Re: [R] S-PLUS 8 beta program [repost]
This thread may already contain too many contributions, but I feel compelled to add something: STEALING? Insightful was accused of stealing GNU software. On that issue, I will as the accusor(s) and other to please read the GNU license (e.g., at http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html), making special not of the following portion of paragraph 2 of TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION: If identifiable sections of that work [software that uses GNU code] are not derived from the Program [GNU code or derivative], and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those sections when you distribute them as separate work. I work for a company that develops and licenses specialized software for a narrow market niche. We do not currently connect our software to R, but we plan to do so in the future, using a completely separate add-on module that we can distribute free with the source code, consistent with the GNU license. If Insightful is guilty of stealing when making GNU code available to their customers, then I'm guilty of stealing each time I apply something I've learned from a published research report or book. I have not yet contributed any packages to CRAN, though I have contributed suggestions that have improved some of R's capabilities. Moreover, I expect to contribute packages in the future. I would be happy to have Insightful make my code more widely available (especially if I don't have to do any more work to make it available to the wider audience). FOR PROFIT vs. NOT FOR PROFIT Some years ago, I worked for a not-for-profit research firm. I was paid to work there, and my boss carefully explained to me, We're not for profit, but we're not for loss, either. I now work for a company that develops and distributes data analysis software for a narrow, specialized market. Some of our former competitors went out of business, because they did not charge as much as we do and could not afford to develop and maintain their code enough to compete with us. Our customers pay our license fees, because they believe the use of our software (1) saves them substantially more money than we charge and (2) allows them to provide their customers with better products at lower cost. I also like the R model, with (a) many of the R core team being university professors who support R as part of the research obligations of their job and (b) substantive contributions by many others around the world who contribute small portions of their spare time to support this r-help listserve and contribute code to CRAN. I don't agree with the ideologues of either the Right or the Left: For profit, not for profit and volunteer efforts all make positive contributions to building a better world. Best Wishes, spencer graves eugene dalt wrote: Point well taken. You should, however, expect R users to bring up concerns. This isn't a win-win situation as you sound...and you want to keep s-news in the dark too. Frankly, you didn't address the real issue. How would Insightful reacts for example if they find R users repackaging your products named Infact or Insightful Miner? or as you said R users (instead of Splus users) need access to the cutting-edge, quality statistical software available in Splus (instead of other way round). Insightful wants to take any cutting-edge, quality statistical software from R, but they patent any cutting-edge, quality statistical software they create. Hence my call to people to use any loopholes to make these available or rewrite them. That would be win-win. ps. This is my last email on this issue. --- David Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 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
Re: [R] S-PLUS 8 beta program [repost]
In addition, I think people should always explore ways to repackage exclusive S-Plus facilities and libraries into R. By rewritting them or using GPL loopholes. 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. --- Spencer Graves [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Correct: I'm not an attorney, but I've read the GPL. It clearly says that if you have software that has functionality independent of GPL code, the GPL applies to the code you use to connect to GPL code not to your original code. Thus, Insightful would have to make publicly available anything special they do to link to GPL code that they can't reasonably claim works for other purposes. However, they are not required to reveal other parts of their source code. hope this helps, spencer graves Philippe Grosjean wrote: David Smith wrote: The GPL code is available as separately-downloaded packages for S-PLUS, as has been done for many years. My own Oswald library for S-PLUS was published under the GPL in 1997, for example, and many other authors produce open-source libraries for S-PLUS under a variety of licenses. The only difference is that they will be packaged as, well, packages rather than libraries. # David Smith Thank you for the explanation. The fact that GPL code is distributed *separately* from S-PLUS is the key point here. PhG __ 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 __ 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 __ 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
