Statistical (and other) Packages Available as Free Software

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This page lists primarily statistical software, along with mapping, spreadsheets, database, stuff to do data analysis or management.  All of the packages are free to use, that is: there is no charge for individuals to use them. Many of the websites say that individuals are free to download and use the packages. In some cases, there may be charges to institutions. Some of the packages are also open, that is, they are free to use and the source code is freely available so anyone can make modifications to the programs if they wish to.  At the bottom of this page, I list a few sites that have information about what "free" means.

Please note: I've only used a few of these software programs a little bit, so I can't say much about how good they are, whether they crash, have viruses, or much else about them.  If you use them, please let me know how well they work.  If there are any major problems, I'll take them off this list.  I'm sorry to add the usual disclaimer that, while I don't expect any problems with them, if you use any of these, I can't be responsible for any problems that may occur. Also, I'm not necessarily recommending any, just providing info and links.



Statistics

There are many free statistical programs. See this article  http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Free_statistical_software/Citable_Version  at Citizendium about free statistical software.
Also see here   http://gsociology.icaap.org/methods/softsum.html    for a brief summary of some of the programs.

Several of these stat programs were reviewed in an article in Opus 12, a journal covering Opus 12 Foundation research. Stawicki SPA. Guide to free statistical software: General applications. OPUS 12 Scientist 2010;4(1):12-13.   http://journal.opus12.org/o12-ojs/ojs-2.1.1/index.php/o12sci/issue/view/86    Reviewed OpenStat, Sofa, PSPP, MicrOsiris and a few others. Just describes the programs.
  Another review looked at R and mentioned a few others (OpenStat and MicroOsiris). "Free Statistics Software, Yours, Free to keep...."   Felix Grant, Scientific Computing World, Sept/Oct 2004,    http://www.scientific-computing.com/scwsepoct04free_statistics.html  
  This isn't a review of the packages, but a look at which ones are popular   http://r4stats.com/articles/popularity/   The Popularity of Data Analysis Software, by Robert A. Muenchen
  Also look at this, the most popular response,   http://www.researchgate.net/post/What_is_the_most_commonly_used_statistical_analysis_software_in_the_world   by Robert Thomas Brennan · Harvard University, explaining some of the difficulties in answering which is the most popular. For example, excel has a lot of statistical functions, but isn't thought of as statistical software so may not be counted


I also compared 8 programs (LazStat, easyreg, epidata, WinIDAMS, instat, MicrOsiris, Epi Info and PSPP), and added excel and Gnumeric, when data sets have no missing values, shown here   http://gsociology.icaap.org/methods/comparing_freestaprograms.html   Basically, for correlation and simple regression, all gave the same or similar results. Some also had the same results for forward stepwise. 

I also compared 6 programs (MicrOsiris Epi Info, WinIDAMS, Instat, PSPP, JASP), when data sets do have missing values, shown here
http://gsociology.icaap.org/methods/comparing_freestaprograms_missing.html   Basically, for correlation and simple regression all gave the same results. These are also the only programs that I can get to successfully and reliably handle missing data with my data sets. WinIDAMS isn't so easy but after a lot of tries and emails with UNESCO staff, I understood it well enough to get it to work.


Other lists of free stat software


John C. Pezzullo's list of free statistical software
  http://statpages.info/javasta2.html  The First and MAIN list of software.  I got links to several of the stat packages listed here from Mr. Pezzullo's site, which lists more info about each package.
 
StatSci list of free software   http://www.statsci.org/free.html   also lists some of the above.

List of free statistical software   http://statistiksoftware.com/free_software.html    list of some programs with lots of notes about many of them, i.e., features, requirements.

Evaluation Portal   http://www.evaluation.lars-balzer.name/links/tools-free-no-cost/statistical-software/   lists software and features of them.

Association for Survey Computing software index   http://www.asc.org.uk/resources   Supposed to list some free stat software. They are updating and the list is currently not available.

Betty Jung's page   http://www.bettycjung.net/Statpgms.htm  

Predictive Analytics, top 50 free stat software   http://www.predictiveanalyticstoday.com/top-free-statistical-software/   only some of them are statistical software. Include pspp, sas university edition, R, a few others.


