Please remove dependencies on **rgdal**, **rgeos**, and/or **maptools**

[rsbivand]

This package depends on (depends, imports or suggests) raster and one or more of the retiring packages rgdal, rgeos or maptools (https://r-spatial.org/r/2022/04/12/evolution.html, https://r-spatial.org/r/2022/12/14/evolution2.html). Since raster 3.6.3, all use of external FOSS library functionality has been transferred to terra, making the retiring packages very likely redundant. It would help greatly if you could remove dependencies on the retiring packages as soon as possible.

[rsbivand]

@jhollist See also https://r-spatial.org/r/2023/05/15/evolution4.html. Please take urgent steps to resolve this issue. No positive changes appear in the repository. Less than three months remain to retain this package on CRAN. Use of rgeos seems to be in R/internals.R, R/i.R, R/m.R, R/s.R, all of which can be handled by coercing to sf and back, and using sf functions. If you use ellipsoidal geometries, maybe turn off s2 to force use of GEOS.

[mdsumner]

maybe chill out? it could be archived and no babies will be eaten

why worry?

[rsbivand]

Maybe to avoid unnecessary churn on CRAN? I'll be looking at strong rev-dep counts on hold-outs next, and will give priority to hold-outs with higher counts so limiting archiving propagation. quickmapr has no rev-deps, but I guess could be used in EPA workflows.

[jhollist]

We are in the process on quickmapr. @geogugal has agreed to take over maintenance and we will be meeting in the coming weeks. First focus will be to deal with the rgdal/rgeos/maptools issues. I am optimistic that the changes will get made in time. Also thanks for the reminders, @rsbivand, they have helped.

[rsbivand]

@geogugal Less than three weeks remain to fix this. I can see progress in the repo, so please move to submission.

[geogugal]

@jhollist looks like we can move to submission 🚀

[rsbivand]

@geogugal @jhollist R spatial infrastructure packages maptools, rgdal and rgeos will be archived by CRAN on Monday, October 16, 2023. Your package does not pass CMD check when these packages are not available. Expect your package to be archived by CRAN October 17-18 as CRAN checks feed through and your package fails, if not updated by Monday, October 16, 2023.

No grace period is anticipated, as you have had sufficient time to update your package to remove dependencies on maptools, rgdal and/or rgeos. It remains the case that many packages importing the raster package needlessly depend on retiring packages, as raster stopped using them a year ago.