A few days ago Tal Galili posted a message about some controversies concerning the future of R. Having read the discussions, especially those following Ross Ihaka's post, I have come to the conclusion, that, as usual, the problem is money. I doubt there would be discussions about dropping R in its present form if the R-Foundation were properly funded and could hire computer scientists, programmers and statisticians. If a commercial company is able to provide big-database and multicore solutions, then so would a properly founded R-Foundation. In my opinion the main reason for the lack of funding is that the Foundation does not want to accept it from users and waits for the likes of Google to bring them a sack of money. I have already posted about this, but this seems to be the time and place to repeat it: it is very difficult to donate anything to the R-Foundation. First you have to find the appropriate link at the r-project page, then you have to fill out a form and send or fax it to the Foundation. I am not comfortable sending my details over snail-mail or fax. I would GLADLY donate 30-50$ each year just to see R develop, but there needs to be a way for me to do it in a civilized manner. If the userbase of R is over 2 million there will surely be 100,000 users who, like myself, will happily fork out 40$ a year - would that help? you can do the calculation yourselves. Set up a donation page in which I will be able to pay by credit card or PayPal and you will start getting donations from individual users. Advertise this at the startup message of the program: say something like "support us at www.suppoRtR.com" and the money will start coming. I am sure there would be enough to employ some foundation members full-time, pay external CSs and even protect the system in court from those who make money off of somebody else's work and do not give back to the community (you know who I am talking about). R and the Foundation have helped a lot of us to do our research and make real money. Now give us a chance to help you! Regards Jaroslaw Piskorski
I am a poor student, and would gladly donate 20ish bucks if it would help. R continues to make me more productive. Thanks for all of the good work! On Thu, Sep 16, 2010 at 5:49 AM, jaropis <jaropis at zg.home.pl> wrote:> A few days ago Tal Galili posted a message about some controversies > concerning the future of R. Having read the discussions, especially those > following Ross Ihaka's post, I have come to the conclusion, that, as usual, > the problem is money. I doubt there would be discussions about dropping R in > its present form if the R-Foundation were properly funded and could hire > computer scientists, programmers and statisticians. If a commercial company > is able to provide big-database and multicore solutions, then so would a > properly founded R-Foundation. > > In my opinion the main reason for the lack of funding is that the Foundation > does not want to accept it from users and waits for the likes of Google to > bring them a sack of money. I have already posted about this, but this seems > to be the time and place to repeat it: it is very difficult to donate > anything to the R-Foundation. First you have to find the appropriate link at > the r-project page, then you have to fill out a form and send or fax it to > the Foundation. I am not comfortable sending my details over snail-mail or > fax. > > I would GLADLY donate 30-50$ each year just to see R develop, but there > needs to be a way for me to do it in a civilized manner. If the userbase of > R is over 2 million there will surely be 100,000 users who, like myself, > will happily fork out 40$ a year - would that help? you can do the > calculation yourselves. Set up a donation page in which I will be able to > pay by credit card or PayPal and you will start getting donations from > individual users. Advertise this at the startup message of the program: say > something like "support us at www.suppoRtR.com" and the money will start > coming. I am sure there would be enough to employ some foundation members > full-time, pay external CSs and even protect the system in court from those > who make money off of somebody else's work and do not give back to the > community (you know who I am talking about). > > R and the Foundation have helped a lot of us to do our research and make > real money. Now give us a chance to help you! > > > Regards > Jaroslaw Piskorski > > ______________________________________________ > 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. >-- Stephen Sefick ____________________________________ | Auburn University? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?? | | Department of Biological Sciences? ? ? ? ?? | | 331 Funchess Hall? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? | | Auburn, Alabama? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?? | | 36849? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? | |___________________________________| | sas0025 at auburn.edu? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?? | | http://www.auburn.edu/~sas0025? ? ? ? ? ?? | |___________________________________| Let's not spend our time and resources thinking about things that are so little or so large that all they really do for us is puff us up and make us feel like gods.? We are mammals, and have not exhausted the annoying little problems of being mammals. ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? -K. Mullis "A big computer, a complex algorithm and a long time does not equal science." ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? -Robert Gentleman
