[Rcpp-devel] Dependence on GNU make because of $(shell)

Dirk Eddelbuettel edd at debian.org
Wed Nov 17 05:02:53 CET 2010


On 16 November 2010 at 20:49, Dominick Samperi wrote:
| Isn't the use the name 'Rcpp' an import?
| You have simply taken my song and are singing it in your own way!

Boy this is getting so old.

You left the package name Rcpp in _February of 2006_ at _your own choosing_
when you (for no apparent reason) switched to using RcppTemplate. [1]

When the renaissance of what is now a striving Rcpp package started in
November 2008, your most recent package in this space was RcppTemplate
(rotting for at the time 24 months as it was).  You left Rcpp, we picked it
up.  There simply is no monopolizing of CRAN "package namespaces" esp when
there are no releases.  You had left.  Either way, nobody was blocking you in
doing work with RcppTemplate, you then chose to leave that too (twice, in
fact, in 2006 and again in 2009). By repeating this mantra of 'Rcpp was my
name' it doesn't become true. No other CRAN maintainer has naming monopolies
either. You had left the way for re-use by switching away.

Moreover, the intent always was to provide an option for users of Rcpp /
RcppTemplate -- who were left hanging dry.  As we were (and are) supporting
the (old) Rcpp API as well -- which had been abandonded at the time by you as
it now -- the name is quite appropriate.

And yes, you were then and are now credited in every release. And every
source file containing code that goes back to you. So enough already!

Lastly, for your repeated and still false claims that all our work is based
on yours (which we will continue to fight tooth and nail as one should with
outrageous lies such as this one which border on libel too): exactly where
did you write and publish all those features one now finds in Rcpp that were
neither in your Rcpp, nor in your RcppTemplate, nor in your current cxxPack ?
If you continue to claim that we took them from somewhere, can you show us
where from?

The fact of the matter is that there is some obviousness in how you call
accessor / transformer functions for proxy model classes (an idea going back
to 2001 at least and not one you can sanely claim as your idea either).  So
we ended up with function names as() and wrap() for templates and you say so
did you.  So what?  I think we also both ended calling the namespace 'Rcpp'
as that is the obvious choice.  What else would one call it?  WrigleyField?
AbbeyRoad?  Gee.

Unimpressed and bored by all this, Dirk
 

[1] http://cran.r-project.org/src/contrib/Archive/cxxPack/Ancestry/

-- 
Dirk Eddelbuettel | edd at debian.org | http://dirk.eddelbuettel.com


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