There is an interesting article in the NY Times on R. It’s heartening to see that free and open source tools like R are getting noticed for their worth. Mainly because free and open source tools do not have any PR firms pitching for them nor do they have any marketing droids peddling stories to the mainstream media.

So, something like this sort gets noticed when there is an undercurrent of adopters and influential users. This story also gives an idea to the naive about the power of open source development and its advantages. Good!

The article also has a proprietory competitor dismissing the *popularity* as saying “it addresses a niche market for high-end data analysts that want free, readily available code”. She also says

“We have customers who build engines for aircraft. I am happy they are not using freeware when I get on a jet.”

Hilarious!! I was literally ROTFL when I read that.