Free Scientific Software for Developing World?

FlashBoltzmann asks: "I'm a physics student in the US working with a group of physicists, mostly from Africa, who are interested in helping their colleagues on the continent obtain free software for scientific and educational use. Often, many science departments in Africa have little or almost nonexistent funding to purchase new software packages, especially for scientific research or education. Some know of the free software available but say it takes up large amounts of time over often slow internet connections to find and obtain it. I am asking for any recommendations on freeware or open source software, for any operating system, that anyone knows about. We are looking at the Debian version of Linux for a lot of the great software that comes with it but resources for MS Windows would be helpful as well."

"Free educational software of any level is appreciated though we prefer college and graduate level software. Also, field specific software is great, e.g. software for condensed matter physics. Eventually we'll probably combine the software on CDs to be distributed to these scientists. Any help is appreciated especially with programs that perform simulations, mathematical and statistical analysis and plotting, compilers, lab software, etc. The users of the software will most likely be physicists or mathematicians."

Comments

windows trap

[adapt]

yes, MS sells campus licenses at EXTREME discounts (like $20 for Office and less for the OSs), but the hardware requirements are heavier.

most people in academia are not swimming in cash, so this means old hardware, and an array of diverse machines connected to a server. linux is the ideal software partner for a small research group, in my opinion.

the other factor, as somebody else pointed above, is that GNU or public tools are used by almost everybody. most papers are swapped in .ps format and written in TeX on (insert favourite editor here :). in windows you can do the same, but integrated tools like Scientific Workplace cost money, and they are not really needed after you learn some shell and vi tricks.

still, the crucial factor that made me wipe out windows for linux was stability. when you do not have a double Xeon crunching numbers, you appreciate the fact that linux will not crash during the 3 days it must be ON. ;-)