Re: [R] How do I get my IT department to bless R?
Many thanks to everyone that posted replies to this thread. I used some of the ideas from this thread and other sources to put together a case for R and I just received formal approval from our IT department today. In case this can be useful to anyone in the future, here's a summary of what was submitted (by the way, I love the slides found at http://www.matthewckeller.com/Lecture1.ppt, the Harry Potter stuff is brilliant): Thanks again to everyone! Dan Viar Chesapeake, VA - (head of IT name removed), Based on our conversation yesterday, below is some documentation that might be useful in trying to evaluate the risk that R might pose. I also contacted one of the company's that is trying to be a Red Hat for R and his response is included below. The salient points: · R is the de-facto standard for statistical computing and (for example) appears in peer reviewed journals of Statistics · R is a quality open-source product, not some small piece of freeware developed by an individual oFor example there are currently over 19 individuals responsible for the maintaining the source (see: http://www.r-project.org/contributors.html). These individuals are arguably some of the most talented in the field of Statistical Computing. · R is licensed under the GPL (e.g. see http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=2008081313212422) · R requires no more support from IT than a similar stat package (e.g. SAS). In other words, we may want to put R on our desktops (it doesn't write to the registry) or have it installed on a server like Bugsy but R would not generate calls to the help desk (unlike something like Excel). · Anecdotal evidence suggest that the technical support offered by the R community (through forums, email lists, etc…) is comparable if not better than that provided by commercial products. For instance, we have been evaluating various commercial packages (SAS, SPSS, S-Plus) and so far have had better responses to getting technical questions answers on the R-help list than through the help desks of company's trying to sell us their software. As another example, last night I posted How do I get my IT department to 'bless' R and so far I have received 12 replies. · R benefits from external innovation that makes it able to have quick reaction time to new statistical ideas. It is not uncommon for a cutting edge statistical technique to appear first in R and then make its way into a commercial package. R was recently featured in the NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/07/technology/business-computing/07program.html According to the article Companies as diverse as Google, Pfizer, Merck, Bank of America, the InterContinental Hotels Group and Shell use it. I recently came across the following links that show that some commercial products like SAS and SPSS are providing functionality so that their programs can call R (as a selling point). Here's a link to some SAS marketing: http://support.sas.com/rnd/app/studio/Rinterface2.html From that site: R is a leading language for developing new statistical methods, said Bob Rodriguez, Senior Director of Statistical Development at SAS. Our new PhD developers learned R in their graduate programs and are quite versed in it. It's open source software, and many add-on packages for R have emerged, providing statisticians with convenient access to new research. Many new statistical methods are first programmed in R. While SAS is committed to providing the new statistical methodologies that the marketplace demands and will deliver new work more quickly with a recent decoupling of the analytical product releases from Base SAS, a commercial software vendor can only put out new work so fast. And never as fast as a professor and a grad student writing an academic implementation of brand-new methodology. This sounds like a pretty strong endorsement for R, from one of its commercial competitors. I also found the following link which is a Power Point presentation explaining why we would be interested in R (nice if you like Harry Potter). It does a good job of show casing the differences between SAS, SPSS, and R. http://www.matthewckeller.com/Lecture1.ppt Let me know if there is something formally that I need to do (forms to fill out, process, etc…). Thanks, Dan R: Regulatory Compliance and Validation Issues A Guidance Document for the Use of R in Regulated Clinical Trial Environments http://www.r-project.org/doc/R-FDA.pdf R installation and administration manual http://cran.r-project.org/doc/manuals/R-admin.pdf http://www.r-project.org/ http://www.revolution-computing.com/ From Colin Magee [co...@revolution-computing.com]: Hi Dan - Well, we'd love to talk to your Head of IT/ Manager about this.
Re: [R] How do I get my IT department to bless R?
Rolf:
I'm in the odd position of having run the modest IT department at my
lab for five years, which (when I took it over) included my small
statistics team, since split out. So I'm a gamekeeper turned poacher.