Re: [R] S-PLUS 8 beta program [repost]
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
Re: [R] S-PLUS 8 beta program [repost]
I have to come to the defence of Insightful here. In my experience, they have been one of the better software companies I've dealt with. (Try getting Microsoft to fix something.) I think that their new packages initiative is an excellent idea. Peter Ehlers eugene dalt wrote: In addition, I think people should always explore ways to repackage exclusive S-Plus facilities and libraries into R. By rewritting them or using GPL loopholes. 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. --- Spencer Graves [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Correct: I'm not an attorney, but I've read the GPL. It clearly says that if you have software that has functionality independent of GPL code, the GPL applies to the code you use to connect to GPL code not to your original code. Thus, Insightful would have to make publicly available anything special they do to link to GPL code that they can't reasonably claim works for other purposes. However, they are not required to reveal other parts of their source code. hope this helps, spencer graves Philippe Grosjean wrote: David Smith wrote: The GPL code is available as separately-downloaded packages for S-PLUS, as has been done for many years. My own Oswald library for S-PLUS was published under the GPL in 1997, for example, and many other authors produce open-source libraries for S-PLUS under a variety of licenses. The only difference is that they will be packaged as, well, packages rather than libraries. # David Smith Thank you for the explanation. The fact that GPL code is distributed *separately* from S-PLUS is the key point here. PhG __ 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 __ 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 __ 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 __ 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
Re: [R] S-PLUS 8 beta program [repost]
I don't typically post to r-help but I could not pass up responding. While I don't use S+ any longer many folks in my lab do use it and there is a viable and useful market for it. Personally I welcome the direction Insightful is taking. I don't know David Smith but I take my hat off to him for an appropriate and measured response. I'm not certain I would have been as polite. Jeff Laake __ 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
Re: [R] S-PLUS 8 beta program [repost]
Point well taken. You should, however, expect R users to bring up concerns. This isn't a win-win situation as you sound...and you want to keep s-news in the dark too. Frankly, you didn't address the real issue. How would Insightful reacts for example if they find R users repackaging your products named Infact or Insightful Miner? or as you said R users (instead of Splus users) need access to the cutting-edge, quality statistical software available in Splus (instead of other way round). Insightful wants to take any cutting-edge, quality statistical software from R, but they patent any cutting-edge, quality statistical software they create. Hence my call to people to use any loopholes to make these available or rewrite them. That would be win-win. ps. This is my last email on this issue. --- David Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 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
Re: [R] S-PLUS 8 beta program [repost]
Point well taken. You should, however, expect R users to bring up concerns. Indeed, and I encourage them to do so. This isn't a win-win situation as you sound...and you want to keep s-news in the dark too. As far as I can tell, your messages never appeared on s-news. Perhaps you're not a member of that list? (It has a closed posting policy.) Besides, cross-posting is rarely good form, and the topic seems more relevant here. Frankly, you didn't address the real issue. How would Insightful reacts for example if they find R users repackaging your products named Infact or Insightful Miner? or as you said R users (instead of Splus users) need access to the cutting-edge, quality statistical software available in Splus (instead of other way round). Open software is produced under a social (and through the license, a legal) contract: in exchange for the promise to maintain the freedom of the software, all are entitled to use it and improve it. The Insightful products you mention are produced under a different kind of contract -- a proprietary license -- and the revenues from that license pay for its further development. Greater minds than mine have debated the merits of the two kinds of contract, and I shan't get into that here. But just as a call to violate the open source contract would rightly be outrageous to those that produce software under that model, the converse is equally true. ps. This is my last email on this issue. Then I thank you for the opportunity of the last word. # David Smith -- 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. -Original Message- From: eugene dalt [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, March 