On 16/09/2010 6:49 AM, jaropis wrote:> A few days ago Tal Galili posted a message about some controversies > concerning the future of R. Having read the discussions, especially those > following Ross Ihaka's post, I have come to the conclusion, that, as usual, > the problem is money. I doubt there would be discussions about dropping R in > its present form if the R-Foundation were properly funded and could hire > computer scientists, programmers and statisticians. If a commercial company > is able to provide big-database and multicore solutions, then so would a > properly founded R-Foundation. > > In my opinion the main reason for the lack of funding is that the Foundation > does not want to accept it from users and waits for the likes of Google to > bring them a sack of money. I have already posted about this, but this seems > to be the time and place to repeat it: it is very difficult to donate > anything to the R-Foundation. First you have to find the appropriate link at > the r-project page, then you have to fill out a form and send or fax it to > the Foundation. I am not comfortable sending my details over snail-mail or > fax. > > I would GLADLY donate 30-50$ each year just to see R develop, but there > needs to be a way for me to do it in a civilized manner. If the userbase of > R is over 2 million there will surely be 100,000 users who, like myself, > will happily fork out 40$ a year - would that help? you can do the > calculation yourselves. Set up a donation page in which I will be able to > pay by credit card or PayPal and you will start getting donations from > individual users. Advertise this at the startup message of the program: say > something like "support us at www.suppoRtR.com" and the money will start > coming. I am sure there would be enough to employ some foundation members > full-time, pay external CSs and even protect the system in court from those > who make money off of somebody else's work and do not give back to the > community (you know who I am talking about). > > R and the Foundation have helped a lot of us to do our research and make > real money. Now give us a chance to help you! >Sure, I'd love to have $4M, but writing this to the R-help list isn't going to bring it in. You should convince the executive of the R Foundation. The co-Presidents are Ross Ihaka and Robert Gentleman. Duncan Murdoch
I mailed a check for an R Foundation membership almost a year ago, along with the form. In US dollars, corrected by the then-current Euro exchange rate. It has never been cashed. Christopher W. Ryan, MD SUNY Upstate Medical University Clinical Campus at Binghamton 425 Robinson Street, Binghamton, NY 13904 cryanatbinghamtondotedu "Observation is a more powerful force than you could possibly reckon. The invisible, the overlooked, and the unobserved are the most in danger of reaching the end of the spectrum. They lose the last of their light. From there, anything can happen . . ." [God, in "Joan of Arcadia," episode entitled, "The Uncertainty Principle."] stephen sefick wrote:> I am a poor student, and would gladly donate 20ish bucks if it would > help. R continues to make me more productive. Thanks for all of the > good work! >
On Thu, Sep 16, 2010 at 3:49 AM, jaropis <jaropis at zg.home.pl> wrote:> A few days ago Tal Galili posted a message about some controversies > concerning the future of R. Having read the discussions, especially those > following Ross Ihaka's post, I have come to the conclusion, that, as usual, > the problem is money. I doubt there would be discussions about dropping R in > its present form if the R-Foundation were properly funded and could hire > computer scientists, programmers and statisticians. If a commercial company > is able to provide big-database and multicore solutions, then so would a > properly founded R-Foundation. > > In my opinion the main reason for the lack of funding is that the Foundation > does not want to accept it from users and waits for the likes of Google to > bring them a sack of money. I have already posted about this, but this seems > to be the time and place to repeat it: it is very difficult to donate > anything to the R-Foundation. First you have to find the appropriate link at > the r-project page, then you have to fill out a form and send or fax it to > the Foundation. I am not comfortable sending my details over snail-mail or > fax. > > I would GLADLY donate 30-50$ each year just to see R develop, but there > needs to be a way for me to do it in a civilized manner. If the userbase of > R is over 2 million there will surely be 100,000 users who, like myself, > will happily fork out 40$ a year - would that help? you can do the > calculation yourselves. Set up a donation page in which I will be able to > pay by credit card or PayPal and you will start getting donations from > individual users. Advertise this at the startup message of the program: say > something like "support us at www.suppoRtR.com" and the money will startThis is a nice idea, and I agree that the current donation system is cumbersome (even for direct bank transfers, a letter must be mailed requesting the relevant information). However, it takes time and effort to create a website and provide convenient ways to donate. Further, since this would be money and going to the R Foundation, members from that would have to be involved---these are people whose time