Stavros wasn't wrong; these are all genuine issues for an IT manager. I
can think of a couple of others, too.
But the difference between a mere tyrant and a good IT manager (who may
be a tyrant as well) is that the latter treats them as issues to be
resolved if necessary, and the former as excuses to justify an
entrenched position.
A point that is probably worth making; if you're an IT manager and two
or more packages can apparently do a user's job well, you would
certainly see the _user_ as a tyrant if they insisted dogmatically on
one over the other. There are probably R tyrants out there somewhere
too.
Steve E
Rolf Turner r.tur...@auckland.ac.nz 02/02/2009 20:14
I would just like to say that in my very humble opinion Stavros's
reply was utter nonsense. It was the sort of excuse-making favoured
by tyrants since time immemorial.
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Re: [R] How do I get my IT department to bless R?
I know on the website there are some pretty reputable sponsors of the software who at some stage donated some (presumably significant) amount of money out of thankfulness because some project worked and the software helped in some way. In order to push however the use of that software, might it not be just simply possible to start producing a List of corporate projects where the software was used with someone in the hierarchy saying: 1. It helped the project (we managed to reduce the complexity, it was more stable, flexible, ...) 2. We saved costs 3. The project actually was worth doing and wasn't just pasttime of an employee who just hasn't realized that he is in a company now, and not messing around at Uni Maybe also include cases where it didn't work 1. Key personel left the project, nobody to pick up the left stuff 2. Found out that it was the wrong tool (missing features, too complex, ...) And the moment one has a list including a couple of cases, ideally also a case similar to the stuff one wants to do, one can move onwards in ones own company: 'Our competitor / customer / great admired idol is doing it, why don't we ?' Chances are that such a list already has been started somewhere, it just hasn't been linked properly. -- View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/How-do-I-get-my-IT-department-to-%22bless%22-R--tp21739359p21856976.html Sent from the R help mailing list archive at Nabble.com. __ 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.
Re: [R] How do I get my IT department to bless R?
Stavros Macrakis wrote: Perhaps rather than globally saying it is utter nonsense you would care to refute what you think is wrong about it? -s PS Tyrants? Wow, we are really dramatizing life at work now that was so much in the style of '/Windoze Sucks!!!' /[1] wants to show off, but no courage to be concrete. vQ [1] http://www.math.unb.ca/~rolf/ On Mon, Feb 2, 2009 at 3:14 PM, Rolf Turner r.tur...@auckland.ac.nz wrote: On 2/02/2009, at 4:29 PM, Murray Cooper wrote: I was about to post a similar reply. Stavros's reply was very eloquent and should be taken to heart! I would just like to say that in my very humble opinion Stavros's reply was utter nonsense. It was the sort of excuse-making favoured by tyrants since time immemorial. cheers, Rolf Turner __ 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.
Re: [R] How do I get my IT department to bless R?
