14  Relation to other networks

14.1 Relation to other networks

Packages on R-universe may also also exist on other networks, such as CRAN or BioConductor.

Note that CRAN is not meant to be the only CRAN-style package repository, as explained by CRAN co-founder Kurt Hornik in his useR! 2024 keynote.

14.2 Can we use r-universe to host older versions of CRAN packages?

This is possible, but be careful that it may not work as you expect. R’s install.packages() and update.packages() will always install the latest version of a package it can find in any of the available repos. So the package may automatically get updated to the CRAN version on the end-user machine.

14.3 Can we use r-universe to host a fork of a CRAN package?

This is possible but generally a bad idea. Your package may automatically get overwritten by the CRAN version of the package the next time the user runs install.packages() or update.packages(). Also note that other packages may depend on this package, and might not be compatible with your fork.