[R] R Founding

[jaropis]

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