31, 2006 1:51 PM To: r-help@stat.math.ethz.ch; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: David Smith Subject: RE: [R] S-PLUS 8 beta program [repost] Point well taken. You should, however, expect R users to bring up concerns. This isn't a win-win situation as you sound...and you want to keep s-news in the dark too. Frankly, you didn't address the real issue. How would Insightful reacts for example if they find R users repackaging your products named Infact or Insightful Miner? or as you said R users (instead of Splus users) need access to the cutting-edge, quality statistical software available in Splus (instead of other way round). Insightful wants to take any cutting-edge, quality statistical software from R, but they patent any cutting-edge, quality statistical software they create. Hence my call to people to use any loopholes to make these available or rewrite them. That would be win-win. ps. This is my last email on this issue. __ 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
[R] S-PLUS 8 beta program [repost]
[Sorry about the duplicate posting; this one comes from the correct address. Please respond to me with any questions about this -- David.] Dear R-help readers, As Insightful announced at the DSC2005 meeting in Seattle, the next release of S-PLUS will introduce a new package system. Our goal is to provide package authors the means to create cutting-edge statistical methods currently available either as R packages or as S-PLUS library sections and deliver them to the entire community of S-PLUS and R users. In this release of S-PLUS, we plan to implement many low-level utility functions with the same API as R. Just as many R functions originated in S-PLUS, we plan on re-implementing many R functions in S-PLUS to provide S-PLUS users the ability to create packages of their work and distribute them to others as R users have done for many years. In the future, we expect package authors will be able to create a single package that will run in both environments. The actual package system would be a port of the R package system code, which furthers the exchangeability of S-PLUS and R code. The ported code will be available in a GPL library called Rcompat To demonstrate that R packages can now be ported to S-PLUS, we have - with the permissions of the authors - ported several R packages to run as S-PLUS packages. We are planning to make these packages available for download from an Insightful-hosted website (called csan.insightful.com for consistency with the CRAN site of R packages). The license terms of the source packages will always be respected, and these packages will all be available under their original open-source license. Any improvements to open-source packages, whether by Insightful or by others, will remain open-source. Our intent will be to grow the list of open-source, cross-system-compatible packages over time. While most existing R packages will not run automatically in S-PLUS, with some effort, a user should be able to port an existing R package to an S-PLUS package. More important, by using functions and interfaces now available in both systems, a user should be able to create a single package that will run in both S-PLUS and R in the future. (The judicious use of some system-specific if(is.R()) statement will help to this end.) As a proof of concept, we are developing a package that will run on both systems. In the future, we hope to post this package on both CSAN and CRAN sites. We are also working to provide S-PLUS library sections from our research group as S-PLUS packages that would also work in R. Our work on the S-PLUS package functionality is ongoing. We expect to begin beta testing in April. We invite R package authors who are interested in testing their packages in S-PLUS to participate in the beta test. As a beta participant, you will receive a beta version of S-PLUS that will be fully functional until the end of the beta period. You will also be able to send input to the development team regarding the S-PLUS package system. If you are a package author, and you are interested in participating in the beta test, see the full details on the S-PLUS 8 beta test and complete the registration form at the Insightful website: http://www.insightful.com/support/splus8beta/ Best regards from the S-PLUS product management team, Patrick Aboyoun (S-PLUS Platform) Michael O'Connell (Life Sciences) David Smith (Finance) -- David M Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] Senior Product Manager, Insightful Corp, Seattle WA Tel: +1 (206) 802 2360 Fax: +1 (206) 283 6310 __ 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
Re: [R] S-PLUS 8 beta program [repost]
