[R] R Founding

[Joshua Wiley]

On Thu, Sep 16, 2010 at 3:49 AM, jaropis <jaropis at zg.home.pl> wrote:
> 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

This is a nice idea, and I agree that the current donation system is
cumbersome (even for direct bank transfers, a letter must be mailed
requesting the relevant information).  However, it takes time and
effort to create a website and provide convenient ways to donate.
Further, since this would be money and going to the R Foundation,
members from that would have to be involved---these are people whose
time is already heavily taxed (no pun intended).

Generally, before people will put effort into something, they want
some degree of confidence that it will be worth it, "*If* the userbase
of R is over 2 million *there will surely be* 100,000 [emphasis mine]"
may not provide it.  I also suspect there would be some logistical
issues that could be rather dicey (e.g., Who do you pay?  How do you
pay them?  How much do you pay? and all the hurt feelings that can
ensue if one or more individuals feel slighted in some way).  I
imagine the process would go something like:

1) Get a rough plan of how this all might work
2) Drum up users and support
3) Create a proposal detailing current estimates of support and
providing several options for receiving it
4) Take said proposal to powers that be at R Foundation
5) Repeat 2 & 3 until everyone who needs to be convinced, is convinced.
6) Enact plan
7) Follow up
8) Duncan (and the rest of R Core / R Foundation) get their $4M


For the record, you could count me in for #2.

Josh

> 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
>
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> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>



-- 
Joshua Wiley
Ph.D. Student, Health Psychology
University of California, Los Angeles
http://www.joshuawiley.com/