Free Statistical Software

Epi Info

Epi Info  is available from   http://wwwn.cdc.gov/epiinfo/  
It is very large in size and will take considerable time to download.  This is a program for entering and analyzing data, developed for epidemiologists, but can be used for basic statistical analysis by anyone.  This program is also not easy to learn on your own, but see a couple of free on line manuals:

    Data Analysis With Epi Info. B. Burt Gerstman (Nov. 2000)   http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/gerstman/EpiInfo/   This is for the dos version.
        This site also links to Introduction to Epi Info and other resources   http://www.epiinformatics.com/        

The North Carolina Center for Public Health Preparedness Training Website   http://cphp.sph.unc.edu/training/index.php   has free on line training classes for epi info.

CDC tutorials   http://wwwn.cdc.gov/epiinfo/html/tutorials.htm  


 
CDC/Census Bureau software
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CSPro (Census and Survey Processing System)   http://www.census.gov/population/international/software/cspro/   a public-domain software package for entering, tabulating and mapping census and survey data.


R,

R is a very widely used program, with tons of documentation
R: The Comprehensive R Archive Network  http://cran.r-project.org/   "R, also known as "GNU S", is a language and environment for statistical computing and graphics."  It is, I understand, like S+, a statistical language.  R is better for graphics than SAS.  However, R is complex, and takes a lot of study, so only use this if you have complex statistical or graphical needs.  If this site doesn't work, try http://cran.us.r-project.org/   in the US, or   http://www.stats.bris.ac.uk/R/   in the UK.

There are many graphical interfaces.  Several are reviewed here   http://decisionstats.com/2010/10/05/interfaces-to-r/   and this June 2012 issue of Journal of Statistical Software also reviews several of the GUIs   http://www.jstatsoft.org/v49   and this page from linux.com   http://www.linuxlinks.com/article/20110306113701179/GUIsforR.html    Here is a poll on which GUIs are most used   http://www.kdnuggets.com/polls/2011/r-gui-used.html   (R Studio was the top, out of  562 votes). Here is a 2015 list of the "Best free GUIs for R"  http://www.linuxlinks.com/article/20110306113701179/GUIsforR.html  Just a few words about each one.

R Commander is described here   http://socserv.socsci.mcmaster.ca/jfox/Misc/Rcmdr/   and available here   http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/Rcmdr/index.html   This covers some basic stats.

Another interface is    http://rkward.sourceforge.net/    From the website "RKWard is meant to become an easy to use, transparent front end to the R-language, a very powerful, yet hard-to-get-into scripting-language with a strong focus on statistic functions. "

Deducer   http://www.deducer.org/   have to click on the manual or download. Deducer is reviewed here   http://www.jstatsoft.org/v49/i08   Ian Fellows, Journal of Statistical Software, Vol. 49, Issue 8, Jun 2012.

R studio  http://www.rstudio.com/ide/   another interface.

Zelig   http://projects.iq.harvard.edu/zelig   "Zelig is a single, easy-to-use program that can estimate, help interpret, and present the results of a large range of statistical methods." You have to install it through R, and use it in R.


R help mailing list   https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help   announcements, questions and answers, etc.