This is an excellent initiative! But how can you integrate GPL code in a software that is not GPL? As far as I understand it, GPL is a contaminant license, imposing to the whole software to be GPL too (or providing at least similar freedom). I have no doubt that you solved this problem. I am just curious about the solution you found. Best regards, Philippe Grosjean ..°})) ) ) ) ) ) ( ( ( ( (Prof. Philippe Grosjean ) ) ) ) ) ( ( ( ( (Numerical Ecology of Aquatic Systems ) ) ) ) ) Mons-Hainaut University, Pentagone (3D08) ( ( ( ( (Academie Universitaire Wallonie-Bruxelles ) ) ) ) ) 8, av du Champ de Mars, 7000 Mons, Belgium ( ( ( ( ( ) ) ) ) ) phone: + 32.65.37.34.97, fax: + 32.65.37.30.54 ( ( ( ( (email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ) ) ) ) ) ( ( ( ( (web: http://www.umh.ac.be/~econum ) ) ) ) ) http://www.sciviews.org ( ( ( ( ( .. David Smith wrote: [Sorry about the duplicate posting; this one comes from the correct address. Please respond to me with any questions about this -- David.] Dear R-help readers, As Insightful announced at the DSC2005 meeting in Seattle, the next release of S-PLUS will introduce a new package system. Our goal is to provide package authors the means to create cutting-edge statistical methods currently available either as R packages or as S-PLUS library sections and deliver them to the entire community of S-PLUS and R users. In this release of S-PLUS, we plan to implement many low-level utility functions with the same API as R. Just as many R functions originated in S-PLUS, we plan on re-implementing many R functions in S-PLUS to provide S-PLUS users the ability to create packages of their work and distribute them to others as R users have done for many years. In the future, we expect package authors will be able to create a single package that will run in both environments. The actual package system would be a port of the R package system code, which furthers the exchangeability of S-PLUS and R code. The ported code will be available in a GPL library called Rcompat To demonstrate that R packages can now be ported to S-PLUS, we have - with the permissions of the authors - ported several R packages to run as S-PLUS packages. We are planning to make these packages available for download from an Insightful-hosted website (called csan.insightful.com for consistency with the CRAN site of R packages). The license terms of the source packages will always be respected, and these packages will all be available under their original open-source license. Any improvements to open-source packages, whether by Insightful or by others, will remain open-source. Our intent will be to grow the list of open-source, cross-system-compatible packages over time. While most existing R packages will not run automatically in S-PLUS, with some effort, a user should be able to port an existing R package to an S-PLUS package. More important, by using functions and interfaces now available in both systems, a user should be able to create a single package that will run in both S-PLUS and R in the future. (The judicious use of some system-specific if(is.R()) statement will help to this end.) As a proof of concept, we are developing a package that will run on both systems. In the future, we hope to post this package on both CSAN and CRAN sites. We are also working to provide S-PLUS library sections from our research group as S-PLUS packages that would also work in R. Our work on the S-PLUS package functionality is ongoing. We expect to begin beta testing in April. We invite R package authors who are interested in testing their packages in S-PLUS to participate in the beta test. As a beta participant, you will receive a beta version of S-PLUS that will be fully functional until the end of the beta period. You will also be able to send input to the development team regarding the S-PLUS package system. If you are a package author, and you are interested in participating in the beta test, see the full details on the S-PLUS 8 beta test and complete the registration form at the Insightful website: http://www.insightful.com/support/splus8beta/ Best regards from the S-PLUS product management team, Patrick Aboyoun (S-PLUS Platform) Michael O'Connell (Life Sciences) David Smith (Finance) -- David M Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] Senior Product Manager, Insightful Corp, Seattle WA Tel: +1 (206) 802 2360 Fax: +1 (206) 283 6310 __ 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 __ R-help@stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list
Re: [R] S-PLUS 8 beta program [repost]
The GPL code is available as separately-downloaded packages for S-PLUS, as has been done for many years. My own Oswald library for S-PLUS was published under the GPL in 1997, for example, and many other authors produce open-source libraries for S-PLUS under a variety of licenses. The only difference is that they will be packaged as, well, packages rather than libraries. # David Smith -- 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. -Original Message- From: Philippe Grosjean [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, March 29, 2006 1:06 PM To: David Smith Cc: r-help@stat.math.ethz.ch Subject: Re: [R] S-PLUS 8 beta program [repost] This is an excellent initiative! But how can you integrate GPL code in a software that is not GPL? As far as I understand it, GPL is a contaminant license, imposing to the whole software to be GPL too (or providing at least similar freedom). I have no doubt that you solved this problem. I am just curious about the solution you found. Best regards, Philippe Grosjean ..