Stavros Macrakis wrote: Condescendingly assuming that the IT department is run by idiots whose decisions are ruled by emotional attachments (as one correspondent suggested), or that they are irrationally prejudiced against free/open source, and that it is obvious and irrefutable that you know better than them (as was implied by some correspondents), may make you feel better, but probably won't help much. I assume that I am that one correspondent. My longer post above was one-sided to drive a point. I suspect everyone here is a logically-leaning sort, who has more than once fallen into the trap of thinking that if you just present a logical argument, your interlocutor will have no choice but to come over to your side of the issue. This can work, but it's not all that common. A likelier path to success includes an element of emotional jujutsu. Something I neglected to touch on above is that we should also be aware of our own emotional tie-ups. Most of those of us here *like* R, and not entirely for rational reasons. Perhaps you enjoy the aesthetics of the language; maybe you think the default graph types look especially nice; maybe you think free software is the only ethical sort; maybe some of the people here are friends of yours. If someone tells us R is no good, those emotions can turn on us, and you get a typical ugly advocacy battle. On the other hand, our feelings about R and its community can give us a reason to develop and pursue an emotionally forceful argument, which can win the day where a purely rational one wouldn't. It takes a certain amount of charisma or backing force for this to work; emotion again. It also won't help much if you don't explain clearly and calmly *why* exactly you need to use R for your work. Certainly. Just don't rely wholly on rational reasons. Don't forget that you are trying to change a human organization, and that this is much harder than swapping two columns in an R matrix. Some companies will be more careful, wanting to vet any software that can open a TCP connection (which most non-trivial software systems, including both Excel and R, can). Well, yes, I suppose I can't argue that there are probably some companies that do actually do this. I can't prove otherwise. What is obvious from just with a quick look-around, though, is that the vast majority of organizations don't. If they did, it wouldn't have taken a decade to get from ActiveX to UAC. Even if the IT department *is* behaving irrationally, responding irrationally yourself probably won't help your cause. I never said you should pursue the cause irrationally. I just said you should never forget that those you're trying to convince are never wholly rational. (A wholly rational human being is actually a pretty scary thing, so thankfully rare.) If you pursue your campaign thinking your audience will respond to your questions with T's and F's, the only way you can succeed is if they were inclined to support you regardless. Otherwise, you are lost. By the way, another reading suggestion I kicked myself for leaving out: http://www.issurvivor.com/ http://weblog.infoworld.com/lewis/ Want to know how IT management thinks and how to work with them to effect change? Read Bob's blog and InfoWorld column. Some selections that are particularly on-point here: http://www.weblog.keepthejointrunning.com/wordpress/?p=1594 http://www.weblog.keepthejointrunning.com/wordpress/?p=1603 http://www.weblog.keepthejointrunning.com/wordpress/?p=1623 http://www.weblog.keepthejointrunning.com/wordpress/?p=2552 http://www.weblog.keepthejointrunning.com/wordpress/?p=2691 __ 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.
Re: [R] How do I get my IT department to bless R?
There has already been good discussion on this topic, but here are a couple of other things to think about: 1. is it your job to convince your IT department, or is it your job to convince your boss, and your boss's job to convince/dictate to the IT department (getting your boss on your side could be easier and very beneficial (or not depending on the boss)). 2. Why not do a simple cost analysis comparing what you do now using R compared to what it will cost if you do not use R, be honest in all the costs, but include how optional pieces will affect your productivity. I would start with a cost for a single license of S-PLUS (most similar to R out there), then include the annual license fee for S-PLUS. Do you only use R on your single work computer? Or do you use it at home/laptop/other computers? Include the cost for the additional licenses, or how your work would be impacted by only being able to use it when sitting at the one computer. Next, what packages do you use in R that are not available in S-PLUS currently? How often do you use them and for what? Include this information in the cost analysis, because any tools not available will either limit your productivity, take time for you to learn an alternative, or will require time/money for someone to convert them to work with S-PLUS (either you estimate your time needed, IT (how much time would it take them to get up to speed enough to do the conversion), or hiring an outside programmer (cost?)). List those things out with details, costs (needed and optional), and the effects of having or not having optional pieces. Also include discussions on the concerns that Stavros has mentioned (and any other that your IT department is likely to have). Present all of that to your boss and he/she may just become your advocate for blessing R (saving money can be more of a motivation than parts of the workflow that you see as important, but they don't understand). 3. Being a Microsoft shop, do they allow you to use MSExcel?, would they allow you to install a plug-in for Excel? (An interface and full R implementation are available as a plugin, this could be a back door for installing R that does not need a policy change). Hope this helps, -- Gregory (Greg) L. Snow Ph.D. Statistical Data Center Intermountain Healthcare greg.s...@imail.org 801.408.8111 -Original Message- From: r-help-boun...@r-project.org [mailto:r-help-boun...@r- project.org] On Behalf Of Daniel Viar Sent: Thursday, January 29, 2009 3:29 PM To: r-help@r-project.org Subject: [R] How do I get my IT department to bless R? 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 __ 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.
