I'll chip in my $0.02:
1. I find Insightful's marketing blurb for the big data library
in the Enterprise Developer version a bit puzzling: I just
check the price of a dual Opteron 275 server with 8GB of RAM
at one vendor, and it is under $6500 (with 16GB that jumps
to over $12000). Anyone care to disclose the price tag of
the enterprise developer edition?
2. There are companies that will want the commercial support
for the software. One quote I heard at LinuxWorld last year
in NYC: "Companies want one throat to choke on." Insightful
is that throat for S-PLUS. There's none for R. If some
company is willing to do for R what Novell/RH/etc. does for
Linux, the situation might be different.
3. Somewhat related to #2 above, the "21 CFR part 11 compliant"
banner that S-PLUS now carries counts a lot in certain
industry.
4. BDR said in one of his talks a few years ago that R probably
has more bugs than S-PLUS. However, bugs in R get fixed a
lot quicker than in S-PLUS. Also, R is developed at a much
faster pace than S-PLUS. That it may have more bugs is
understandable.
5. If a question posted to R-help/R-devel gets no response,
there must be a good reason. I do not view friendly
non-answer as any more helpful.
6. For the people that Rolf mentioned: if they had learned the
"source is master" paradigm, they would not have that problem.
7. Forbidding usage of single-user license software as backend of
web/remote application is not new: Matlab has had that
restriction for years. I think this is reasonable, as it's
no longer being used by only one person.
8. John's betamax analogy might be a bit off: I believe it was
widely recognized that betamax was superior to VHS. I'm quite
sure there's no such concensus on R vs. S-PLUS. I won't get
into the Mac (or soon to be Mactel) vs. Wintel debate...
Cheers,
Andy
> From: Thomas Jagger
>
> I use a university wide license for version 6.2 and 7.0, but
> even in the
> academic environment license management is difficult. While I
> could use the
> features of large data objects, I don't want to deal with
> having software
> that no longer works after a certain date. Certainly for our batch
> applications that run unattended this would be difficult. My
> solution is to
> stay with V6.1 as needed and switch to R for features
> available in R but not
> in S (V6.1). Especially when it comes to spending government
> money, one has
> to be careful.
>
> For some applications, R works much faster. As core storage
> gets cheaper and
> 64 bit becomes a reality, I do not think that my need for
> Splus large data
> objects will be necessary, by then R will have a package (if
> it does not
> already). If it does let me know, I would like to try it out
> on some large
> climate data sets.
>
> The other downside to Splus V7.0 Enterprise edition is that
> it seems to take
> longer to load. I have not benchmarked performance of V7.0 as
> compared to
> V6.1.
>
>
>
> Tom
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: s-news-owner@lists.biostat.wustl.edu
> [mailto:s-news-owner@lists.biostat.wustl.edu] On Behalf Of
> Fowler, Mark
> Sent: Tuesday, July 12, 2005 11:42 AM
> To: kwright@eskimo.com; s-news@lists.biostat.wustl.edu
> Subject: Re: [S] Concerns about SPLUS version 7
>
> Kevin, your perspective on S vs. R comes closest to my own. And with
> respect
> to renewing the S license, the driving force is maintaining web-based
> applications that would otherwise have to be converted to R.
> Having already
> converted some simpler ones, I have a reasonable appreciation
> for what is
> involved. The task is sufficiently onerous that I dread
> having to convert
> the more involved applications. But pressure to switch to R comes from
> above, due to both pricing/licensing concerns, and
> disappointment with the
> rate of development of StatServer. I'm one of only a few left that are
> allowed to renew S licenses. New staff are required to choose
> a cheaper
> route, with R encouraged. And the licenses of recent users of S were
> discontinued this year, so I suspect active licenses may be
> restricted to
> historical application developers. I expect that a viable
> alternative to
> StatServer will be the end of S at our site. I can't help
> feeling a bit
> sorry about that, S made such a positive difference for so
> many years (I
> came to it from GLIM, can you imagine my relief?).
>
>
> > Mark Fowler
> Population Ecology Division
> > Bedford Inst of Oceanography
> > Dept Fisheries & Oceans
> > Dartmouth NS Canada
> B2Y 4A2
> Tel. (902) 426-3529
> Fax (902) 426-9710
> > fowlerm@mar.dfo-mpo.gc.ca
> >
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: kwright@eskimo.com [mailto:kwright@eskimo.com]
> Sent: July 12, 2005 1:39 PM
> To: Rolf Turner
> Cc: tzamouranisy@louisdreyfus.com; s-news@lists.biostat.wustl.edu
> Subject: Re: [S] Concerns about SPLUS version 7
>
>
> Well, Rolf, I think you need to try harder to fathom. :-)
> This debate is
> not new, but here are some of my current reasons to use S-Plus, both
> idealogical and practical. (I do also use R).
>
> 1. Competition can be good.
> 2. S-plus has tools for connectivity to other software. For example,
> opening Excel in S-Plus and calling S-Plus functions from
> Excel. Neither
> feature is as easy in R.
> 3. S-Plus is part of StatServer, which is a nice system for
> enterprise-wide
> statistical analyses and reports. Doing the same in R
> requires expertise in
> some hodgepodge collection of things like SOAP, PERL, etc.
> 4. Some organizations will only use software that can be purchased.
> 5. When I send email to R-devel, I cross my fingers that (a)
> Someone will
> please answer and (b) I won't have my question (or myself) critiqued.
> Insightful support is friendlier and always answers
> (admittedly, not always
> with a solution).
> 6. I have filed fewer bug reports about S-Plus than I have about R.
> 7. S-Plus has some libraries that are not available in R.
> For example, the
> robust library is nice and I think it is better than the
> robust statistical
> methods in R.
> 8. Insightful is a channel for turning a few million dollars
> of research
> grants into software that benefits us all.
>
> Best,
>
> Kevin Wright. S-Plus user 1994-2005. R User 2001-2005.
>
>
> > I cannot for the life of me fathom why ***anyone*** would use SPLUS
> > anymore. No one that I know does so. All use R. The only problem
> > that ever arises is of the nature of ``Whoops! I have this
> data set
> > stored as an SPLUS object, and I can't get at it. And none of my
> > mates can help me out because none of them has access to SPLUS
> > either.''
> >
> > This problem is decaying exponentially however.
> >
> > cheers,
> >
> > Rolf Turner
> > rolf@math.unb.ca
>
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