[R] Size of R user base

[Dirk Eddelbuettel]

On Mon, Apr 19, 2004 at 10:27:25PM +0100, Prof Brian Ripley wrote:
> > less is not uncommon.  A 12% penetration for the book in question 
> > implies 42,000 R users; a more reasonable 5% penetration implies 100,000 
> > users.  A low 1% penetration implies 500,000 users.
> 
> One S book has sold half your number of S-PLUS users, although some sales
> are known to be to R users.

But then you also need to control for different editions and serial buyers.
I happen to have purchased three different editions of a certain S-Plus / R
book now in its 4th edition. 

My preference goes with the numbering scheme attributed to a tribe on some
island in the Pacific which consists of a 'factor' with four levels: 'one',
'two', 'three', and 'lots'.  Hence, I'd go with 'lots of R users'.

Dirk

-- 
The relationship between the computed price and reality is as yet unknown.  
                                             -- From the pac(8) manual page