[R] History of R

[Douglas Bates]

On Fri, Feb 15, 2008 at 3:23 PM, Douglas Bates <bates at stat.wisc.edu> wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 15, 2008 at 1:53 PM, Kathy Gerber <kathy at virginia.edu> 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

I meant to write "for a better first experience"

>  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
>  >
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>  >
>