[R] S-PLUS 8 beta program [repost]

[David Smith]

The GPL code is available as separately-downloaded packages for S-PLUS, as
has been done for many years. My own Oswald library for S-PLUS was published
under the GPL in 1997, for example, and many other authors produce
open-source libraries for S-PLUS under a variety of licenses.  The only
difference is that they will be packaged as, well, packages rather than
libraries.

# David Smith

-- 
David M Smith <dsmith at insightful.com>
Senior Product Manager, Insightful Corp, Seattle WA
Tel: +1 (206) 802 2360
Fax: +1 (206) 283 6310

Insightful Corporation (www.insightful.com) provides analytical solutions for
text and data using S-PLUS, Insightful Miner, InFact and consulting services.


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Philippe Grosjean [mailto:phgrosjean at sciviews.org]
> Sent: Wednesday, March 29, 2006 1:06 PM
> To: David Smith
> Cc: r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch
> Subject: Re: [R] S-PLUS 8 beta program [repost]
> 
> 
> This is an excellent initiative! But how can you integrate 
> GPL code in a 
> software that is not GPL? As far as I understand it, GPL is a 
> contaminant license, imposing to the whole software to be GPL too (or 
> providing at least similar freedom). I have no doubt that you solved 
> this problem. I am just curious about the solution you found.
> Best regards,
> 
> Philippe Grosjean
> 
> ..............................................<°}))><........
>   ) ) ) ) )
> ( ( ( ( (    Prof. Philippe Grosjean
>   ) ) ) ) )
> ( ( ( ( (    Numerical Ecology of Aquatic Systems
>   ) ) ) ) )   Mons-Hainaut University, Pentagone (3D08)
> ( ( ( ( (    Academie Universitaire Wallonie-Bruxelles
>   ) ) ) ) )   8, av du Champ de Mars, 7000 Mons, Belgium
> ( ( ( ( (
>   ) ) ) ) )   phone: + 32.65.37.34.97, fax: + 32.65.37.30.54
> ( ( ( ( (    email: Philippe.Grosjean at umh.ac.be
>   ) ) ) ) )
> ( ( ( ( (    web:   http://www.umh.ac.be/~econum
>   ) ) ) ) )          http://www.sciviews.org
> ( ( ( ( (
> ..............................................................
> 
> David Smith wrote:
> > [Sorry about the duplicate posting; this one comes from the 
> correct address.
> > Please respond to me with any questions about this -- David.]
> > 
> > Dear R-help readers, 
> > 
> > 	As Insightful announced at the DSC2005 meeting in 
> Seattle, the next
> > release of S-PLUS will introduce a new package system. Our 
> goal is to provide
> > package authors the means to create cutting-edge statistical methods
> > currently available either as R packages or as S-PLUS 
> library sections and
> > deliver them to the entire community of S-PLUS and R users.
> > 
> > 	In this release of S-PLUS, we plan to implement many low-level
> > utility functions with the same API as R. Just as many R 
> functions originated
> > in S-PLUS, we plan on re-implementing many R functions in 
> S-PLUS to provide
> > S-PLUS users the ability to create packages of their work 
> and distribute them
> > to others as R users have done for many years. In the 
> future, we expect
> > package authors will be able to create a single package 
> that will run in both
> > environments. The actual package system would be a port of 
> the R package
> > system code, which furthers the exchangeability of S-PLUS 
> and R code. The
> > ported code will be available in a GPL library called Rcompat
> > 
> > 	To demonstrate that R packages can now be ported to 
> S-PLUS, we have -
> > with the permissions of the authors - ported several R 
> packages to run as
> > S-PLUS packages. We are planning to make these packages 
> available for
> > download from an Insightful-hosted website (called 
> csan.insightful.com for
> > consistency with the CRAN site of R packages). The license 
> terms of the
> > source packages will always be respected, and these 
> packages will all be
> > available under their original open-source license. Any 
> improvements to
> > open-source packages, whether by Insightful or by others, 
> will remain
> > open-source. Our intent will be to grow the list of open-source,
> > cross-system-compatible packages over time. 
> > 
> > 	While most existing R packages will not run 
> automatically in S-PLUS,
> > with some effort, a user should be able to port an existing 
> R package to an
> > S-PLUS package. More important, by using functions and 
> interfaces now
> > available in both systems, a user should be able to create 
> a single package
> > that will run in both S-PLUS and R in the future. (The 
> judicious use of some
> > system-specific if(is.R()) statement will help to this 
> end.) As a proof of
> > concept, we are developing a package that will run on both 
> systems.  In the
> > future, we hope to post this package on both CSAN and CRAN 
> sites. We are also
> > working to provide S-PLUS library sections from our 
> research group as S-PLUS
> > packages that would also work in R. 
> > 
> > 	Our work on the S-PLUS package functionality is 
> ongoing. We expect to
> > begin beta testing in April. We invite R package authors 
> who are interested
> > in testing their packages in S-PLUS to participate in the 
> beta test. As a
> > beta participant, you will receive a beta version of S-PLUS 
> that will be
> > fully functional until the end of the beta period. You will 
> also be able to
> > send input to the development team regarding the S-PLUS 
> package system. If
> > you are a package author, and you are interested in 
> participating in the beta
> > test, see the full details on the S-PLUS 8 beta test and 
> complete the
> > registration form at the Insightful website:
> > 
> > 
> > 	http://www.insightful.com/support/splus8beta/
> > 	 
> > 
> > 	Best regards from the S-PLUS product management team,
> > 
> > 	Patrick Aboyoun (S-PLUS Platform)
> > 	Michael O'Connell (Life Sciences) 
> > 	David Smith (Finance)
> > 
> > --
> > David M Smith <dsmith at insightful.com>
> > Senior Product Manager, Insightful Corp, Seattle WA
> > Tel: +1 (206) 802 2360
> > Fax: +1 (206) 283 6310
> > 
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> > 
> 
>