categories for R packages

[Brook Milligan <brook%nmsu.edu@localhost>]

Some of you have noticed that I have committed a handful of R packages 
recently.  As per the current pkgsrc state-of-the-art, these all went into 
math.  It has been pointed out that perhaps some of these should have gone into 
other categories.  I know there is policy against moving package categories, 
but perhaps since none of these are yet in a release it would be an appropriate 
time to discuss.

There is, however, a larger issue: existing R packages already cover a much 
wider range of categories (e.g., at least biology, geography, www, etc.) than 
implied by them all being in math.  Thus, perhaps a broader policy discussion 
is relevant prior to the upcoming branch.  Here are the two alternative views 
as I see them:

- Other language-specific packages (e.g., perl and python) have packages 
scattered across categories so why should not R packages be organized along 
category lines?
  + Pros: consistency with pkgsrc organization generally
  + Cons: implementing this consistently requires moving existing R packages to 
new categories

- All R packages are now in math, why not keep that organization?
  + Pros: consistent with current organization of R packages, single place 
(e.g., math) to look for R packages
  + Cons: inconsistent with rest of pkgsrc, perhaps surprising not to find R 
packages in an expected category

Can we identify a consensus for how to handle the categorization of R packages 
that covers long-standing, newly committed and future ones?

Cheers,
Brook