Re: [R] How do I get my IT department to bless R?
I won't burden the list with copies of earlier posts -- all of us have experienced the frustration of dealing with folk who want to make their life easier by making ours difficult. However, I have noted that a few folk are starting to change attitudes. I was hired to give a training session last June to a fairly large unit in the Canadian government that realized a mix of Excel and SAS and SPSS and ... were leading to an unmaintainable mess of small applications needed to handle the information needed for core responsibilities. When an employee leaves a large spreadsheet that contains the analytic and prediction model, it is generally a VERY big job to maintain. The boss of the unit realized that small R scripts could do a lot of the work and that dataframes and spreadsheets are relatively easy to interchange if one avoids fancy features. Thus it was feasible to use spreadsheets for data entry -- reducing training costs and I don't know R etc., though with some risks -- and have some youngish new hires write the scripts to do the analysis and reports that were needed every few days. If the folk involved are reading this, I'll apologize in advance for over-simplifying. The central theme here is economic, in that it is making life easier for all. John Nash __ 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.
Re: [R] How do I get my IT department to bless R?
On 2/02/2009, at 4:29 PM, Murray Cooper wrote:
I was about to post a similar reply.
Stavros's reply was very eloquent and should be taken to heart!
I would just like to say that in my very humble opinion Stavros's
reply was utter nonsense. It was the sort of excuse-making favoured
by tyrants since time immemorial.
cheers,
Rolf Turner
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Re: [R] How do I get my IT department to bless R?
Perhaps rather than globally saying it is utter nonsense you would care to refute what you think is wrong about it? -s PS Tyrants? Wow, we are really dramatizing life at work now On Mon, Feb 2, 2009 at 3:14 PM, Rolf Turner r.tur...@auckland.ac.nz wrote: On 2/02/2009, at 4:29 PM, Murray Cooper wrote: I was about to post a similar reply. Stavros's reply was very eloquent and should be taken to heart! I would just like to say that in my very humble opinion Stavros's reply was utter nonsense. It was the sort of excuse-making favoured by tyrants since time immemorial. cheers, Rolf Turner __ 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.
Re: [R] How do I get my IT department to bless R?
Rolf Turner wrote: On 2/02/2009, at 4:29 PM, Murray Cooper wrote: I was about to post a similar reply. Stavros's reply was very eloquent and should be taken to heart! I would just like to say that in my very humble opinion Stavros's reply was utter nonsense. It was the sort of excuse-making favoured by tyrants since time immemorial. the troll has been fed. imho, your responses are more often than not patronizing puffery from a narcissistic self-admirer. following your posts, virtually anyone who's not on the r team is an idiot. sigh. vQ __ 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.
Re: [R] How do I get my IT department to bless R?
On 3/02/2009, at 9:59 AM, Wacek Kusnierczyk wrote:
Rolf Turner wrote:
On 2/02/2009, at 4:29 PM, Murray Cooper wrote:
I was about to post a similar reply.
Stavros's reply was very eloquent and should be taken to heart!
I would just like to say that in my very humble opinion Stavros's
reply was utter nonsense. It was the sort of excuse-making favoured
by tyrants since time immemorial.
the troll has been fed. imho, your responses are more often than not
patronizing puffery from a narcissistic self-admirer. following your
posts, virtually anyone who's not on the r team is an idiot. sigh.
I shall not feed the troll any further.
cheers,
Rolf Turner
##
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Re: [R] How do I get my IT department to bless R?
