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Free Linear Programming Software?

Posted by Cliff on from the complex-educational-code dept.

Chao-Kuei Hung asks: "I will be teaching a freshman level math class next semester in which half of the course deal will deal with linear programming. I found a number of linear programming software packages from this website, but none of them seems to meet any of the FSF/OSI/Debian's definition of free/open source software, although some come with source code and some cost $0 for educational use. Does there exist truely free software for this topic? Are there LP modules/plug-ins for things like octave, rlab, or R?"

14 comments

  1. Freshmeat has some by jpt.d · · Score: 4, Informative

    GNU glpk
    http://freshmeat.net/projects/glpk/

    "The GLPK package is intended for solving linear programming (LP) and mixed integer linear programming (MIP) problems. It is a set of routines organized in the form of a library and written in the ANSI C programming language."

    A survey of available software:
    http://www.lionhrtpub.com/orms/surveys/LP/lp4.ht ml

    Hope some of these might help

    --
    What we see depends on mainly what we look for. -- John Lubbock Now search for that bug slave!
  2. Linear Programming FAQ by FunkyRat · · Score: 4, Informative

    Perhaps this might be of some use?

  3. LPABO and LPAKO by tjmather · · Score: 4, Informative

    LPABO and LPAKO are public domain Linear Programming packages
    from the Seoul National University. LPABO
    uses an interior-point method, while LPAKO uses the simplex method.

    I've looked at several other free LP solvers, and this package looks like it is fairly fast and
    robust.

    I wasn't able to find a license for these packages. Maybe you could ask the author about releasing their software under the GPL or another Free Software license?

  4. Octave by superid · · Score: 3, Informative

    Not strictly for linear programming, but Octave (http://www.octave.org) is an important tool on your numerical analysis toolbelt.

    1. Re:Octave by V.+Mole · · Score: 1

      How does this rate as "Informative"? The guy
      mentioned Octave in his question!

  5. Re:What a stupid question. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    Damnit boy, you already have software that does what you need, who gives a shit if it isn't "free"? All that really matters in the end is, does it get the job done?

    And if that answer is yes, then that is all you need to know.

    Thank you and goodnight.

    If I had a buck for every DOS/Win3.1 application which did what I needed, but which doesn't interoperate with any of my current software, I'd be a rich man.

    If I had the source, I could add the few functions which would make these work.

    Instead, for most of these I can shell out hundreds for updates which only add a few small things of relevance. For others, there's no modern equivalent. For these, I'm stuck with an app that requires ten kinds of acrobatics to use them alongside my current applications. If I'd gotten the source when I purchased the app, this wouldn't be an issue.

  6. GSL - GNU Scientific Library by wfrp01 · · Score: 4, Informative

    The GNU Scientific Library is a relatively recent addition to the catalog of GNU software. It looks to be very impressive.

    --

    --Lawrence Lessig for Congress!
  7. lpsolve by gatzke · · Score: 1

    I have had pretty good experience with lpsolve. The new version is LGPL

    The source is quite easy to get into and mess with, so you should be able to write a simple wrapper for whatever, including octave. I think the Matlab wrapper already exists.

    It even can solve MILPs, but not very well in some cases.

  8. non-linear by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    In real life problem, the model are always non-linear. Can sombody know a good programm for nl-programming ?