Open Source

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A guy called Richard M Stalman had this idea that software should be free as in freedom (check out faif.pdf). A bit too long for a casual glance, right? The gist is that "normal" software these days is closed and proprietary. This means that no-one can modify the programs without permission of the authors. The formats we use are also closed and proprietary, meaning that it is nearly impossible to open the files we all need to read (.doc is not a global standard).

The real name for the kind of software that Stallman had in mind is Free Software, but Open source is used a lot, and more accessible.

This website is hosted on a server running Ubuntu (a free operating system based on the Linux kernel), using Apache. The documents you will find on this website are all readable by anyone (and not just using Acrobat reader).

There are several places to get open source software. On campus, there are several mirrors of open source software. Check out the FTP site ftp://ftp.up.ac.za/mirrors . OpenOffice is a free software replacement for Microsoft office. Firefox is the best browser out there and also happens to be free. It can also be used together with Thunderbird to replace Microsoft Outlook (mail and calendar).

Of course, there are tons of free software titles out there. Try looking at freshmeat.org or sourceforge.org when you need software. You'd be surprised how many of the programs that you would pirate are available for free. Some software often runs better than those you would have pirated.

Open source downloads

The table below contains some commonly used software and suggestions for open source replacements. Most downloads are available locally and won't use up your internet credits when you're on campus.

Package
Open Source Replacement
Download
Office software
Microsoft Office OpenOffice can read and write Microsoft Office files and export to PDF natively. The suite includes great tools for writing documents, a spreadsheet and a cool drawing program to draw diagrams with
Download
(Microsoft Word) TeX (MiKTeX) is a powerful alternative for writing technical documents.
Download
Text Editor
Atom Modern editor by the GitHub developers.
Website
Computational tools
Matlab Octave is the smallest of the Matlab clones. Simple programs should run without problems in Matlab.
Website
Python with the also a very compelling alternative to Matlab. We recommend the Anaconda distribution.
Anaconda homepage
Simulink Modelica is an excellent replacement to Simulink.
Modelica OpenModelica
Scilab has similar functionality to Simulink as well as Matlab, but Scilab programs may not run in Matlab. Scilab 3 has a lot of added featues and may be more compatible with your Matlab programs (still no running of Scilab programs in Matlab though)
homepage
HyVisual is like Simulink. It includes support for Finite State Machine descriptions of models and a lot more.
homepage
S+ R is similar to S+ (no, really). It does more statistical operations, but is not Matlab-like at all
Download
Symbolic computation
Maple / Mathematica SymPy can do quite a lot of what you want in the Python environment
Website
Maxima is a full-featured Computer Algebra System. Many of Mathematica and Maple's functionality is derived from Maxima.
Website
Sage is a project that is attempting to produce a viable alternative to Mathematica and many other tools. They are making real progress
Sage homepage
Live demo
Browsers and Mail clients
Internet Explorer Mozilla can be used as a replacement for Internet Explorer and Outlook. It imports mail files from Outlook mail and has a lot of unique features like tabbed browsing and support for mouse gestures.
Download
Firefox (also by the Mozilla Foundation) is a quick and easy browser with loads of functionality. Why suffer when you can... well... not suffer?
Download
Microsoft Outlook Mozilla can be used as a replacement for Outlook.
Download
Thunderbird (also by the Mozilla Foundation) can be used to replace Outlook. It enables the download of mail to an external source (like a flash disk) for later viewing. Thunderbird is a very popular mail client on campus.
Download
Archiving software
WinZip 7zip is a small program able to deal with all the popular archive types (.zip/.rar/.ace) and more (.7z/.tar). Lightweight and free.
Download

Several of these applications are also available on the GnuwinIICD. This is a collection of free software, available for download here.