    Tutorials, faqs, guides..... Many of these were posted on the American Evaluation Association email list.
    R Introduction and other manuals   http://cran.r-project.org/index.html   At the R home page, click on Manuals.   
    The R site lists other guides   http://cran.r-project.org/other-docs.html   including Simple R, and many others.
    UCLA Academic Technology page for R   http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/r/   has tutorials, links
    Beginner's guide to R   http://www.computerworld.com/article/2497143/business-intelligence/business-intelligence-beginner-s-guide-to-r-introduction.html  
    Using R for psychological research   http://personality-project.org/r/
    Paul Murrell's page   http://www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/~paul/   has slides and some instructions for R.
    Rtips   http://pj.freefaculty.org/R/Rtips.html   various tips.
    Notes on the use of R for psychology experiments and questionnaires   http://www.psych.upenn.edu/~baron/rpsych/rpsych.html   J Baron and Y Li, 2011.
    Kickstarting R   http://www.unt.edu/rss/class/splus/Rkickstart/index.html   from Research and Statistical Support, U North Texas
    Quick R   http://www.statmethods.net/   shows code for how to do lots of things, from basic data entry to statistics.
    R videos   http://blog.revolutionanalytics.com/2012/12/coursera-videos.html   from Coursera's class.
    Swirl   http://swirlstats.com/   "learn R in R"  
    Try R   http://tryr.codeschool.com/   an on line brief class. Additional info here   http://www.codeschool.com/courses/try-r  
    CodeSchool  https://www.codeschool.com/free  has a class on R programming
    Douglas Wiig has some tutorials on R and some GUIs for R; https://dmwiig.net/

    More R info and links   http://www.revolutionanalytics.com/what-is-open-source-r/r-resources.php  

    http://journal.r-project.org/   Journal about R


R is also used for data mining

    http://r-forge.r-project.org/projects/rdatamining/  is a comprehensive data mining package for R
        Explained a little here   https://sites.google.com/site/rdatamining/package   
        http://journal.r-project.org/archive/2009-2/   Rattle: A Data Mining GUI for R, by Graham Williams.
        The R site for Rattle is here   http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/rattle/index.html  
    http://cran.r-project.org/other-docs.html     R and Data Mining: Examples and Case Studies” by Yanchang Zhao




Other - General statistical packages
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ADE-4    http://pbil.univ-lyon1.fr/ADE-4/home.php?lang=eng    ADE-4 is a multivariate analysis and graphical display software package.
    I sometimes have difficulty with this link. Also, I don't see any 'about' page, or page saying who developed this. Also, I think it might be an R package. I'll leave it here anyway.


AM statistical software    http://am.air.org/    AM is a statistical software package for analyzing data from complex samples, especially large-scale assessments.


Arc regression software   http://www.stat.umn.edu/arc/software.html   From R. Dennis Cook and Sanford Weisberg.  "Arc is a free, unique, menu-driven statistical analysis tool for regression problems." The current version is from 2004.


Develve   http://develve.net/   from Frank Pauw.  Develve has a free version. "Statistical package for fast and easy interpretation of experimental data in science and R&D in a technical environment."
   Develve was used here
Adam B, Zofia S (2015) Subchronic Effects of Ectoine on Survival, Growth and Physiological Parameters of Daphnia Magna. J Aquac Res Development 6:352.  http://www.omicsonline.org/open-access/subchronic-effects-of-ectoine-on-survival-growth-and-physiological-parameters-of-daphnia-magna-2155-9546-1000352.php?aid=58490  
Adam Bownik, Zofia Stępniewska. Protective effects of bacterial osmoprotectant ectoine on bovine erythrocytes subjected to staphylococcal alpha-haemolysin. Toxicon. Volume 99, 1 June 2015, Pages 130–135   https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Zofia_Stepniewska/publication/274513872_Protective_effects_of_bacterial_osmoprotectant_ectoine_on_bovine_erythrocytes_subjected_to_staphylococcal_alpha-haemolysin/links/554759bb0cf23ff7168720dc.pdf  

 
Easyreg   http://econ.la.psu.edu/~hbierens/EASYREG.HTM  from Herman J. Bierens. This is actually an econometrics program, but it apparently does basic statistics as well, and some very advanced statistics related to econometrics, including time series analysis.


Emacs Speaks Statistics (ESS)   http://ess.r-project.org/    "is an add-on package for emacs text editors such as GNU Emacs and XEmacs. It is designed to support editing of scripts and interaction with various statistical analysis programs such as R, S-Plus, SAS, Stata and JAGS"
  
 
Epidata     http://www.epidata.dk/    "a data-entry and data-checking program for Microsoft Windows."  Epidata is data entry and data checking. According to the website, "EpiData Analysis performs basic statistical analysis, graphs, and comprehensive data management. E.g. descriptive statistics, SPC Charts, Recoding data, label values and variables. Defining missing values."
 A related site is Pepi for windows at   http://www.brixtonhealth.com/    - some statistical tests and descriptives.  This site also includes a few other programs such as EpiGram, simple diagramming software, and SampleXS, which is a sample size calculator, which allows for design effects.  The help box has very good documentation about sampling and what the program does.  For social surveyors, you need to change the confidence interval to 5 rather than .5.  However, the site doesn't have any information about the people who developed this.


