2016 is already shaping up to be another banner year for the R Project. The project is as active as ever, with the new R 3.2.4 just released (and R 3.3.0 following up very soon), and the milestone of 8,000 contributed packages was passed just last month (coincidentally, on the 16th anniversary of the release of R 1.0.0). Meanwhile, the popularity of the R language continues unabated: R was ranked #6 in IEEE’s Top Programming Languages of 2015, and it’s one of the fastest-growing languages on StackOverflow.
This popularity makes the mission of the R Consortium as important as ever: to support to the R community, the R Foundation, and everyone using, maintaining and distributing R software. Founded just last July, 2015 was a year of “spinning up” for the R Consortium: establishing a board, recruiting members, and setting a charter for the steering committee. With that groundwork behind us, 2016 will be a year of action. The Consortium will be distributing funds to community-nominated projects and soliciting more proposals, supporting the useR! 2016 conference in Stanford, and continuing to popularize R as the leading platform for data science research and applications.
The R Consortium recently welcomed Avant and Procogia as new Silver members. If your employer is a member of the R Consortium, we encourage you to show your support for our mission with this member badge. If not, please encourage your employer to become a member and provide their support as well.
We’ll have more news to share here in the blog in the coming weeks. In the meantime, we invite you to read the list of frequently-asked questions about the R Consortium, and follow the R Consortium on Twitter for the latest updates.