°})) ) ) ) ) ) ( ( ( ( (Prof. Philippe Grosjean ) ) ) ) ) ( ( ( ( (Numerical Ecology of Aquatic Systems ) ) ) ) ) Mons-Hainaut University, Pentagone (3D08) ( ( ( ( (Academie Universitaire Wallonie-Bruxelles ) ) ) ) ) 8, av du Champ de Mars, 7000 Mons, Belgium ( ( ( ( ( ) ) ) ) ) phone: + 32.65.37.34.97, fax: + 32.65.37.30.54 ( ( ( ( (email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ) ) ) ) ) ( ( ( ( (web: http://www.umh.ac.be/~econum ) ) ) ) ) http://www.sciviews.org ( ( ( ( ( .. David Smith wrote: [Sorry about the duplicate posting; this one comes from the correct address. Please respond to me with any questions about this -- David.] Dear R-help readers, As Insightful announced at the DSC2005 meeting in Seattle, the next release of S-PLUS will introduce a new package system. Our goal is to provide package authors the means to create cutting-edge statistical methods currently available either as R packages or as S-PLUS library sections and deliver them to the entire community of S-PLUS and R users. In this release of S-PLUS, we plan to implement many low-level utility functions with the same API as R. Just as many R functions originated in S-PLUS, we plan on re-implementing many R functions in S-PLUS to provide S-PLUS users the ability to create packages of their work and distribute them to others as R users have done for many years. In the future, we expect package authors will be able to create a single package that will run in both environments. The actual package system would be a port of the R package system code, which furthers the exchangeability of S-PLUS and R code. The ported code will be available in a GPL library called Rcompat To demonstrate that R packages can now be ported to S-PLUS, we have - with the permissions of the authors - ported several R packages to run as S-PLUS packages. We are planning to make these packages available for download from an Insightful-hosted website (called csan.insightful.com for consistency with the CRAN site of R packages). The license terms of the source packages will always be respected, and these packages will all be available under their original open-source license. Any improvements to open-source packages, whether by Insightful or by others, will remain open-source. Our intent will be to grow the list of open-source, cross-system-compatible packages over time. While most existing R packages will not run automatically in S-PLUS, with some effort, a user should be able to port an existing R package to an S-PLUS package. More important, by using functions and interfaces now available in both systems, a user should be able to create a single package that will run in both S-PLUS and R in the future. (The judicious use of some system-specific if(is.R()) statement will help to this end.) As a proof of concept, we are developing a package that will run on both systems. In the future, we hope to post this package on both CSAN and CRAN sites. We are also working to provide S-PLUS library sections from our research group as S-PLUS packages that would also work in R. Our work on the S-PLUS package functionality is ongoing. We expect to begin beta testing in April. We invite R package authors who are interested in testing their packages in S-PLUS to participate in the beta test. As a beta participant, you will receive a beta version of S-PLUS that will be fully
Re: [R] S-PLUS 8 beta program [repost]
David Smith wrote: The GPL code is available as separately-downloaded packages for S-PLUS, as has been done for many years. My own Oswald library for S-PLUS was published under the GPL in 1997, for example, and many other authors produce open-source libraries for S-PLUS under a variety of licenses. The only difference is that they will be packaged as, well, packages rather than libraries. # David Smith Thank you for the explanation. The fact that GPL code is distributed *separately* from S-PLUS is the key point here. PhG __ 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
Re: [R] S-PLUS 8 beta program [repost]
Correct: I'm not an attorney, but I've read the GPL. It clearly says that if you have software that has functionality independent of GPL code, the GPL applies to the code you use to connect to GPL code not to your original code. Thus, Insightful would have to make publicly available anything special they do to link to GPL code that they can't reasonably claim works for other purposes. However, they are not required to reveal other parts of their source code. hope this helps, spencer graves Philippe Grosjean wrote: David Smith wrote: The GPL code is available as separately-downloaded packages for S-PLUS, as has been done for many years. My own Oswald library for S-PLUS was published under the GPL in 1997, for example, and many other authors produce open-source libraries for S-PLUS under a variety of licenses. The only difference is that they will be packaged as, well, packages rather than libraries. # David Smith Thank you for the explanation. The fact that GPL code is distributed *separately* from S-PLUS is the key point here. PhG __ 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 __ 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
Re: [R] S-PLUS 8 beta program [repost]
__ 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
