[R] Size of R user base

[Jan Goebel]

Hi,

i also strongly recommend an active way for transmitting
such informations. 

One possibility could be, to give the users "incentives" 
for using a network connection within R.
Stata has a -- i guess -- widely used command, called
"net search", which is something like "help.search()", 
but connecting to stata.com and searches also all the 
user distributed program files (.ado).

If R had something similar, which searches all packages
available on CRAN, and not only the installed packages
one  
a) could count the access to this service and
b) had a could starting point for questions like
   "is a function 'doing something' available for R". 

just my 2 cents ...

jan 

On Wed, 21 Apr 2004, Ernesto Jardim wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> I agree with Christian. The monitoring must be done in a ACTIVE way by
> the user.
> 
> I usually don't use software that has that kind of features and it
> annoys me to know that my computer is sending information to someone
> whithout my knowledge or permission.
> 
> Best regards
> 
> EJ 
> 
> On Tue, 2004-04-20 at 20:04, cstrato wrote:
> > At first I want to make clear that I have always paid for the
> > software that I use, I am even paying for the shareware that I use.
> > 
> > After this statement let me come to the current discussion:
> > It is really shocking that some people even think about integrating
> > a spyware system into an open source software project.
> > The internet has started as a chaotic and democratic system, but
> > is in danger to become the worst "Big Brother is watching you"
> > assistant to certain governments and companies, which become a
> > danger for the democracy and for peace.
> > 
> > I really hope that the R core developer will never consider such
> > a dangerous option!
> > 
> > Having said this, I am willing to ACTIVELY send an e-mail to
> > CRAN or R to tell that I am using R.
> > 
> > R is such a great project, developed by a great community in a
> > democratic manner, showing how well democracy can work. Adding
> > a monitoring system would destroy the whole project.
> > 
> > P.S.: Personally, I have even disabled cookies from my browser,
> > both at home and at the company, and I must say, that very seldom
> > would I need to enable cookies. If a company web-site forces me
> > to enable cookies, than I ignore this company: companies want to
> > sell products to customers, and with such a behavior they are
> > hopefully loosing customers.
> > 
> > Best regards
> > Christian

-- 
+-----------------------------------------
 Jan Goebel 
 j g o e b e l @ d i w . d e

 DIW Berlin 
 German Socio-Economic Panel Study (GSOEP) 
 Königin-Luise-Str. 5
 D-14195 Berlin -- Germany --
 phone: 49 30 89789-377
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