The hidden costs of GPL software?

[...] (sorry, this is long mail, and I want to comment only details)
By the way, if there were 
something I could wish for here it would be a slightly 
broader set of Tk widgets to be included with the Tcl/Tk that 
installs with R for Windows, since using widgets outside of 
this set creates installation obstacles for lower-level users.

Then, take a look at the tcltk2 package in the SciViews bundle (probably, in
the next version, I will take it out of the bundle). You have there tile
(themable widgets with notebook tabs, progress bar, and many more... and
very soon combo boxes and lists/trees). You have also the famous tkTable,
and a separate combobox and a tree, and a support for tooltips everywhere...
Just propose if you need more! All this runs under Windows, but I still got
problems to compile it under other platforms.

I doubt that many list 
members would look favourably on the statistical-methods 
"decision tree" in MicrOsiris, for example. One solution is 
to include PDF "manuals" with packages. I've done this, for 
example, with my effects and Rcmdr packages.
The introductory manual supplied with Thomas Lumley's survey 
package is another, similar example. Maybe there's a better 
way of integrating such non-vignette manuals with the help 
system -- something like help(manual=package).

I tend to have the same opinion than John (although I thing that both a good
manual, and a better online help could be beneficial): a PDF manual is much
more readable than a wiki! Why not to propose PDF manuals in the \doc
section of CRAN which have a GNU Free Documentation License
(http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), so that the manual could be
progressively enhanced by many authors?

Best,

Philippe Grosjean