Best Free Software

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Permalink Reply by Jens Godsk Katz-Kolberg on February 2, 2009 at 12:25pm

That depends on what you mean with "open", ie. what your rights as a user are with the source code.

With open source it is clearly defined, what you can expect. Any other license where you have access to see the source code can restrict you in any way possible, e.g. you can see the code, but you may not use it for anything.

Therefore it is not fair to call it open source. By calling it open source notwithstanding, you unfairly benefit from the goodwill of true open source, and devaluate the true meaning of it.

What you will call it then depends on what rights you want to grant to your users, but if you do not want to use a true open source license, you are on your own.

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Permalink Reply by Alexander Lazarin on February 3, 2009 at 7:44am

I understand and value the importance of the OSI definition. I agree that it is important that people use the term "open source" uniformly with just one meaning. Clearly, this helps to avoid a lot of misunderstanding. I was wondering if there was a consensus on what to call the software with source code that is open (here I'm trying to avoid the term) in the simplest meaning. To cite yourself: "where you have access to see the source code".

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Permalink Reply by Jens Godsk Katz-Kolberg on February 3, 2009 at 12:24pm

Well, Microsoft has something called Shared Source, but it might also have a very specific meaning, which I do not know about.

I do not think there is a clearcut short answer that is broadly accepted, but you could always just write it as "MyGreatSoftwarePackage with source code access" :-)

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Permalink Reply by Luís Medeiros on February 4, 2009 at 4:51am

Jens (and Alexander).

Thanks for your replies.

Really sorry for the misuse of the term "open source". (and by the way thank you for defining it). This happens because my background is more mathematician than computer scientist, but still shoudn't be an excuse.

In fact I had already realized my mistake when Jon Crout replyed to the some post in late November. To avoid any more misunderstanding I will try to change the title-

Luís.

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Permalink Reply by Jens Godsk Katz-Kolberg on February 4, 2009 at 3:39pm

No need to be sorry or change anything.

The question is still very good, and all the replies have also been useful for me.

It is not you or any of the respondents that I am "after" :-)

It just annoys me when software companies claim to produce open source software, when they in reality don't.

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Permalink Reply by John Crout on February 5, 2009 at 4:42am

Luis,

I hope I didn't come across as critical of your usage; in my reply I meant only to clarify what the reply was applicable to, and there was a reason (one that still applies).

If someone else has stated this already, forgive me for being redundant.

In the "battle" waged by Microsoft against LInux and against the Open Source community, someone brought attention to the fact that "Open Source" is not necessarily "free", which was relevant (and remains relevant) because "free" can mean either "without money" or "without restriction". Most applications of Open Source will require money to purchase something, if the environment is large enough.

WIth regard to your question, I agree -- there is no reason for you to apologize. If I seemed critical there is a need for me to do so! For your needs, as long as you are receiving the information yyou sought to obtain by your question, it seems to me there is no reason to change it.

(As for Microsoft's Shared Source, there is a concise definition on Wikipedia ==> here is the URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_source)

:-)

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Permalink Reply by Michael Berthold on November 16, 2009 at 10:13am

Just a little comment - starting with version 2.1, KNIME is released under GPL.

Cheers, Michael

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Permalink Reply by Emry Parssian on February 2, 2009 at 1:52am

Hi,
I'm using free Open Source data mining software "RapidMiner" and I can tell you it is powerful. Just try it for yourself.

http://rapid-i.com/


Amir

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Permalink Reply by Ralf Klinkenberg on February 4, 2009 at 11:56pm

There is a online video tour to get you started with the open source data mining software RapidMiner:

http://rapid-i.com/videos/rapidminer_tour_3_4_en.html

RapidMiner and its documentation (including the 600 page PDF Tutorial with an extensive introduction and a even more extensive data mining operator reference describing the more than 500 available data mining operators) can be downloaded for free:

http://rapid-i.com/content/view/26/84/

After starting RapidMiner, you also have a Online Tutorial in the program (on the start-up screen and also in the "Help" menu under "Tutorial") with many exemplary data mining processes and extensive explainations. These processes cannot only be viewed, but also be run, modified, run again, etc. Hence this is a really interactive tutorial to get hands on quickly.

There also is a forum for help from other users:

http://forum.rapid-i.com/

I hope this helps. Have fun using RapidMiner!

Best regards,
Ralf Klinkenberg

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Permalink Reply by Hugo Koopmans on February 5, 2009 at 12:03pm

Hi Luis,

My favorites are :
- WEKA
- R-project with R commander , Rattle and the ggobi package
- Octave
- Orange + python

I used R and Weka in multiple occasions on commercial projects.

Hugo

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Permalink Reply by David S. Schwarz on February 9, 2009 at 8:50am

For what it's worth, here is a link to free statistical software on the web:

http://en.freestatistics.info/stat.php

I don't have an affiliation with this page or any opinions about the software listed (most of it I have not looked at). However, it is free, and may suit your needs.

Dave

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