Instat  is listed here   http://www.reading.ac.uk/ssc/resourcepage/instat.php   general statistical package. A few years ago, I used an old version to import an excel file. Correlations did okay when correlating two variables. When I last used this, the last case has to have values for all variables for Instat to completely read the data, at least for correlation.


JASP   https://jasp-stats.org/   An alternative to SPSS and R. A fairly new package so still being developed.  A lot of it seems Bayesian, but also the usual statistical tests.
    Mentioned here:  What Are the Odds? A Practical Guide to Computing and Reporting Bayes Factors  http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/jps/vol7/iss1/2/   
    The JASP team wrote about it here      http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/publications/observer/2015/march-15/bayes-or-bust-with-new-softwares.html  
    Also reviewed here   https://computingforpsychologists.wordpress.com/tag/pspp/   
    One of the authors also presented the software here   https://ppw.kuleuven.be/home/english/research/mesrg/seminars-and-events/registration-seminar-advanced-data-analysis-2016  
    Used in this study: Tali Leibovich, Noga Cohen, Avishai Henik. Itsy bitsy spider?: Valence and self-relevance predict size estimation. Biological Psychology.
    Available online 21 January 2016.  http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301051116300084  


Lazstat   http://statprogramsplus.com/.index.html    Free statistical program, from Bill Miller.  According to Mr. Miller, "LazStats is written in a free Pascal compiler (Lazarus) that can be downloaded for free and is compatible to the former Borland compiler Delphi.  I've made the source of LazStats available so it can be compiled for other systems such as Apple or Linux platforms.  It contains features very similar to OpenStat and any programmer can add their own routines if they want."  OpenStat is another program on this website. The 2014 version has a kind of problem, that the pairwise deletion for correlations does not work. OpenStat does listwise deletion instead, even if you specify pairwise. LazStat works, though.


MicrOsiris    http://www.microsiris.com/     from Neal and Susan Van Eck. This program "is derived from OSIRIS IV, a statistical and data management package developed and used at the University of Michigan and includes special techniques for data mining and analysis of nominal- and ordinal-scaled data.  Its free but can contribute $25 to get rid of start up reminder screen.

 
PSPP   http://www.gnu.org/software/pspp/   "is a program for statistical analysis of sampled data. It is a Free replacement for the proprietary program SPSS, and appears very similar to it with a few exceptions."  
  This page   http://www.gnu.org/software/pspp/get.html   lists where you can get it, in all the different versions (windows, unix, mac, etc)
      For the windows version, get it here   http://sourceforge.net/projects/pspp4windows/   
        and then click on the line that starts with ""Looking for the latest version? Download pspp ..." then lists a version number.
  A discussion list is here   https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/pspp-users  
  A video on PSPP   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d44AdFZIfZc   by a student. 5 minutes, an overview of a few things.


SalStat   http://www.salstat.com/   general stat program, but you need to install python first. Also, no information about any of the people who made this.


SOFA - Statistics Open For All   http://www.sofastatistics.com/home.php   Currently being developed. From Dr Grant Paton-Simpson.  Has some basic procedures, mean, median, sd, independent and paired t-tests, Mann-Whitney U, Wilcoxon Signed Ranks, Pearson's Chi Square, one-way ANOVAs, Kruskal Wallis H, and Spearman's and Pearson's correlations. As of 2/26/16, it does NOT have regression. Also, as of 2/26/16, the site talks about being installed on Windows 7, kinda old. No mention of 8 or 10.  Can link directly to data from MySQL, SQLite, MS Access, and MS SQL Server, and can import data in csv or Excel format.  Further information is here   http://sourceforge.net/projects/sofastatistics/


Statistical lab   http://www.statistiklabor.de/en/   for teaching stat and for doing some analysis.