is already heavily taxed (no pun intended). Generally, before people will put effort into something, they want some degree of confidence that it will be worth it, "*If* the userbase of R is over 2 million *there will surely be* 100,000 [emphasis mine]" may not provide it. I also suspect there would be some logistical issues that could be rather dicey (e.g., Who do you pay? How do you pay them? How much do you pay? and all the hurt feelings that can ensue if one or more individuals feel slighted in some way). I imagine the process would go something like: 1) Get a rough plan of how this all might work 2) Drum up users and support 3) Create a proposal detailing current estimates of support and providing several options for receiving it 4) Take said proposal to powers that be at R Foundation 5) Repeat 2 & 3 until everyone who needs to be convinced, is convinced. 6) Enact plan 7) Follow up 8) Duncan (and the rest of R Core / R Foundation) get their $4M For the record, you could count me in for #2. Josh> coming. I am sure there would be enough to employ some foundation members > full-time, pay external CSs and even protect the system in court from those > who make money off of somebody else's work and do not give back to the > community (you know who I am talking about). > > R and the Foundation have helped a lot of us to do our research and make > real money. Now give us a chance to help you! > > > Regards > Jaroslaw Piskorski > > ______________________________________________ > 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. >-- Joshua Wiley Ph.D. Student, Health Psychology University of California, Los Angeles http://www.joshuawiley.com/
I am sure there would be enough to employ some foundation members> full-time, pay external CSs and even protect the system in court from those > who make money off of somebody else's work and do not give back to the > community (you know who I am talking about). >If you are trying to smear Revolution, then consider: Revolution has given back in a number of ways: supporting the useR conference, assisting R core with getting R to build on 64-bit Windows systems, bug fixes, releasing some open source packages, a very fine blog from which I have learned some quite useful information, and helping R gain some needed credibility in the media and business worlds. Not to mention the stainless steel water bottle they handed out at useR. :-) All of these cost money and benefit R, even if the dollars themselves don't flow to the R foundation. Kevin Wright [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
Hello dear Jaroslaw, I strongly agree with you that the R foundation should have an easier method of enabling people to give donations. At the same time, I feel there is a (friendly) disagreement between us on how such money should be used. Your massage has inspired me to write a post on the topic, titles: "Open source and money – why R developers shouldn’t be paid<http://www.r-statistics.com/2010/09/open-source-and-money-why-r-developers-shouldnt-be-paid/> " I hope you, and other community members, would find interest in it. Best, Tal ----------------Contact Details:------------------------------------------------------- Contact me: Tal.Galili@gmail.com | 972-52-7275845 Read me: www.talgalili.com (Hebrew) | www.biostatistics.co.il (Hebrew) | www.r-statistics.com (English) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On Thu, Sep 16, 2010 at 12:49 PM, jaropis <jaropis@zg.home.pl> wrote:> A few days ago Tal Galili posted a message about some controversies > concerning the future of R. Having read the discussions, especially those > following Ross Ihaka's post, I have come to the conclusion, that, as usual, > the problem is money. I doubt there would be discussions about dropping R > in > its present form if the R-Foundation were properly funded and could hire > computer scientists, programmers and statisticians. If a commercial company > is able to provide big-database and multicore solutions, then so would a > properly founded R-Foundation. > > In my opinion the main reason for the lack of funding is that the > Foundation > does not want to accept it from users and waits for the likes of Google to > bring them a sack of money. I have already posted about this, but this > seems > to be the time and place to repeat it: it is very difficult to donate > anything to the R-Foundation. First you have to find the appropriate link > at > the r-project page, then you have to fill out a form and send or fax it to > the Foundation. I am not comfortable sending my details over snail-mail or > fax. > > I would GLADLY donate 30-50$ each year just to see R develop, but there > needs to be a way for me to do it in a civilized manner. If the userbase of > R is over 2 million there will surely be 100,000 users who, like myself, > will happily fork out 40$ a year - would that help? you can do the > calculation yourselves. Set up a donation page in which I will be able to > pay by credit card or PayPal and you will start getting donations from > individual users. Advertise this at the startup message of the program: say > something like "support us at www.suppoRtR.com" and the money will start > coming. I am sure there would be enough to employ some foundation members > full-time, pay external CSs and even protect the system in court from those > who make money off of somebody else's work and do not give back to the > community (you know who I am talking about). > > R and the Foundation have helped a lot of us to do our research and make > real money. Now give us a chance to help you! > > > Regards > Jaroslaw Piskorski > > ______________________________________________ > 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]]
