-----Original Message-----
From: r-help-bounces at stat.math.ethz.ch
[mailto:r-help-bounces at stat.math.ethz.ch] On Behalf Of Spencer Graves
Sent: Wednesday, November 17, 2004 7:22 PM
To: Berton Gunter
Cc: r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch; 'Patrick Burns'; 'Philippe Grosjean'
Subject: Re: [R] The hidden costs of GPL software?
I agree with Bert. Thanks to all who contributed. I'd like to
add one comment I didn't see in the thread so far:
The corporate legal where I work is deathly afraid of the GNU
General Public License (GPL), because if we touch GPL software
inappropriately with our commercial software, our copyrights are
replaced by the GPL. This in turn means we can't charge royalties,
which means we can't repay the investors who covered our initial
development costs, and we file for bankruptcy. The rabid capitalists
meet the rabid socialists and walk away, shaking their heads.
(Sec. 2.b
of the GPL: "You must cause any work that you distribute or publish,
that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the
Program or any
part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third
parties under the terms of this License." We can get around this by
packaging accesses to GPL software as separately installed add-on(s),
because then only the add-on(s) would be covered by the GPL.) Our
corporate legal is more concerned about a possible law suit from a
possible competitor than from the R Foundation, but the
threat is still
real and still being adjudicated in other cases.
If the GPL were not so tight on this point, someone could
commercialize a GUI for R without having to offer their source code
under the GPL.
However, even without this change, R seems to be the
platform of
choice for new statistical algorithm development by a growing
portion of
the international scientific community. Moreover, from my experience
with this listserve, the technical support here is far superior to
anything I've experienced with any other software in the 40+
years since
I wrote my first Fortran code.
Best Wishes,
spencer graves
Berton Gunter wrote:
All:
I have much enjoyed the discussion. Thanks to all who have
Two quick comments:
1. The problem of designing a GUI to make R's functionality more
accessible is, I believe just one component of the larger issue of
making statistical/data analysis functionality available to
need to use it but do not have sufficient understanding and
to do so properly. I certainly include myself in this
circumstances. A willingness and commitment to learning ( =
is the only rational solution here, and saying that one doesn't have
the time really doesn't cut it for me. Ditto for R language
functionality?
2. However, R has many attractive features for data manipulation and
graphics that make it attractive for common tasks that are now done
most frequently with (ugh!) Excel (NOT Statistica, Systat, et. al.).
For this subset of R's functionality a GUI would be attractive.
However, writing a good GUI for graphing that even begins to take
advantage of R's flexibility and power in this arena is an
perhaps an impossible -- task. Witness the S-Plus graphics
think is truly awful (and appears to thwart more than it helps, at
least from many of the queries one sees on that news list).
sanguine.
Again, thanks to all for a thoughful and enjoyable discussion.
-- Bert Gunter
Genentech Non-Clinical Statistics
South San Francisco, CA
"The business of the statistician is to catalyze the scientific
learning process." - George E. P. Box
-----Original Message-----
From: r-help-bounces at stat.math.ethz.ch
[mailto:r-help-bounces at stat.math.ethz.ch] On Behalf Of Patrick Burns
Sent: Wednesday, November 17, 2004 6:28 AM
To: Jan P. Smit
Cc: r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch; Philippe Grosjean;
r-sig-gui at stat.math.ethz.ch
Subject: Re: [R] The hidden costs of GPL software?
I'm a big advocate -- perhaps even fanatic -- of making R
novices in order to spread its use, but I'm not convinced
(at least in the traditional form) is the most valuable approach.
Perhaps an overly harsh summary of some of Ted Harding's statements
is: You can make a truck easier to get into by taking off the
wheels, but
that doesn't make it more useful.
In terms of GUIs, I think what R should focus on is the
ability for user's
to make their own specialized GUI. So that a knowledgeable
at an installation can create a system that is easy for
unsophisticated
users for the limited number of tasks that are to be done.
The ultimate
users may not even need to know that R exists.
I think Ted Harding was on the mark when he said that it
system that needs enhancement. I can imagine a system that
user to the right function and then helps fill in the
of the time pointing them towards the command line rather than away
from it.
The author of the referenced article highlighted some hidden
costs of R,
but did not highlight the hidden benefits (because they were
hidden from
him). A big benefit of R is all of the bugs that aren't in
it (which may or
may not be due to its free status).
Patrick Burns
Burns Statistics
patrick at burns-stat.com
+44 (0)20 8525 0696
http://www.burns-stat.com
(home of S Poetry and "A Guide for the Unwilling S User")
Jan P. Smit wrote:
Best regards,
Jan Smit
Philippe Grosjean wrote:
Hello,
In the latest 'Scientific Computing World' magazine (issue 78, p.
22), there
is a review on free statistical software by Felix Grant ("doesn't
have to
pay good money to obtain good statistics software"). As far as I
know, this
is the first time that R is even mentioned in this
that it
usually discuss commercial products.