dependency on retiring spatial infrastructure packages

[rsbivand]

Email April 1:

oceanmap has strong dependence on at least one of rgdal, rgeos or
maptools, but does not seem to use any functionality in code. The usage
may have been in raster, which now uses terra instead, or may be in
examples or vignettes. Please move all use of rgdal, rgeos or
maptools to Suggests: and protect any use against these packages not
being present. The packages will be archived in October 2023. See
https://r-spatial.org/r/2022/04/12/evolution.html,
https://r-spatial.org/r/2022/12/14/evolution2.html and
https://rsbivand.github.io/csds_jan23/bivand_csds_ssg_230117.pdf and
perhaps view
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlpjIqTPMCA&list=PLzREt6r1NenmWEidssmLm-VO_
YmAh4pq9&index=1.

Please also see https://r-spatial.org/r/2023/04/10/evolution3.html, fix best by June, latest October 2023.

Removing maptools from DESCRIPTION and NAMESPACE, and the erroneous comment in plotmap.r leads to CMD check OK in a scenario using sp evolution status 2 (substitute use of rgdal with sf for projection/transformation/CRS) and absence of retiring packages from the library path:
00check.log

[rsbivand]

@rkbauer 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.

[rsbivand]

@rkbauer The new release does not remove the strong dependency on maptools, which will be archived from CRAN in a month's time. Please act now to remove the dependency completely, and also save other packages depending on yours.

[rsbivand]

@rkbauer Less than three weeks remain to fix this.

[rsbivand]

@rkbauer oceanmap still imports maptools - remove urgently or move to suggests and condition on all use.

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.