As economists, we know the value of money, and, above all, we appreciate ¨free¨ things. Few studies shows that compared to the average person, we prefer cash than any other gifts, and we free-ride more than the average individual, as well.
However, it is surprising that we do not apply those rules when we have to use our most important working tools: softwares. I am not going to argue about the reasons, but here I want to provide a list of ¨free¨ softwares, under the GNU license, that can be use to perform our daily work. This list is far from been exhaustive and it is not only for economist, but also for any individual (or company) who wants to increase his productivity by using softwares without paying license fees.
1. Operative system: instead of windows, use Linux/Ubuntu.
2. For Matlab users: Octave.
3. For Statistics (Stata, Eviews, etc...): R, GRETL.
4. For Office products (Excel, Word, Power Point, etc.): OpenOffice.
5. For LaTex writing (Scientific WorkPlace): Kile.
Once installed a Linux operative system (like Ubuntu), you can download and install all the other packages automatically from the libraries, or repositories, using a similar process to the ''add/remove'' program tool in Windows. The learning curve in most of this softwares is small-specifically for Octave, OpenOffice, and Kile-in the sense that they work (and the program codes) exactly the same as their Windows counterparts.
However, I have to warn you that they do not look so ''fancy'' or ''color full'' like windows programs, because the issue here is about efficiency and running the fastest package available.
2 comments:
Excellent Harold...lots of thanks.
Hola Harold, te conozco de Intec, tu le diste clase a algunos de mis compañeros, y tuve la oportunidad de verte muchas veces en los pasillos de Intec. Comparto contigo, que desde algo más de un año uso linux (Ubuntu)y me ha gustado la expeciencia, no me arrepiento, de hecho recomiendo a todos mis colegas que los usen.
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