Update to allow Compat = 3.0 in REQUIRE or, better, upgrade to Julia 1.0

[ablaom]

MLJ currently provides a wrapper for the LIBSVM.jl models. For reasons I don't yet understand (JuliaAI/MLJModels.jl#155) it appears a recent update of Compat to 3.0 is going to break this wrapper.

I wonder if there is any chance someone is interested in giving this package a little love. If not, MLJ may have discontinue support.

It is worth noting that MLJ also wraps the ScikitLearn SVM models (which, in turn, wrap the same C libraries wrapped here, I believe) so maybe this is not a great loss. Nevertheless, it would be nicer to skip the python layer.

@ValdarT @DilumAluthge @simonster @mpastell

[DilumAluthge]

@ablaom It does seem like this package is unmaintained.

Would you be interested in cloning this package, renaming it LIBSVM2, hosting it under Alan Turing Institute, and registering it?

I think it is easier to keep a package maintained when it is owned by a GitHub organization (instead of a personal user account).

[ablaom]

@DilumAluthge Thanks for that quick response.

Would you be interested in cloning this package, renaming it LIBSVM2, hosting it under Alan Turing Institute, and registering it?

Well, not really, as we don't presently have the resources to adopt external packages. And I don't see that we need to clutter General if the authors are happy to accept PRs from a willing volunteer (hint, hint 😄 )

@ValdarT wrote the MLJ wrap. Perhaps he is inerested in volunteering?

[DilumAluthge]

it appears a recent update of Compat to 3.0 is going to break this wrapper.

I actually think that we can remove Compat as a dependency of this package.

[DilumAluthge]

if the authors are happy to accept PRs from a willing volunteer

The issue unfortunately is that the author has not been responsive, see e.g. #47.

Besides @mpastell, I’m not sure who else has push access to this repo.

[DilumAluthge]

@ablaom LIBSVM now has the following:

[compat]
Compat = "2, 3"

[mpastell]

Sorry for taking so long with approving the pull request and thanks for letting me know via email. I would be happy to transfer the repo to an organisation to make maintenance easier. I do hope to find some more time to work on open source again next year...

[aviks]

A new version of LibSVM has just been tagged.