 
Vista   http://forrest.psych.unc.edu/research/   visual statistical system. Last updated in 1999. The site also says "ViSta 6.4 for Windows is the first official release of ViSta 6. It has been tested and works very well under Windows 95, 98 and NT 4 and 2000. It is not available for 16-bit or 32-bit Win3.x, Macintosh or Unix machines."

 
WinIDAMS  http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.php-URL_ID=2070&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html   WinIDAMS is a software package internationally developed by UNESCO for the validation, manipulation and statistical analysis of numerical data of any kind.  (This site takes a while to load.) Unfortunately, WinIDAMS is no longer supported or updated by UNESCO. Last updated in 2008.
  I've been using this program for a while. Here are some tips:   http://gsociology.icaap.org/methods/winidams_tips.html
   

Winstat   http://math.exeter.edu/rparris/winstats.html   from Rick Parris. bunch of stat features. Last updated in 2012, and last updated for windows 7.  




On line statistical analysis

Statistics Online Computational Resource    http://www.socr.ucla.edu/   




Classification and data mining
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Guide  http://www.stat.wisc.edu/~loh/guide.html   Classification and regression tree software. From Wei-Yin Loh.


Tanagra   http://chirouble.univ-lyon2.fr/~ricco/tanagra/index.html   data mining


Weka   http://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~ml/   machine language used for data mining. 
   Here are some tutorials
   http://maya.cs.depaul.edu/~Classes/Ect584/Weka/   
   http://research.cs.queensu.ca/home/cisc333/tutorial/Weka.html  
  



Qualitative data analysis (qda)

What is qda, how to do it, what software... look at these pages.

On line qda   http://onlineqda.hud.ac.uk/index.php   some how to, links to software, reviews of software
Qual page  http://www.qualitativeresearch.uga.edu/QualPage/  lists some software


TextStat    http://neon.niederlandistik.fu-berlin.de/en/textstat/    free simple text analysis software.  Word counts, and also shows where the words appear.


Saturate   http://www.saturateapp.com/   The website says "Simple collaborative qualitative analysis. Saturate is the easiest way for teams to code and memo their data"


Weft QDA   http://www.pressure.to/qda/   Weft QDA is an easy-to-use tool to assist in the analysis of textual data such as interview transcripts, written texts and fieldnotes.


RQDA   http://rqda.r-forge.r-project.org/   "RDQA is a R package for Qualitative Data Analysis, a free (free as freedom) qualitative analysis software application"


QDA Miner Lite   http://provalisresearch.com/products/qualitative-data-analysis-software/freeware/   "It can be used for the analysis of textual data such as interview and news transcripts, open-ended responses, etc. as well as for the analysis of still images."   It's missing a lot of the features of the full version, but I haven't used either so I don't know how significant the differences are.


Aquad  http://www.aquad.de/en/   AQUAD 7 is open-source freeware (according to the conditions of GNU GPL v.3).  The recent version 7.3 allows to analyze all kinds of qualitative data:


Data visualization


Mondrian   http://www.theusrus.de/Homepage_of_Martin_Theus.html   "General purpose statistical visualization system."


Gephi   https://gephi.github.io/     "Interactive visualization and exploration platform for all kinds of networks and complex systems, dynamic and hierarchical graphs."


Vidi   http://www.dataviz.org/   free, for visualization


Wordle  http://www.wordle.net/   is a tool for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide.  Not exactly analysis, but looks kind of interesting.


Tableau   https://public.tableau.com/s/   I think this is free data visualization software. May be used for mapping too.


Weave   http://oicweave.org/   The website says "Weave is a new web-based visualization platform designed to enable visualization of any available data by anyone for any purpose."



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Stat with excel


Excel For Statistical Data Analysis   http://home.ubalt.edu/ntsbarsh/excel/excel.htm   general tutorial, from Professor Hossein Arsham.

tutorial from   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeKyTGZlLhI   from Alan Swank at Spring Arbor University

another tutorial   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTz2PQ-CdJU   number one in a set. Doesn't say who this is from. 