Hi,> I would GLADLY donate 30-50$ each year just to see R develop, but there > needs to be a way for me to do it in a civilized manner. If the userbase of > R is over 2 million there will surely be 100,000 users who, like myself, > will happily fork out 40$ a year - would that help? you can do the > calculation yourselves. Set up a donation page in which I will be able to > pay by credit card or PayPal and you will start getting donations from > individual users. Advertise this at the startup message of the program: say > something like "support us at www.suppoRtR.com" and the money will start > coming.I think this is a great idea! (I emailed to the address on the R page to that effect two days ago :) )>From the other replies, it seems there are three broad groups ofobstacles: (1) Figure out the way to do it -- PayPal would be best for international users, but there are now alternatives to PayPal such as Moneybookers, who might do the same thing for those who want to pay and might be better for the recipient -- I don't know. (2) "What the money is used for" (3) Convince the people who can make the decision, i.e. "the executives of the R foundation". I think (2) is a fake problem. I for one would not care if the money I donate is used for something I never use, or is even used inefficiently. I gain so much from R from other people's work, I would see my donation as a gift to them, and they could do with that gift what they want to. They could go have lots of beer, for all I care (unless it gets in the way of writing R, of course :) ) But one way around (3) might be even to have package developers accept donations for packages. Is there a way to take this off the r-help list to try to tackle this as a "project"? Maybe set up a small Google Group? Marianne BTW after reading in this thread about the donation form and the possbility to do IBAN, I went back to r-project.org and then found the link how to donate. I had not seen this when I looked a few days ago. You can say I'm stupid and didn't look hard enough, but from a usability/ marketing perspective this means even this cumbersome possibility is not salient enough at the moment. -- Marianne Promberger PhD, King's College London http://promberger.info R version 2.11.1 (2010-05-31) Ubuntu 9.04
Hello all, After many e-mails and comments, I made corrections to my post on the topic of R and funding. I hope this does a better service to the R community: http://www.r-statistics.com/2010/09/open-source-and-money-%E2%80%93-why-paying-r-developers-might-not-always-help-the-project/ Sorry for having too many exclamation marks on my original post. Best, Tal ----------------Contact Details:------------------------------------------------------- Contact me: Tal.Galili@gmail.com | 972-52-7275845 Read me: www.talgalili.com (Hebrew) | www.biostatistics.co.il (Hebrew) | www.r-statistics.com (English) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On Thu, Sep 16, 2010 at 12:49 PM, jaropis <jaropis@zg.home.pl> wrote:> A few days ago Tal Galili posted a message about some controversies > concerning the future of R. Having read the discussions, especially those > following Ross Ihaka's post, I have come to the conclusion, that, as usual, > the problem is money. I doubt there would be discussions about dropping R > in > its present form if the R-Foundation were properly funded and could hire > computer scientists, programmers and statisticians. If a commercial company > is able to provide big-database and multicore solutions, then so would a > properly founded R-Foundation. > > In my opinion the main reason for the lack of funding is that the > Foundation > does not want to accept it from users and waits for the likes of Google to > bring them a sack of money. I have already posted about this, but this > seems > to be the time and place to repeat it: it is very difficult to donate > anything to the R-Foundation. First you have to find the appropriate link > at > the r-project page, then you have to fill out a form and send or fax it to > the Foundation. I am not comfortable sending my details over snail-mail or > fax. > > I would GLADLY donate 30-50$ each year just to see R develop, but there > needs to be a way for me to do it in a civilized manner. If the userbase of > R is over 2 million there will surely be 100,000 users who, like myself, > will happily fork out 40$ a year - would that help? you can do the > calculation yourselves. Set up a donation page in which I will be able to > pay by credit card or PayPal and you will start getting donations from > individual users. Advertise this at the startup message of the program: say > something like "support us at www.suppoRtR.com" and the money will start > coming. I am sure there would be enough to employ some foundation members > full-time, pay external CSs and even protect the system in court from those > who make money off of somebody else's work and do not give back to the > community (you know who I am talking about). > > R and the Foundation have helped a lot of us to do our research and make > real money. Now give us a chance to help you! > > > Regards > Jaroslaw Piskorski > > ______________________________________________ > 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]]