Could you please share a link to the NY Times article? Is it about OSS
in general or specific to R?
Thanks
Michael
Michael Bibo wrote:
Daniel Viar dan.viar at gmail.com writes:
I currently use R at work under the radar, but there's a chance I
could loose that access. I'd like to get our company to feel
comfortable with open source and R in particular. Does anyone have
any experience with their company's IT department and management that
they would be willing to share? How does one get an all Microsoft
shop on board with allowing users to user R? I know about the recent
NY Times article and recent news. I'm afraid I may need some case
studies or examples of what other companies have done.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Dan Viar
Chesapeake, VA
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Just my opinions from my own experience...
Don't talk to just anyone in your IT department, but try to identify someone
who a) has some authority/decision-making power; and b) is likely to be
somewhat OSS knowledgable/tolerant/keen.
Go through proper procedures. In my organisation, there is a specific
process
for approval of software. I filled in appropriate forms and provided
supporting documentation such as:
http://www.r-project.org/doc/R-FDA.pdf
copy of the GPL and references such as http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?
story=2008081313212422
R installation and administration manual
NY Times article
I also made futher points about the extensive use of R in peer-reviewed
journals such as JSS, and the superiority of the email help list and archives
over the support offered for most proprietary products (with specific
examples).
Most of this is to make it abundantly clear that you are talking about a
quality, open-source product, not some small piece of freeware developed by
an
individual.
I have found two main types of IT concerns. Firstly, they are appropriately
concerned about licensing issues. You need to reinforce that, though free,
it
is licensed - under the GPL. Secondly, they may have concerns simply because
it is not the existing/approved/supported norm in your organisation. I have
found that it is important here to make it clear that you will not be
expecting them to 'support' the software in the sense of helping you learn to
use it (which is often the case for office-type software and its users in
organisations).
And if all else fails, and your organisation's policies refer to 'installing'
software, you can always run it portably, even from an external drive (at
least in a Windows environment).
Ultimately, though, I think the thing that helped most to convince our IT
department to let me try R was when they themselves had the nightmare of
dealing with the licensing and accounts division of a certain well-known
statistical package proprietor.
Michael Bibo
Queensland Health
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