Excel add ons

Check which version of excel the add on works with.

Statpages   http://statpages.info/javasta2.html#Excel   lists a bunch of excel add ons for statistics

Robert Nau and John Butler have this page for excel add ons for regression and multivariate data analysis   http://regressit.com/  

ez analyze   http://www.ezanalyze.com/   "adding "point and click" functionality for analyzing data, creating graphs, and creating new variables"

Daniel's XL toolbox   http://xltoolbox.sourceforge.net/   for analyzing and presenting data


Statistical software email lists

http://www.talkstats.com/forumdisplay.php/15-Statistical-Software  



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Mapping/GIS packages available as free software 

lists of software

GEO Community lists and reviews some free viewers, here  http://software.geocomm.com/viewers/  
Some of the viewers or programs can do basic mapping.


The Open Source Geospatial Foundation   http://www.osgeo.org/   "OSGeo was created to support the collaborative development of open source geospatial software, and promote its widespread use"  They have a section with desktop applications, which point to Grass, Marble and QGIS.


GIS Lounge   https://www.gislounge.com/open-source-gis-applications/   lists freeware and open source gis programs.


http://opensourcegis.org/ has gis and related software. Last updated December 2013


http://freegis.org/   
The FreeGIS Project (last updated in 2012) provides
* software overview on free Geographic Information Systems (this web site)
* communication on developments, plans, infos on free GIS software and free Geo-Data (mailing list)
* software and data prepared for direct use (CD)


Software
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Christine gis system   http://www.christine-gis.com/en/index.htm  
The web site says "Christine is a useful, easy-to-use tool that brings geographic
information to your deskop." I don't know anything about it. The VIEWER is free but the full program is shareware. The program is listed in the Gislounge and other places:

gislounge  http://gislounge.com/free-data-viewers/
NYS GIS clearinghouse   http://gis.ny.gov/gisdata/tools.htm  
          viewer listed here   http://gce-lter.marsci.uga.edu/public/gis/Links.html  


Diva-Gis   http://www.diva-gis.org/   a mapping program. The web site says this "is a free mapping program, sometimes called geographic information system (GIS), that can be used for many different purposes."
  Listed here
  http://ars.usda.gov/research/publications/publications.htm?seq_no_115=221326&pf=1   
  http://gcmd.nasa.gov/records/DIVA_GIS.html  



epi info also can do maps.
http://www.cdc.gov/epiinfo/


GRASS GIS (Geographic Resources Analysis Support System)  http://grass.osgeo.org/index.php  "is a free and open source Geographic Information System (GIS) software suite used for geospatial data management and analysis, image processing, graphics and maps production, spatial modeling, and visualization." 
  
Grass is listed here
        here   http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/articles/mitasova-grass-092663.html  
        here   http://www.gis.fhwa.dot.gov/gisSoftware.asp  
    here   http://gcmd.nasa.gov/records/GRASS.html   


gvSIG   http://www.gvsig.com/en/home   "is a tool oriented to manage geographic information."  (May take a long time to load)
   This program, well, an earlier version, is listed here   http://gcmd.nasa.gov/records/gvSIG.html   



MapWindows   http://www.mapwindow.org/   has a GIS program along with a lot of other stuff. "The MapWindow Interface is simple and easy to use as demostrated in this Picture!  The MapWindow application is a free, extensible, geographic information system (GIS) that can be used: As an alternative desktop GIS, To distribute data to others, To develop and distribute custom spatial data analyses"



Map Maker Gratis is free   http://www.mapmaker.com/    The full professional version is available for free to not-for-profit organizations, educational establishments, and students in Africa.


OpenJump   http://www.openjump.org/index.html   The current version can read and write shapefiles simple GML files as well as several other vector formats via plugins. ... its particular strength is the editing of geometry and attribute data.




