Oce is an R package for processing oceanographic data. Its webpage provides details, of which this README file is just a sketch.

Stable versions of the package are normally installed from within R, in the same way as other packages. However, this version is only updated a few times a year (pursuant to CRAN policy), so many users will want to install the develop branch instead. This branch may be updated several times per day, as the author fixes bugs or adds features that are motivated by day-to-day usage. This is the branch favoured by users who need new features or would like to contribute to Oce development.

The easy way to install the develop branch is to execute the following commands in R.

library(devtools)
install_github('oce', 'dankelley', 'develop')

and most readers should also install Ocedata, with

install_github('ocedata', 'dankelley', 'master')

Oce is emphatically an open-source system, and so the participation of users is very important. This is why Git is used for version control of the Oce source code, and why GitHub is the host for that code. All users are invited to take part in the development process, by suggesting features, by reporting bugs, or just by watching as others do such things. Oceanography is a collaborative discipline, so it makes sense that the evolution of Oce be similarly collaborative.