Dear Miranda,

Just Google it according to your interest. You will have plenty of info.

Personally I am not very much in to these freewares....

Cheers

@Lijo, thanks. Let's wait and see what our ICT friends say, ok?

Of course I have used some free image analysis software, music software, antivirus, chemistry software etc...and they are quiet useful...

Yes, Miranda, may be we will find lots of useful info in this thread from other contributors....

Dear Miranda Yeoh

Open and free source software enable learners and persons interested in searching articles to explore well in the constructive way of every individual learner. Technological integration is feasible through this free and open source software. Most of the source providers demand money to refer and download the articles thoroughly. To my little knowledge, my opinion is to provide more free and open source software for the welfare of the learner community

I am very familiar and I think they are more robust, accuracy and broadband than the 'black-box' commercial products. Here in RG I have presented many comparisons where the winner always was an open source program or project if you prefer. Some pairs: SAS or R, SPSS or R, MS Excel or LibreOffice Calc, Matlab or Octave. Why? Because when you are a contributor at an open source platform you have to follow clear, transparent and very tight guides for adding your contribution. On the other side, in a big and multinational corporation, where the headquarters are here, the quality department is there and the software implementation is somewhere else, it is more possible to be created errors inside the black-box. Do you remember how often a 'critical update' has been fixed in your PC under Windows? Do you know that the term of virus and so on is not an option under Unix platforms? Is it a coincidence? No, certainly no.

Dear Miranda. Although I am not to familiar with these, I sometimes use them mainly in order to evaluate and compare performances before I decide to purchase something from a reliable source. Besides this Google is probably the freeware I most often use.

Cheers,

JP

If financial constraints one can opt for free/open source s/w. Only you have learn it their way. No comparison but a little patience, regular use and you will be an expert on that package. Still, there are people, who make available all popular branded and priced s/w available free of cost (cracked ones) on Internet. Name one and you have it.

Miranda!! Now I understand few days back you were talking about computer virus etc. etc.

Just do not download free whatever you come across. May be some of them are good but not all. Once your system crash gone case. Go for genuine ones. I use CNET and download they are worth reliable. Try once.

Dear friends (Lijo, Demetris, Prabaharan, Patrick, Profs Ravi and Kamal, Jetty), thanks for your views.

These past few years, I have tried to get some of Demetris' skills ('I am very familiar and I think they are more robust, accuracy and broadband than the 'black-box' commercial products. ')

Profs Kamal and Ravi, you are so Right ('most people can't afforded to pay for the expensive software'). You also know whom that includes.

Free is nice but not always.At least for antivirus the original one is needed.

@Farhad, Yes, that is true. Most of the time, only the anvtivirus is original.....

But I sometimes use the computer in my friend's office. That computer has original programs, even SPSS. My friend has said that she wouldn't do any research if she's working in my place...

@Patrick, I have bookmarked the paper and clicked on Request full text. Please send, thanks :)

Most of time I prefer freeware or open-source because of its easy availability and also free of cost.

Most of the simulation software which we need during our research/experiments or which are useful for us is very costly so everyone cannot buy it. Many freewares are available which can perform almost similar task which can be used alternatively so we can use it and also budget of our research project decreases to a large extent due to free availability of some of these software packages.

Talking about user friendliness, most of them are user friendly but if you will compare it with paid/original software, you can sometimes find it less user friendly.

Of-course all features cannot be integrated in freeware or open source because if it is done, the value of paid software will decrease. So depending on your use you can use combination of 2-3 opensource to fulfill the need of one paid/shareware software.

Regards,

Nitish

Thanks Nitish. I would be happy if this is done:

'...all features cannot be integrated in freeware or open source because if it is done, the value of paid software will decrease'.

Miranda, in out university, when Microsoft Corporation imposed its copyright upon its software, the first reaction of Management was to use open source. However, after consultations, our management reverted back to MS, with our computers installed with genuine software. For this reason, I am not really familiar with the open source. I know that if push comes to shove, someday, I will be forced or shall we say motivated to resort to the open source. But for now, I have to enjoy, or shall we say, live with what the university gives us. (My family also have its own licensed computers). Ed

Ed, we did the same, moved to Open Office, and the person (lecturer) who suggested this got an award for saving money. But for you, enjoy while you can :) Do you remember, I sent you a related question and your answer was you haven't tried using PSPP?

For me, it's a learning experience, experiment more, learn more :)

When I bought a new PC I had to pay 150 euros for MS Office. Since my financial situation is not the best possible, I installed LibreOffice and I inform everybody that: 1)is full functional 2)is fully compatible with MS programs. If you are rich men, buy MS Office. But personally, if in the future I will be a rich man, then I will make donations to open source projects.

I do, Miranda, it was a new acronym to me.

Wow, great answers! And I hardly ever hear from Thomas and Tamas. What a valuable encouragement: 'a key difference in open source and free software, is that whatever the problem they have, we are encouraged to learn about them, and mutually even we can fix them' AND 'it is painful to spend the time learning, but still, I prefer'. Thanks to all.

@Ed, they probably choose that acronym PSPP to show the difference and relationship to SPSS...what do you think?

Thanks Joao. I'm not sure that many RG friends use open source stuff. Their research need seem to be well provided. I would like to explore R, are you an expert? Because PSPP can only open my SPSS sav file, not the spo file...or am I wrong in this?

Thanks Joao. Please send all useful info on R, to my email:

[email protected]

Thanks Joao, I got the stuff, the beginner guide and Intro to R. I will try to learn about R as much as possible and as quickly as possible :) But this will cause me to be away from RG Q and A...

@Miranda, here is a free software concept map! It speaks itself!

Dear friends, there's a problem. So far, I haven't come across empirical papers reporting that the stats were calculated using PSPP or R?

Or is this not a problem? Please let me know, Thanks.

@Prof Ljubomir, the map is great.