Open ware - is a magnanimous contribution of free, cooperation of rigorous peer activity running parallel software development ,debugging, innovative and rapid advancement in evolution of a software.

Issues can be like

• Mostly an imitation of Licensed product
• can be even a Beta version of a "to-be" sale able product
• On Quality - Size, layout, aesthetics etc.,
• Project or utility - Comparable to any licensed software
• Mostly unprotected from third party invasions

Stefan Koch et all, (2013), Open Source Community Processes: Implications on Micro and Macro Level

Free software day - it's a significant day to me. Since June 2010, I have been asking my college for a proper SPSS, older colleges have that, but we started in a time when we had to budget.  So I have been doing some research due to the generosity of good friends.  Thanks to all of them!  (But I ask myself is it better to work somewhere else where good scholars and teachers who care about students are really appreciated.)

It is good. Keep on doing good work.

Keep the good work up, dear Miranda!

Open ware - is a magnanimous contribution of free, cooperation of rigorous peer activity running parallel software development ,debugging, innovative and rapid advancement in evolution of a software.

Issues can be like

• Mostly an imitation of Licensed product
• can be even a Beta version of a "to-be" sale able product
• On Quality - Size, layout, aesthetics etc.,
• Project or utility - Comparable to any licensed software
• Mostly unprotected from third party invasions

Stefan Koch et all, (2013), Open Source Community Processes: Implications on Micro and Macro Level

A free software program should have the four essential freedoms:

-The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose (freedom 0).

- The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

- The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).

- The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3).    (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html)

In general, placing any restrictions on the use of Free Software, such as time  or geographic area makes it a non-free program.

Dear Miranda.

Appreciate the good work. 

usually I let my student get the free software at a time to solve their research. However, I personally get a compliment software into my personal laptop from friends in the field. I also try to purchase the license for our lab in the university. 

Dear @Miranda the freeware is  software that you can not rely upon! I will attach some papers which covers the area of disadvantages of freeware, and also bring the discussion on difference between freeware and open source. Freeware security is being an issue also.

https://sites.google.com/site/akoritaburkin2012/research-paper-2-what-is-freeware

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnxha29yaXRhYnVya2luMjAxMnxneDo3ZDJhMGJhY2Q4MGMwNTA4

http://www.insidetechnology360.com/index.php/disadvantages-of-freeware-25929/

Thanks for your views and great encouragement dear friends. 

Dear Prof Ljubomir, you have raised a very important point. I have myself never read an article that reported using PSPP or R.  All the research I read were by authors who used SPSS, although I hear that R is very good.  I will get into your links soon,  thanks. 

We use a number of software for FREE in Bioinformatics aided Molecular Biology. These are all over the internet. When a development is funded by public money, it always goes FREE. Some commercial vendors do make some versions FREE for example: Discovery Studio. You can try LINUX based Statistical Tools, although I have not used them myself in recent years.

Dear Pandjassarame, do you have softcopies of articles that use free software?  Most of the authors of papers that I read in science education actually used SPSS.  I just wish to estimate the frequency of authors using R.  

Prof Kamal, you are very understanding, thanks.  You know that we can't easily afford expensive software, especially the one that comes with limited period of usage.

Dear friends, in a way Google scholar and Google maps can be considered as freeware?  They are certainly useful.  Perhaps everyone of you use the 2 things?  Thanks.

Unfortunately, paying for software doesn't guarantee it is working properly and satisfyingly.

Once ~ long time ago, for sure ~ I thought this issue would evaporate in the course of time. That turned out to be a dream, or should I say a nightmare:

• It's partly true for established software applications and packages, and we users paid / pay a lot, so that developers could / can learn from their failures.
• However, it is still not true for newer software, because software managers and developers still think and work in much the same way: develop, sell, ask users, improve, sell, ask users, ... forever.

Thus, we pay in order that development industry learns. Instead, they should pay us, isn't it?

It happened to me again this year, when I tried to figure out what is the best private cloud solution for backup, synchronisation and sharing ~ not for fun, but for my daily work as a teacher and researcher! It was a small disaster if looked upon from a purely economic perspective (loss of time and money).

