Recently Updated packages

Rcompression package	Interface to zlib and bzip2 libraries for performing in-memory compression and decompression in R. This is useful when receiving or sending contents to remote servers, e.g. Web services, HTTP requests via RCurl.
Sxslt package	Updates to the bi-directional interface between R and libxslt. In particular, the use of XSLT from within R is greatly enhanced with much greater control of registering functions, parameters, etc.
SJava	Bug fixes and new features for converters. And removed the dependency on an old version of ANTLR.
XML	Additional controls for printing XML, and checks for appropriate versions of libxml.
Rexif	An R package for reading camera information and other meta-data from images taken with digital cameras.
CGIwithR	Extensions to David Firth's original CGIwithR package. I am now maintaining that package after David's good work.
Aspell	An interface to the GNU aspell library for checking the spelling of words and entire documents.
RDCOMEvents	This package provides a facility to listen for DCOM events from applications such as Excel and Word and others and to process them with R functions.
Combinations	This package is used for generating the combinations for choosing r items from a set of n items but does it in C code. When n gets large, the package provides a mechanism for dealing with each combination as it is generated so that one does not have to hold the entire collection around and operate on them after creating the entire collection. This makes computations feasible for very large numbers of combinations. It does not necessarily make them fast! The package is also a good example of the basics of calling R functions from C code. It also illustrates aspects of adapting code for a stand-alone application to be used within an interactive language like R/S-Plus, Python, Perl or Matlab/Octave.
RMatlab	An interface between R and Matlab. One can call R functions from Matlab code, and Matlab functions from R code using the syntax of the local programming language.
RCurl	A package for performing HTTP requests using the C-level cURL library. This is a very flexible, customizable way to handle HTTP-based communications from within R in a higher-level and more extensive way than is directly available via socket connections. This is used by the SSOAP package and a forthcoming package for HTML form submissions.
Rstem	A package for performing word stemming for use in text analysis. This is an interface to Martin Porter's Snowball generated C code for performing stemming. The package has support for several languages and is exensible.
IDocs	An experimental package for interactive documents created in XML and rendered using viewHtml in RGtkViewers. This connects the different plugins in a document and across documents using nested environments and a stack that pushes and pops environments as they are entered and exited.
XSL files for Omegahat	This is a collection of support XSL, DTD and CSS files for Omegahat. The suite allows thefiles to be used via catalogs.
SASXML	An experimental package for reading XML data in the Open Information Model (OIM) format, e.g. SAS XML files. This might be generalized to have functionality for reading PMML (Predictive Model Markup Language).
RDCOMServer	A rich, extensible and flexible mechanism for defining and implementing COM classes and objects entirely within the S language. This allows one to make S functions and objects accessible to other applications and programming languages without people having to know the S language. This provids not just access to the R evaluator, but arbitrary S objects.
RDCOMClient	A mechanism that allows S users to create and use COM objects directly within an R session.
RGnomePrint	An R interface to libgnomeprint, the Gnome printing library that provides facilities for controlling printing from Gtk widgets, previewing, and generating Postscript, Windows metafiles (and potentially PDF.)
GccTranslationUnit	A Python module for obtaining reflectance information from C/C++ source code. This can be used to programmatically generate S bindings to arbitrary routines, classes and data structures in native code and also build the registration table for routines to be accessed from R. We can also use this to compute on C/C++ code, e.g. determining call graphs, free variables.
SWinTypeLibs	Facilities for reading type information from DLLs, type libraries or (D)COM objects directly in R. This can be used to programmatically generate interfaces to C/C++ code.
SWinRegistry	Read and write access to the Windows registry. For Windows platform only.
S language binding to the gtk+extra library.	Access to the widgets in the gtk+extra library, i.e. the data-grid/sheet display, directory list, icon list and file list.
S language binding to the Gdk pixbuf library.	Access to the Pixbuf library for reading images into R to be used in RGtk and associated packages.
S language binding to the Glade library.	S language facilities for instantiating GUIs constructed interactively via the glade GUI builder. This can register S functions or expressions, or C routines specified as callbacks in the glade interface.
A plugin event-loop for R.	A facility that allows one to dynamically specify a new event loop to use within an R session. This allows one to use Gtk or Tk event loop to drive R. One can write methods for other toolkits such as Carbon, Qt, etc.
S language binding generator for Gtk-based libraries.	A package that creates S and C code to interface to arbitrary Gtk-based C libraries and Gtk classes such as Gtk itself, Zvt, gtk+-extra, gtkhtml, embedded Mozilla, etc.
R/SPlus XML Parsing package	Parse and create XML documents within the S language.
RGtk package	Bindings for programming GUIs using Gtk and extended widget sets.
An R-XLisp interface	Interface between R and XLisp allowing R code to call XLisp functions.
RObjectTables package	Framework for user-defined search path elements, alternative automatic serialization, external variables, etc.
RGtkViewers package	A collection of GUI tools for viewing different information, built using RGtk.
RSMethods	Formal S classes and methods for R.
RSPython	a bi-directional interface allowing calling R functions from Python code and accessing Python objects, classes and functions from R sessions.
RSPerl	a bi-directional interface allowing calling R functions from Perl code and accessing Perl objects, classes and routies from R sessions.
RGnumeric	an R plugin for Gnumeric that allows Gnumeric users to call R functions from within a spreadsheet, and for R programmers to access Gnumeric sheets and their contents from within R functions.
R embedded in Xalan, the XSL translator	Use R to generate output in and control transformation of XML documents using XSL functions
R Plugin for Netscape	A plugin for Netscape that allows one to call R from JavaScript and JavaScript from R.

