eugene dalt [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > It seems to me that Insightful is very good at > protecting whatever they "create" and the same time > feels very comfortable taking R stuff to keep they > clients happy. In essence they are selling free stuff.
I must defend Insightful on this point. As an employee of Insightful, that's to be expected, but I've also been an author of free software since the earliest days when the term "free software" was in use ... but more on that, later. In no sense are we "taking R stuff" with these improvements in S-PLUS 8. Packages written for R will remain free, as they must. This isn't just because the license says so, but because we believe that an open-source community around packages that will run with both S-PLUS and R is a good thing. It's good for S-PLUS users, certainly: we've heard loud and clear from our users that they need a better way to package user-contributed libraries for S-PLUS, and they need access to the cutting-edge, quality statistical software available in the open-source world. But it's also good for the statistical computing community generally. In the open source spirit of "many eyes", the more people using and improving open source software, from both the S-PLUS and R communities (or, generally, the S community), the better. You say, "In essence they are selling free stuff." I say, au contraire. First of all, the distinction between "free-as-in-speech" and "free-as-in-beer" is important here, and it's the former context that is generally meant in reference to "free software". (For further background on this, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_as_in_beer and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libre_software.) As it happens, the free-as-in-speech packages we're porting to S-PLUS will also be available free-as-in-beer from an Insightful-hosted site. In fact, as part of the S-PLUS 8 project we've put significant investment into making free software available to a wider community. We put packages though the same test that CRAN does, and as we find and fix bugs in the porting process, we're contributing those back to the community as open-source. We're also planning to provide an new package for both S-PLUS and R, as a further contribution to the community. Personally, I'm very excited about this new role for Insightful as a member of the open-source community. Ultimately, it's only through our actions that our sincerity will be judged. All I ask is that those actions are be characterized faithfully. # David -- David M Smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Senior Product Manager, Insightful Corp, Seattle WA Tel: +1 (206) 802 2360 Fax: +1 (206) 283 6310 Insightful Corporation (www.insightful.com) provides analytical solutions for text and data using S-PLUS, Insightful Miner, InFact and consulting services. ______________________________________________ R-help@stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide! http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html