Frankly, however, this 'philosophy' is pervasive in economic life (business): car manufacturers have done it for ages, medical profession is doing it for ages, cell phone industry is doing it for decades ... There should be awarded a price for the most productive Test Rabbit of the Year, or so, don't you think so?

Dear @Paul, thanks for a great answer.  I don't expect that they should pay us!  But why must they make it so expensive?  I can afford a proper Microsoft Office, but I can't afford a genuine SPSS.  Not all of us have a tough conscience that allows us to do things as we like.  I use my friend's office computer at times.  She's angry that my college doesn't provide even this basic tool.  A good friend on RG has done a great deal for me in this area of need.  He's not from a rich country.  So at least poor folks, and poor students, understand one another very well :)

Dear Miranda,

I think most statistical data analysis can be done on Excel ToolPak. The Analysis Toolpak is an Excel add-in program that is available when you install Microsoft Office or Excel. 

"very likely ... during the summer of 2014, R became the most widely used analytics software for scholarly article"

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2480920/r-programming-language-gaining-ground-on-traditional-statistics-packages.html

So yes, sure, R is commonly used in research. I've used it myself in several publications. Some of the soft-copies are available on research gate (see linked files).

Although I think Mahfuz's suggestion of using Excel is useful, I recommend against doing so. Excel will surely lead to correct results, but does not allow you to work with syntax code - thus not allowing for reproducible research. 

Article influence.ME: Tools for Detecting Influential Data in Mixed ...

Article Institutional and Demographic Explanations of Women's Employ...

Thesis Family Policy Outcomes: Combining Institutional and Demograp...

Thanks friends, Prof Mahfuz, Rense.  Unfortunately in my field, Excel isn't sufficient.  I have been using SPSS all this while, and SPSS is easy to learn.

Thanks Rense.  I have downloaded 2 papers, and will get into them.  How do YOU get familiar with R?  My friends haven't mastered it yet, even though they have the Beginner Guide.

With respect, I disagree that most analyses can be done in Excel.  I am a frequent user of Excel, and use its Pivot Tables, and graphing/charting extensively.  I also use both good old formulas as well the Analysis ToolPak for things like a quick ANOVA, histogram, confidence intervals, and chi squared analysis.  But for anything more complicated than a 2 variable regression (e.g., multivariable regression; factor analysis; IRT; hierarchical linear modeling; structural equation modeling; multidimentional scaling) you need a dedicated statistics program.  I have never used R myself but have several epidemiologist colleagues that swear by it for certain specific tyeps of epi analyses.

Thanks Sylvia.   Dear Profs Kamal, Ljubomir, Debi, Hashem, Umachandran, Paul and dear friends, as author of this thread, I express the desire to hear your views and learn along with friends on RG.  Downvotes are accepted ONLY when learning is advanced.

For assessing implication of free software to research processes should be part of a project evaluation, e. g. for adoption or reuse in a commercial context. Several  assessment schemes like Open Business Readiness Rating (OpenBRR), Open Source Maturity Model, QSOS, or OpenBQR have been developed for both to impact on success it is mostly the size of the community driving adoption which decides it.

Some examples of FREE software for research in Biology esp. Molecular Biology

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/guide/all/#tools_

http://www.openrasmol.org/

http://www.ebi.ac.uk/services/other-software

http://www.ddbj.nig.ac.jp/searches-e.html

http://accelrys.com/products/discovery-studio/

I am so sorry for this down-voter. What a hypocrisy! Under this thread, I was not down-voted yet. The funniest thing is that he down-votes the people that up-votes him, like @Miranda, Mahfuz! I am aware who that "man" is, but I will wait a while to see what consequences ResearchGate will cause, if any! If not, the action follows!

Thanks for your posts dear friends.  I have sufficient info concerning the use of R as compared to SPSS.  On RG, I have been blessed by generous friends.  I had a copy of SPSS 16 from one dear friend, and another generous friend has posted me SPSS19.  

That is how much good RG (and the friends found here) is for a researcher from a developing country who has no research grant.  Some of you may know the situation in my country and the reason why so much brain drain has negatively impacted its economy.  If you don't, read more about it on this link here.

- See more at: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/nep-brain-drain-holding-back-malaysia-says-world-bank#sthash.XMqrksyZ.dpuf