Collaborative Software Development Using R-Forge

Theußl, Stefan and Zeileis, Achim (2008) Collaborative Software Development Using R-Forge. Research Report Series / Department of Statistics and Mathematics, 81. Department of Statistics and Mathematics, WU Vienna University of Economics and Business, Vienna.

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Abstract

Open source software (OSS) is typically created in a decentralized self-organizing process by a community of developers having the same or similar interests. A key factor for the success of OSS over the last two decades is the internet: Developers who rarely meet face-to-face can employ new means of communication, both for rapidly writing and deploying software. Therefore, many tools emerged that assist a collaborative software development process, including in particular tools for source code management (SCM) and version control. In the R world, SCM is not a new idea, in fact, the R Development Core Team has always been using SCM tools for the R sources; first by means of Concurrent Versions System (CVS), and then via Subversion (SVN). A central repository is hosted by ETH Zürich mainly for managing the development of the base R system. Mailing lists like R-help, R-devel and many others are currently the main communication channels in the R community. Also beyond the base system, many R contributors employ SCM tools for managing their R packages, e.g., via web-based SVN repositories like SourceForge (http://SourceForge.net/) or Google Code (http://Code.Google.com/). However, there has been no central SCM repository providing services suited to the specific needs of R package developers. Since early 2007, the R-project offers such a central platform to the R community. R-Forge (http://R-Forge.R-project.org/) provides a set of tools for source code management and various web-based features. It aims to provide a platform for collaborative development of R packages, R-related software or further projects.

Item Type:	Paper
Keywords:	open-source software / R-Forge / source code management / Subversion / SVN / version control
Divisions:	Departments > Finance, Accounting and Statistics > Statistics and Mathematics
Depositing User:	Repository Administrator
Date Deposited:	22 Dec 2008 13:10
Last Modified:	22 Oct 2019 00:41
URI:	https://epub.wu.ac.at/id/eprint/222

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