. While it is absolutely correct, it falls a bit short in that in many cases, the reason why the package is orphaned by CRAN is precisely due to a broken email address and nothing more. Therefore the lack of answer from the package maintainer is no proof at all that he is not interested in his package any longer. See all the BOUNCE (many .edu/.ac are disabled when the person changes institution) and NOREPLY (mailbox not checked any longer by the maintainer) lines in the list of orphaned packages.

Some comments hint towards this direction: you probably want to put more effort into contacting the previous maintainer than Andrie's answer suggests. I would suggest the following:

• Try to research for a new address or contact point on social networks (LinkedIn, ResearchGate, etc.), especially around R (R-help mailing list, or even SO / CrossValidated)
• In the case of an academic author, try to find a recent paper that could mention a new institution and give you a good starting point.
• There could be an other package maintained by the same person but with an other email address that is still working
• Collaborators (especially co-authors of the package) probably know how to contact the maintainer and will likely help you with that. In the case of sapa, you could have contacted Donald Percival. Had he not taken the maintainer role himself, (he now appears to be the maintainer of the package), it is most likely he would have given you up-to-date contact information, or contacted the old maintainer himself (and since the request comes from a "trusted" party, it would have been most likely to succeed). In other cases, co-authors from other papers can help you as well.

Only if all this fails should you proceed with becoming the maintainer yourself as described in Andrie's answer.

As an example, package of mine was orphaned in the past, because an old institutional email address was disabled some time after I left the university. I knew it would be disabled, but I totally failed to realize it would impact my package. I realized the package was orphaned as I was preparing to submit an update. Luckily enough, no one took it over during this period, but I would have hated it if someone had.

Email address changes are common in professional and academic environments, so keep in mind the maintainer is likely just not aware that his package has been orphaned.