I got an email from the people at Revolution computing reporting:
REvolution Computing has now made a public version of its commercial grade REvolution R program available for download from its website. REvolution R is REvolution Computing’s distribution of the popular R statistical software, optimized for use in commercial environments. A key feature includes the use of powerful optimized libraries capable of boosting performance by a factor of 5 or 10 for commonly used operations.
There’s also a payware version, which “features advanced functionality, including ParallelR, which speeds deployment across both multiprocessor workstations and clusters to enable the same codes to be used for prototyping and production. REvolution R Enterprise is functional with 64-bit platforms and Linux enterprise platforms and provides for telephone support and response guarantees.”
I don’t know anything about this but at least in theory it sounds like a good idea! If anyone has any comments, feel free to share them.
So this is a "free" version of a commercial packaging of a truly free and open-source software?! I do not buy it, as REvolution achieves better performances by using commercial compilers. In addition, I also read that "REvolution R is available for download on 32-bit Windows and MacOS X systems". Does that mean it does not run on my Linux machine? I have not yet found the time to try it…
Personally I think it's great when commercial enterprises spring up around open-source ecologies, provided that the essential tools stay open-source and maintain their vibrant communities. I always make sure my own open-source releases have licenses that allow commercial redistribution.
Ken, I agree (but that's not surprising, given that I work for REvolution Computing!). We're committed to the open-source model for R, and improvements we make to R are contributed back to the community via the open-source license. We're very interested in keeping the R community vibrant: we're a benefactor of the R Foundation and support conferences and local user groups.
Xi'an, unfortunately we don't make a binary distribution available for Linux free of charge simply because we haven't yet devoted the resources to the build processes and testing required for all the different Linux installations out there. We do offer Linux via subscription, often with a custom installation by one of our engineers.
I tried it out on a bootstrap function I have. Time went from 6.2 minutes to 2.8 minutes. Looks and works just like CRAN R. Faster is always good.
Ahhh ..
Wasn't the commercial package S first? And then R came along as a free, open-source version of S, and put Insightful out of business? And now there's a company trying to sell a proprietary version of R?
I love it.