Revolution Analytics has released some extensions that are proprietary, for instance their doSMP library that provides multicore support under Windows. They have also released several of their libraries into the "commons" -- doMC and foreach are the two that immediately come to mind.
I'm sort of torn on this issue because setting aside the terms under which RA releases their libraries, what they produce comes with great documentation, and tends to be pretty useful. Using foreach and doMC I was able to cut down a calculation that normally takes 8 hours to 3 hours on a 6 core machine.
On the other hand, I strongly believe that proprietary code should be avoided when doing scientific research because it inhibits peer review and makes it harder for others to replicate your work. As Warren DeLano said: "The only way to publish software in a scientifically robust manner is to share source code, and that means publishing via the internet in an open-access/open-source fashion."
And Robert Gentleman has always been one of the strongest proponents of reproducible research, which includes being able to create packages that can be shared and freely distributed.
I'm sort of torn on this issue because setting aside the terms under which RA releases their libraries, what they produce comes with great documentation, and tends to be pretty useful. Using foreach and doMC I was able to cut down a calculation that normally takes 8 hours to 3 hours on a 6 core machine.
On the other hand, I strongly believe that proprietary code should be avoided when doing scientific research because it inhibits peer review and makes it harder for others to replicate your work. As Warren DeLano said: "The only way to publish software in a scientifically robust manner is to share source code, and that means publishing via the internet in an open-access/open-source fashion."