[R] Size of R user base

[Mihai Nica]

Why not ask those downloading rw1091 to complete (at their choice) a small
survey (including questions such as 'will it be used by a group or an
individual'). It would provide some data that could lead to an estimate as
good as anything else.

Mihai

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Prof Brian D Ripley" <ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk>
To: "Peter Dalgaard" <p.dalgaard at biostat.ku.dk>
Cc: <r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch>; <kjetil at entelnet.bo>; "Philippe Grosjean"
<phgrosjean at sciviews.org>
Sent: Tuesday, April 20, 2004 7:52 AM
Subject: Re: [R] Size of R user base


> On 20 Apr 2004, Peter Dalgaard wrote:
>
> > kjetil at entelnet.bo writes:
> >
> > > On 20 Apr 2004 at 10:47, Philippe Grosjean wrote:
> >
> > > > Of course, this will only work with computers connected to the
> > > > internet,... but at least, it could be one way to evaluate the
number
> > > > of R users. Would that be an infringment of Open Source, or any
other
> > > > rule of freedom? I don't know, but it does seem to be quite
widespread
> > > > (at least for commercial software). so, why an Open Source software
> > > > would not be able to monitor the number of users?
> > >
> > > That would make R into spyware, and there exist software to monitore
> > > and warn aganst/automatically remove spyware, and some users have
> > > such installed (and it will grow).
> >
> > Not quite spyware. Spyware generally works in more covert ways and
> > tries to hide itself from the user.
> >
> > However, quite a few people think that having programs connecting to
> > places on the internet without being asked is annoying and a potential
> > invasion of privacy and it may even cost people money if they're on a
> > dialup non-flat-fee connection.
>
> It is possible to ask: I mentioned pine, which does, and so do some perl
> installers.
>
> I don't think people would mind if the rw1091.exe installer had an option
> (ticked by default) to `call home', but I don't think we would learn
enough
> for this to be worth setting up.
>
> -- 
> Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
> Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
> University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
> 1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272860 (secr)
> Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595
>
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