It's just not that easy. A friend of mine at a large company whose name rhymes with Maytheon spent over 3 months trying to get approval from IT for a commercial database tool. IT departments tend to be empire-building fools, and extraordinarily paranoid to boot. At my parent company, whose name looks something like Gorthrup Numman, they have an entire IT Division whose goal in life seems to be to make computer life hell for everyone else. When they say Office2007 that's what every NGC employee gets no matter what. Anyone who has the temerity to run updates (even OS or Office) downloads on their own risks the threat of termination. I'm not kidding. So, this is rather OT for an R discussion group, but I wanted to add credence to the others who've been posting horror stories about the rules inside corporations. I have to say I can't figure out how the IT dept's havent' noticed that lots of these same employees WRITE software, and could easily do far more damage (intentional or not) to the network than a few updates or open-source packages ever could Carl quote Neil Shephard nshephard_at_gmail.com What alternative do they expect you to use? If they expect you to use Excel for statistics then its worth letting them know that this would be a very bad idea as there are many short-comings, some of which I've referenced at.. http://slack.ser.man.ac.uk/progs/stata/avoid_excel.html __ 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.
Re: [R] How do I get my IT department to bless R?
One of the benefits of the current global economic crisis is that some organizations facing financial difficulties are considering options that were not unmentionable only 6 months ago. Spencer Graves Carl Witthoft wrote: It's just not that easy. A friend of mine at a large company whose name rhymes with Maytheon spent over 3 months trying to get approval from IT for a commercial database tool. IT departments tend to be empire-building fools, and extraordinarily paranoid to boot. At my parent company, whose name looks something like Gorthrup Numman, they have an entire IT Division whose goal in life seems to be to make computer life hell for everyone else. When they say Office2007 that's what every NGC employee gets no matter what. Anyone who has the temerity to run updates (even OS or Office) downloads on their own risks the threat of termination. I'm not kidding. So, this is rather OT for an R discussion group, but I wanted to add credence to the others who've been posting horror stories about the rules inside corporations. I have to say I can't figure out how the IT dept's havent' noticed that lots of these same employees WRITE software, and could easily do far more damage (intentional or not) to the network than a few updates or open-source packages ever could Carl quote Neil Shephard nshephard_at_gmail.com What alternative do they expect you to use? If they expect you to use Excel for statistics then its worth letting them know that this would be a very bad idea as there are many short-comings, some of which I've referenced at.. http://slack.ser.man.ac.uk/progs/stata/avoid_excel.html __ 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.
Re: [R] How do I get my IT department to bless R?
Though there are certainly some *ir*rational reasons for IT departments' behavior, there are also many rational reasons that IT departments try to control the software running in their organizations. Condescendingly assuming that the IT department is run by idiots whose decisions are ruled by emotional attachments (as one correspondent suggested), or that they are irrationally prejudiced against free/open source, and that it is obvious and irrefutable that you know better than them (as was implied by some correspondents), may make you feel better, but probably won't help much. It also won't help much if you don't explain clearly and calmly *why* exactly you need to use R for your work. You can use many kinds of arguments, including technical (functionality, efficiency, capacity), economic (no license fees), scientific-community (widely used in the statistics community), and so on. It *will* help to think a bit about some of the concerns that the IT department may have. Many of these concerns apply both to free/open software and to commercial software: 1) Security. They probably don't want you to install software which risks exposing company data to the outside world either intentionally or unintentionally. For example, they probably don't want you to run code that mirrors your disk drive on an external server, even if it claims to be secured cryptographically etc. Some companies will be more careful, wanting to vet any software that can open a TCP connection (which most non-trivial software systems, including both Excel and R, can). 2) Protection against malware (also a security issue). Some software which appears innocuous may contain a variety of malware. I'm pretty sure that R+CRAN is free of malware, but I don't know what measures are taken to ensure that. 3) Support and maintenance. Not only do they not want to be in a situation where they're asked to support software they don't know, they certainly don't want to be responsible for bad *interactions* between your add-on software and the standard software. 4) Licensing. Besides the question of proper use of commercial licenses, some licenses (notably GPL) have contagion clauses which affect other software which is linked to them. Though this doesn't affect the vast majority of users of R (because they neither modify R nor redistribute it), your company's legal department will probably want to know what's going on. 5) Interoperability, maintainability, and continuity. What happens when the user of a particular non-supported software package leaves the company or takes a vacation? Who is going to take over the work he was doing? If s/he's developed programs/scripts on a non-standard infrastructure to solve business problems, do the solutions leave as soon as he's out of the building? Even if the IT department *is* behaving irrationally, responding irrationally yourself probably won't help your cause. -s __ 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.