QGIS   http://qgis.org/    "is a user friendly Open Source Geographic Information System (GIS) that runs on Linux, Unix, Mac OSX, and Windows. QGIS supports vector, raster, and database formats."
   Qgis is listed here   http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/mapsdata/geodatacatalog/default.htm      




Other software, speadsheets, databases, graphics,    
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Spreadsheets


SpreadCE   http://www.byedesign.co.uk/  works on multiple systems including windows, pda's and other stuff. Shareware, but not limited.


Some office suites also have spreadsheets
Open Office   http://www.openoffice.org/  
LibreOffice   http://www.libreoffice.org/  
Calligra   http://www.calligra.org/   which is listed here
        https://www.linux.com/learn/tutorials/575114:calligra-suite-the-promising-not-an-office-suite   
        http://www.pcworld.com/article/253738/try_calligra_2_4_for_a_new_microsoft_office_alternative.html   
        The calligra spreadsheet is mentioned here   https://gsspubssl.nci.nih.gov/nciportfolio/help.jsp  
SSuite   http://www.ssuitesoft.com/     listed here
        http://download.cnet.com/SSuite-Office-Excalibur-Release/3000-18483_4-10966271.html    rated highly
Softmaker Free Office   http://www.freeoffice.com/    reviewed here
        http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-33153_7-57558720-10391733/get-a-free-office-suite-help-charity/   

WPS office  http://www.wps.com/   (had been Kingsoft Office).
        rated highly here   http://download.cnet.com/WPS-Office-2014-Beta-3/3000-18483_4-75563178.html  
        But just so you know, Kingsoft is a Chinese company   http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingsoft  


Databases

PostgreSQL   http://www.postgresql.org/   highly-scalable, SQL compliant, open source object-relational database management system. 

Firebird    http://www.firebirdsql.org/    Another relational database.

Microsoft has an sql server   http://www.microsoft.com/web/platform/database.aspx   SQL Server Express. Also here  http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/products/sql-server-editions/sql-server-express.aspx   


Graphics

Gnuplot   http://www.gnuplot.info/   Need programming ability to use this but supposed to produce professional quality graphs. Still under development, see here  http://gnuplot.sourceforge.net/  Recent version released January 2015.  

The gnuplot info site links to tutorials.  Another is:

    CTG - Gnuplot Tutorial   http://www.challenge.nm.org/ctg/graphics/tutorial.shtml   brief, one page.


Ploticus   http://ploticus.sourceforge.net/doc/welcome.html   "A free, GPL, non-interactive software package for producing plots, charts, and graphics from data."


EVE Embedded Vector Editor    http://www.goosee.com/    graphics program.  Recommended by a colleague. I havent' tried it, but supposed to be very powerful and useful.


Dia   https://live.gnome.org/Dia   "Dia is a GTK+ based diagram creation program for Linux, Unix and Windows ... Dia is roughly inspired by the commercial Windows program 'Visio', though more geared towards informal diagrams for casual use."



Other stuff, doing surveys on the web, misc,    
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Doing Surveys

Questionnaire Programming Language   http://qpl.gao.gov/   "QPL is a complete web questionnaire development and content analysis system. Using a simple language to describe your questionnaire, it automatically builds all the files you need to create a dynamic web site."


Collecting and managing data

Redcap   http://project-redcap.org/   Research Electronic Data Capture. It's a consortium which supports a secure web application (REDCap) designed exclusively to support data capture for research studies.


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Project management   http://www.logframer.eu/   "Logframer 1.3 is a free project management application for projects based on the logical framework method."


What is free software? Sites that explain what free means and/or lists free software.

Free Software Foundation   http://www.fsf.org/    

GNU   http://www.gnu.org/   especially see this page   https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html  

Open Source Alternative to Commercial software   http://www.osalt.com/     

International Free and Open Source Software Foundation    http://www.ifossf.org/    actually, I'm not sure what this is, whether it has software or not. But it seems like an interesting organization.


Standard Data Sets

Statistical Reference Datasets   http://www.itl.nist.gov/div898/strd/    "The purpose of this project is to improve the accuracy of statistical software by providing reference datasets with certified computational results that enable the objective evaluation of statistical software."


Other software that is free to use
  
https://sites.google.com/site/nselecon/freesoftware   lists misc software that is free to use



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