Trying out glmnet: a case study in open-source development

So the R user community had just been provided access to a latest learning algorithm hot off the development presses from three world-renowned practitioners – for free. And glmnet is readily accessible from the internet, installing on existing R platforms painlessly. No commercial stats package that I know of – certainly not the market leader – is even close to releasing a competitive offering. I’d say that’s a pretty good deal for stats types like me, and …

So the R user community had just been provided access to a latest learning algorithm hot off the development presses from three world-renowned practitioners – for free. And glmnet is readily accessible from the internet, installing on existing R platforms painlessly. No commercial stats package that I know of – certainly not the market leader – is even close to releasing a competitive offering. I’d say that’s a pretty good deal for stats types like me, and a benefit to working with a fertile, world-wide open source initiative like R.

Thanks to many users, esp. Tim Hesterberg, for notifying us of the errors.