Re: [R] How do I get my IT department to bless R?
I was about to post a similar reply. Stavros's reply was very eloquent and should be taken to heart! Murray M Cooper, Ph.D. Richland Statistics 9800 N 24th St Richland, MI, USA 49083 Mail: richs...@earthlink.net - Original Message - From: Stavros Macrakis macra...@alum.mit.edu To: r-help@r-project.org Sent: Sunday, February 01, 2009 6:11 PM Subject: Re: [R] How do I get my IT department to bless R? Though there are certainly some *ir*rational reasons for IT departments' behavior, there are also many rational reasons that IT departments try to control the software running in their organizations. Condescendingly assuming that the IT department is run by idiots whose decisions are ruled by emotional attachments (as one correspondent suggested), or that they are irrationally prejudiced against free/open source, and that it is obvious and irrefutable that you know better than them (as was implied by some correspondents), may make you feel better, but probably won't help much. It also won't help much if you don't explain clearly and calmly *why* exactly you need to use R for your work. You can use many kinds of arguments, including technical (functionality, efficiency, capacity), economic (no license fees), scientific-community (widely used in the statistics community), and so on. It *will* help to think a bit about some of the concerns that the IT department may have. Many of these concerns apply both to free/open software and to commercial software: 1) Security. They probably don't want you to install software which risks exposing company data to the outside world either intentionally or unintentionally. For example, they probably don't want you to run code that mirrors your disk drive on an external server, even if it claims to be secured cryptographically etc. Some companies will be more careful, wanting to vet any software that can open a TCP connection (which most non-trivial software systems, including both Excel and R, can). 2) Protection against malware (also a security issue). Some software which appears innocuous may contain a variety of malware. I'm pretty sure that R+CRAN is free of malware, but I don't know what measures are taken to ensure that. 3) Support and maintenance. Not only do they not want to be in a situation where they're asked to support software they don't know, they certainly don't want to be responsible for bad *interactions* between your add-on software and the standard software. 4) Licensing. Besides the question of proper use of commercial licenses, some licenses (notably GPL) have contagion clauses which affect other software which is linked to them. Though this doesn't affect the vast majority of users of R (because they neither modify R nor redistribute it), your company's legal department will probably want to know what's going on. 5) Interoperability, maintainability, and continuity. What happens when the user of a particular non-supported software package leaves the company or takes a vacation? Who is going to take over the work he was doing? If s/he's developed programs/scripts on a non-standard infrastructure to solve business problems, do the solutions leave as soon as he's out of the building? Even if the IT department *is* behaving irrationally, responding irrationally yourself probably won't help your cause. -s __ 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.
Re: [R] How do I get my IT department to bless R?
2009/1/29 Daniel Viar dan.v...@gmail.com: How does one get an all Microsoft shop on board with allowing users to user R? An 'all Microsoft shop' is what exactly? There is nothing on your PC that isn't from Microsoft? That makes me think that you're either going to be forced to do your statistics in Excel or you're going to have to write everything from scratch in MS Visual Basic/C#/ASP/Bandwagon-of-the-month Language. $Deity have mercy upon your soul. MS don't make anything even *remotely* like R, and if your IT dept don't see that then get them fixed or fired. Now the argument between R and other proprietary stats packages (SPSS, SAS, Stata) is something completely different. But if the powers that be won't allow non-MS software, then those options are as closed off as R is to you. Barry __ 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.
Re: [R] How do I get my IT department to bless R?
Daniel Viar wrote: 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. What alternative do they expect you to use? If they expect you to use Excel for statistics then its worth letting them know that this would be a very bad idea as there are many short-comings, some of which I've referenced at.. http://slack.ser.man.ac.uk/progs/stata/avoid_excel.html Neil -- View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/How-do-I-get-my-IT-department-to-%22bless%22-R--tp21739359p21746356.html Sent from the R help mailing list archive at Nabble.com. __ 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.
