Why is TMB with symbolic analysis not distributed via CRAN?

[Zeb Burke-Conte]

I've installed TMB with symbolic analysis capabilities, as has been discussed elsewhere, e.g. https://groups.google.com/g/tmb-users/c/X7chWaXur_s/m/TU-NAnBkAAAJ

However, I also want to run my models in a restricted environment where I need to request package installations (can't do them myself). As part of that process I've been asked why the version with symbolic analysis is not distributed on CRAN, and I don't know the answer -- why is that? Perhaps SuiteSparse or Metis do not have compatible licenses?

It would be great for other reasons to have an easier way to install TMB with symbolic analysis, since currently I have to document this as a manual part of environment setup.

Thanks,

Zeb Burke-Conte (he/him)

Researcher

Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation

University of Washington

[Kasper Kristensen]

There used to be a license issue, however it's been sorted out recently in the Matrix package (thanks to Mikael Jagan, Matrix package developer). From Matrix version 1.7.0, the METIS orderings are automatically applied, and you no longer need a special installation of TMB. The TMB function TMB::runSymbolicAnalysis will become obsolete.

This new Matrix version doesn't seem to be on CRAN yet, but you can get it by:

install.packages("Matrix", repos = "http://R-Forge.R-project.org")

[Zeb Burke-Conte]

Great, thank you so much! Would you be open to a pull request to document this?

[Zeb Burke-Conte]

For posterity: Matrix 1.7-0 will require R 4.4, which is why it's not currently published on CRAN. When 4.4 is released, it will include updated Matrix. At least, that is my understanding based on this: https://r-forge.r-project.org/tracker/?func=detail&atid=294&aid=6844&group_id=61