Greetings all, While recognizing that "this is easier said, than done", is there any logic in suggesting that for those who might be interested, a specific R GUI session of sorts be added to the UseR! 2006 meeting schedule?
Since some quorum of interested GUI users may be planning to attend the meeting or may be motivated to do so, it may be an opportunity to: 1. Leverage face to face interaction and visualize possible options 2. Define areas of commonality 3. Bring some level of focus to targeted segments of the user base that would utilize a GUI and for whom there may be differing functional requirements. 4. Identify cross-platform opportunities and technologies 5. See further notes below... Some of the preliminary work could no doubt be done in advance to better prepare and structure discussion. This could be done as a "breakout" session or if there is sufficient interest (and facility/funding issues can be resolved) perhaps a group session held the day before or perhaps the day after the main conference program. If there is a core group that is interested in pursuing this, an announcement could be made to the respective R e-mail lists (r-help, r-devel, r-sig-gui, etc.) whereby, with the sufficient lead time as we have, the requisite activities could be put in place to orchestrate the session, define specific desired outcomes and identify individuals willing to spend their time to coordinate and make this venture successful (however success would be defined). There is no business or financial motivation here for a GUI. If there was and a for profit company decided that there would be a significant return on investment, they would spend the money, hire the resources, define a team leader and put forth a single development spec for a GUI project based upon their own market research. It would be done in a relatively authoritarian fashion and if you didn't agree, you would be asked to find a job elsewhere. Here, you would need to solicit voluntary resources, reconcile the expected differences of opinion on the spectrum of matters that would have to be addressed and define some common framework for operating, perhaps based upon targeted user segments. This subject, as mentioned, has come up on the lists previously, with no common resolution, resulting of course in the individual activities that have emerged. Is there a group of motivated useRs out there, who have the time, energy, and skills and are willing to work within the framework of a design and development "team" environment, where a quid pro quo for moving forward could evolve from the User! 2006 meeting? Is there an individual, who would need to emerge from that group, who has the respect and requisite skills to drive a consensus of opinion and keep a team focused and moving in the proper direction? If so, that might be a step in the direction of evolving a GUI that might make sense for some yet to be defined range of useRs, who would not otherwise utilize the CLI or might need to evolve in that direction over time. If not, then the status quo continues... There are some 300 Linux distributions out there and multiple X based GUIs, which have evolved for reasons as varied as those behind the available R GUIs and more. Yet there are a select few base Linux distributions and largely two GUIs that have garnered any significant market share. Perhaps, over time, lacking any coordinated activity, a similar situation will evolve here, if the predicate that a broad demand for a R GUI is valid. If the predicate is false, then this process is perhaps rightly done by individuals meeting narrowly focused, local requirements. I should note, that I am not prospective GUI user, but a happy ESS user. I simply thought that I would try to provoke some discussion on this point, since I jumped into this thread earlier in the week. Best regards, Marc Schwartz ______________________________________________ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