Re: [R] How do I get my IT department to bless R?
On 1/30/09, Warren Young war...@etr-usa.com wrote: Could you please share a link to the NY Times article? http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/07/technology/business-computing/07program.html Also do not miss the follow-up blog from the author, plus the the related comments [1]. Liviu [1] http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/08/r-you-ready-for-r/ . -- Do you know how to read? http://www.alienetworks.com/srtest.cfm Do you know how to write? http://garbl.home.comcast.net/~garbl/stylemanual/e.htm#e-mail __ 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.
Re: [R] How do I get my IT department to bless R?
On 1/30/09, Neil Shephard nsheph...@gmail.com wrote: If they expect you to use Excel for statistics then its worth letting them know that this would be a very bad idea as there are many short-comings, some of which I've referenced at.. http://slack.ser.man.ac.uk/progs/stata/avoid_excel.html Very neat resource; thanks. Liviu PS [hijack] Would it make sense to have it (or similar information) assembled in a .pdf documentation file and made available on the Contributed documentation section of R's web site? -- Do you know how to read? http://www.alienetworks.com/srtest.cfm Do you know how to write? http://garbl.home.comcast.net/~garbl/stylemanual/e.htm#e-mail __ 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.
Re: [R] How do I get my IT department to bless R?
This is a very broad question, and the answer is going to depend on your particular situation, which we are not privy to. I'll say two things. First, you should try to figure out why they would not want you to run R, so you can address those reasons specifically. Second, you might take a particular problem that you deal with, and specifically write out how R can make it easier, cheaper, more efficient to solve than the current solution. Are there really still all-MS shops around? Daniel Viar wrote: 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 __ 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.
Re: [R] How do I get my IT department to bless R?
Yes, Erik, there are all MS shops around! Ours happens to be one. However, I have absolutely no push back from IT on my use of R to do marketing analytics. The trick, Dan, is to deliver relevant and actionable results to the business. Your champions will stick up for you when, and if, you get any push back from IT. HTH, Jim Porzak TGN.com San Francisco, CA http://www.linkedin.com/in/jimporzak use R! Group SF: http://ia.meetup.com/67/ On Thu, Jan 29, 2009 at 5:13 PM, Erik Iverson iver...@biostat.wisc.edu wrote: This is a very broad question, and the answer is going to depend on your particular situation, which we are not privy to. I'll say two things. First, you should try to figure out why they would not want you to run R, so you can address those reasons specifically. Second, you might take a particular problem that you deal with, and specifically write out how R can make it easier, cheaper, more efficient to solve than the current solution. Are there really still all-MS shops around? Daniel Viar wrote: 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 __ 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. __ 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.
Re: [R] How do I get my IT department to bless R?
Daniel Viar wrote: I'd like to get our company to feel comfortable with open source Anyone still denying, here in 2009, that open source offers serious business value is a dinosaur, doomed to extinction. Their cerebella have calcified. The balance tipped a decade ago. Just like the real dinosaurs, extinction will only be fast on a geological time scale. Don't expect your job to evaporate next year because they won't use open source. Just expect that over the coming decades to be routinely outcompeted by the mammals. Chances are, your company actually has embraced open source in some way. One facile argument is to ask if they use Google. Yes? Google uses Linux, MySQL, and yes, even R, so your company does too, if indirectly. Likely, some bit of open source has crept into your actual operation elsewhere besides your little R enclave. How does one get an all Microsoft shop on board with allowing users to user R? Proceed the same way you already are. It is as Gandhi said: First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. Every revolution in corporate IT happened this way, including Microsoft's own rise to dominance. (Remember Big Blue?) __ 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.
Re: [R] How do I get my IT department to bless R?
