11 The INSTALL file

An INSTALL file does not have to be included with the package. An INSTALL file is utilized for specifying external system requirements needed. It should be used in combination with the SystemRequirements field of the Description file. This file should provide instructions for installing the external software on the 3 major OS that we support: Linux, Windows, and Mac. This will not only help your users get the external software on their machines, but it will also help us install it on the build machines if it’s not already there.

Specifying this requirement does not guarantee that Bioconductor will agree to install the external system requirement. It is encouraged to discuss any additional system requirements on the before development.

System requirements should never be exclusive to a particular version. Maintainers are expected to have their package work with whatever the current version of external software is available.

See also third party code