For those of you who want to learn more about the history of the R project: There will be an invited lecture by John Fox and Kurt Hornik at this year's useR! conference in Dortmund in August (...unfortunately a bit too late for Kathy) about "The Past, Present, and Future of the R Project" see
http://www.R-project.org/useR-2008/ The talk will be a double feature with John focusing on "Social Organization of the R Project" and Kurt on "Development in the R Project". The core ingredients of the two parts will be - interviews that John has conducted with the R-core members (and a few other R developers), - development of CRAN, DSC, R News, R Foundation, useR!, R-Forge, ... BTW: Registration for useR! is possible online at the URL mentioned above. Sorry for the shameless plug ;-) Z On Fri, 15 Feb 2008, John Sorkin wrote: > Kathy. > A suggestion. As you gather your information about the history, I > suggest you put fingers to keyboard and write down the history. You > could start with the material Douglas just sent to you. Perhaps we can > convince the R folks to place the history on the CRAN website - perhaps > in WIKI format so our founding fathers, and mothers, can add to the > history. I certainly would be nice to be able to give credit to the may > people who have selflessly contributed their time, effort, and expertise > to the R project!. > John > > John Sorkin M.D., Ph.D. > Chief, Biostatistics and Informatics > University of Maryland School of Medicine Division of Gerontology > Baltimore VA Medical Center > 10 North Greene Street > GRECC (BT/18/GR) > Baltimore, MD 21201-1524 > (Phone) 410-605-7119 > (Fax) 410-605-7913 (Please call phone number above prior to faxing) > > >>> "Douglas Bates" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 2/15/2008 4:23 PM >>> > On Fri, Feb 15, 2008 at 1:53 PM, Kathy Gerber <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Earlier today I sent a question to Frank Harrell as an R developer with > > whom I am most familiar. He suggested also that I put my questions to > > the list for additional responses. Next month I'll be giving a talk on > > R as an example of high quality open source software. I think there is > > much to learn from R as a high quality extensible product that (at least > > as far as I can tell) has never been "spun" or "hyped" like so many open > > source fads. > > > The question that intrigues me the most is why is R as an open source > > project is so incredibly successful and other projects, say for example, > > Octave don't enjoy that level of success? > > First and foremost there is the incredible generosity of Ross Ihaka > and Robert Gentleman who, after spending an enormous amount of time > and effort in development of the initial implementation, did not > demand exclusive ownership of their work but allowed others to make > changes. I believe Martin Maechler was the first non-Auckland person > to get write access to the source code repository and I'm sure that > the good experience of working at a distance with Martin persuaded R & > R to open it up to others. Martin is polite, considerate, meticulous > and precise (he is a German-speaking Swiss so meticulous and precise > kind of comes with the territory) and you couldn't ask for a first > experience in sharing something that is very valuable to you with > someone whom you may never have met in person. > > Not everyone has been that pleasant to work with. One of the first > things that I did when I joined R-core was to blow up at Kurt and > Fritz about something - on Christmas Eve! I surprised the group > didn't boot me out after that start. > > When a project is gaining momentum the personalities of the initial > developers have a big influence on its success. The R project has > been fortunate in that regard. > > > I have some ideas of course, but I would really like to know your > > thoughts when you look at R from such a vantage point. > > > Thanks. > > Kathy Gerber > > University of Virginia > > ITC - Research Computing Support > > > > ______________________________________________ > > R-help@r-project.org mailing list > > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > > PLEASE do read the posting guide > > http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html > > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. > > > > ______________________________________________ > R-help@r-project.org mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. > > Confidentiality Statement: > This email message, including any attachments, is for th...{{dropped:6}} > > ______________________________________________ > R-help@r-project.org mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. > > ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
