The Linux Foundation is setting up a new organization dedicated to the R programming language. The R Consortium is designed to advance the analytics and data science language, as well as support both technical and user communities.

“Millions of data scientists and academic researchers use R language every day and want to collaborate with their peers to share visualization and analysis techniques,” said Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation. “The R Consortium will promote the sharing of ideas and accelerating findings that make R even better for business, research and academic purposes.”

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The R Consortium will work with the R Foundation and the R user community to complement its work and advance the project for all users and developers. In addition, the group will be hosted by the Linux Foundation as a Collaborative Project, and will be governed under an open model that includes an infrastructure steering committee and a board of directors. The infrastructure steering committee will be made up of the group’s founding members and the leads of key infrastructure projects.

Potential projects, according to the R Consortium, include:

  • Strengthening R-Forge’s infrastructure
  • Developing documentation
  • Encouraging communication and collaboration

“This is a great opportunity to harness the power of the thriving R user community around the globe and to advance the R language for everyone,” said John Chambers, creator of the S programming language, on behalf of the R Foundation Board. “The R Consortium will provide vital funding support for R services and development, made possible by the Linux Foundation’s proven track record of bringing large-scale communities together. We are looking forward to working with both organizations.”

Companies supporting the R Consortium include Alteryx, Google, Ketchum Trading, Mango Solutions, Microsoft, Oracle, RStudio and TIBCO Software.

“The R Consortium will support the R community by helping companies that rely on R—and their data scientists and developers—to work together to answer some of today’s most complex technology and research questions,” said David Smith, R community lead at Microsoft. “We’re excited to galvanize this initiative as a founding member.”