[R] History of R

[Barry Rowlingson]

Earl F. Glynn wrote:

> Nearly six years ago, SAS also refused to give us academic pricing because 
> we were not a degree granting institution.  About a year ago, SAS finally 
> granted us academic pricing, but most of the analysis momentum was already 
> for the use of R/Bioconductor.

I recently read the small print on the academic license our site has for 
SAS. You have to:

  1 inform SAS of any taught courses that use SAS
  2 inform SAS of any research projects using SAS
  3 allow SAS to refer to your institution as a SAS user
  4 allow SAS to review your taught courses
  5 ensure your courses are taught using qualified personnel.
  6 give SAS your first-born male offspring

  I spoke to our site's licensing supremos and they say they've never 
heard of anyone complying with 1 or 2. Point 4 sounds like petty 
fiddling in our educational business, and point 5 left 'qualified' 
undefined. Point 6 doesn't bother me since I don't have kids.

  Luckily other parts of our institution have made deals with SAS to use 
it for consulting and training, so perhaps some of these points don't 
apply to my department. I've not seen the small print on that contract 
though, but I expect it to be written in blood on freshly slaughtered 
deerskin...

Barry