These are just some of a complete collection of Omegahat packages for R and S-Plus.

Omega is a joint project with the goal of providing a variety of open-source software for statistical applications. The Omega project began in July, 1998, with discussions among designers responsible for three current statistical languages (S, R, and Lisp-Stat), with the idea of working together on new directions with special emphasis on web-based software, Java, the Java virtual machine, and distributed computing. We encourage participation by anyone wanting to extend computing capabilities in one of the existing languages, to those interested in distributed or web-based statistical software, and to those interested in the design of new statistical languages.

Software is being developed for the project; we refer to it as the omegahat software, to emphasize in typical statistical terminology that we are starting on a process of approximating the ideal software through many iterations, among other reasons.

Follow the pointers below to find out more about the omegahat software.

Philosophy

Related Software

Some of the many areas in which Java packages may be of value to statistics include:

the JDBC database connectivity software, providing a general interface to database systems, extended by some facilities typically needed in statistical applications;
numerical computations for linear algebra (e.g., work is currently proceeding on two Java matrix and linear algebra packages called JAMA and COLT );
processing and analysis of images---can we combine computational techniques with the flexibility of graphics and user interface tools in Java;
graphics---possible new models for statistical graphics;
dynamic reporting -- the Java packages supporting XML, lightweight components (Swing/Java Foundation Classes), HTML viewers and network-distributed computations make the Omega environment useful for generating reports with live objects.

In many of these areas, there have been questions about the speed attainable by Java. Investigating such questions is part of what we want to do.

Policy

Specific goals and procedures are still being developed, but the current policy includes the following.

The code developed will be created and offered as open-source software, under a public license similar to the licenses used for Linux, Netscape, and R.
Contributions are encouraged in the form of software compatible with the three-level structure shown above. This includes but is not restricted to: Java packages; software in other languages, if it can be structured as a module defined in CORBA; software for the interactive languages built in Omega.
We anticipate organizing software into layers, including at least two: a general contributed software layer and a central layer for core Omega facilities.
We have established a number of mailing lists for exchange of ideas. These include lists for general discussion, for Omega packages, for interactive languages using Omega, and for technical issues about Omega itself.

Membership

The current core group of Omega developers includes:

Douglas Bates	John Chambers	Di Cook
Peter Dalgaard	Robert Gentleman	Kurt Hornik
Ross Ihaka	Friedrich Leisch	Thomas Lumley
Martin Mächler	Guido Masarotto	Paul Murrell
Balasubramanian Narasimhan	Brian Ripley	Günther Sawitzki
Duncan Temple Lang	Luke Tierney	Bill Venables

Participation in the general and special-purpose software work of the Omega project is open to anyone interested in our goals. The mailing lists are a good place to start; in particular omega-devel@omegahat.org is a list for discussion of the general development of software for the project. The success of the Omega project is highly dependent on the involvement of a wide range of participants in many different areas. We can all benefit.

The Omega Project Umbrella

As well as developing software ourselves, the project also hopes to support other development efforts. To this end, Doug Bates has generously allowed his machine to be used for distributing code for different projects. These projects include.

RS-DBI: Database connectivity for both R and S.