On Thu, Jan 29, 2009 at 2:29 PM, Daniel Viar dan.v...@gmail.com wrote: 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. In many cases your IT department will feel secure with R if there's a company behind it to offer technical support and offer a throat to choke if problems arise. (Whether it's the former or the latter that is more significant depends on the company.) There are some companies out there that offer support subscriptions to R, including the one I work for. If you work in a regulated environment (such as clinical pharma with 21CFR11, or finance with Sarbanes-Oxley), there may also be some nervousness about whether R can be compliant. It almost certainly is, but it often needs to be validated in your own environment. I wrote about this recently (from the perspective of FDA validation) at http://blog.revolution-computing.com/2009/01/analyzing-clinical-trial-data-with-r.html . In many companies IT departments are getting comfortable with relying on FOSS applications, but the real successes (Linux, Apache, MySQL, ...) have come when there's a commercial company to back up the open source community. # David Smith -- David M Smith da...@revolution-computing.com Director of Community, REvolution Computing www.revolution-computing.com Tel: +1 (206) 577-4778 x3203 (Seattle, USA) __ 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.
Re: [R] How do I get my IT department to bless R?
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 __ R-help at 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. 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 __ 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.
Re: [R] How do I get my IT department to bless R?
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 __ R-help at 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. 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 __ 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. [[alternative HTML version deleted]] __ 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.
Re: [R] How do I get my IT department to bless R?
Erik Iverson wrote: First, you should try to figure out why they would not want you to run R, so you can address those reasons specifically. Reasons imply reasoning. It's usually the case that decisions like this are made on an emotional basis, not a rational one. All of my business associates use Microsoft. All of my friends use Microsoft. Microsoft is dominant. I like Microsoft. These are not reasons. They are expressions of emotional state. Envision a person saying such things wrapped in a security blanket printed with the colorful Windows flag logo, sucking their thumb. Works, doesn't it? They are telling you that Microsoft makes them feel comfortable. I don't call this vision into your mind to belittle the people saying these things. We all have these emotional responses; everyone can be tarred by this brush. The point is, if you want to fight such a thing, you can be as rational as you like, but never forget that your opponent is not being rational. Tell them this other blanket is better, and they'll deny it. Give them the other blanket, and they'll either drop it or attack you for offering it. Rip away their blanket and you will face a tantrum. A true revolution is unstoppable; open source is such a thing. Eventually your opponent will pick up the other blanket all on their own. You can push things along faster with the tools of statecraft. This field has two main branches. One branch is war. This is the practice of applying a combination of superior will, strategy, and force to defeat an opponent. This is the rational argument option. Yes, I call that war. Why? It's the emotion vs. rationality thing again. You're using the wrong tool for the job, so your only hope of success is to make the opponent capitulate through that combination of superior will, strategy and force. Since the OP isn't in a position to mount a frontal assault, this leaves only the uglier option, guerrilla war. This has a good outcome even less often than traditional war. The other branch is diplomacy. This takes longer, is not as direct, and requires a deft touch, but usually works better in the long term. It also requires a certain amount of backing strength. You can't hope to succeed at diplomacy when there is no possibility of war. If war is out, diplomacy is out, too. If I read the OP's post correctly, he isn't in a position to directly wield strength, so he'll need to work through channels that give him access to that strength. He needs to find strong allies, and support them. If there are no such allies, he has no way to prosecute war, and thus no way to back diplomacy. That forces him down a minor branch of statecraft, which I call the Switzerland model: keep your head down, and continue to be useful to those around you who practice the other forms of statecraft. There are other ways to run a state, but they don't work. Reading suggestions for anyone who thinks I'm full of it: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/132/132.txt http://www.miyamotomusashi.com/gorin.htm http://www.gutenberg.org/files/15772/15772-h/15772-h.htm http://catb.org/esr/writings/ __ 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.
Re: [R] How do I get my IT department to bless R?
Michael Olschimke wrote: Could you please share a link to the NY Times article? http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/07/technology/business-computing/07program.html __ 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.
