Tag: pspp

If you are SPSS user (for statistics/ not data mining) you can also try 0ut GNU PSPP- which is the open source equivalent and quite eerily impressive in performance. It is available at http://www.gnu.org/software/pspp/ or http://pspp.awardspace.com/ and you can also read more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSPP

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.

The most important of these exceptions are, that there are no “time bombs”; your copy of PSPP will not “expire” or deliberately stop working in the future. Neither are there any artificial limits on the number of cases or variables which you can use. There are no additional packages to purchase in order to get “advanced” functions; all functionality that PSPP currently supports is in the core package.

PSPP can perform descriptive statistics, T-tests, linear regression and non-parametric tests. Its backend is designed to perform its analyses as fast as possible, regardless of the size of the input data. You can use PSPP with its graphical interface or the more traditional syntax commands.

A brief list of some of the features of PSPP follows:

• Supports over 1 billion cases.
• Supports over 1 billion variables.
• Syntax and data files are compatible with SPSS.
• Choice of terminal or graphical user interface.
• Choice of text, postscript or html output formats.
• Inter-operates with Gnumeric, OpenOffice.Org and other free software.
• Easy data import from spreadsheets, text files and database sources.
• Fast statistical procedures, even on very large data sets.
• No license fees.
• No expiration period.
• No unethical “end user license agreements”.
• Fully indexed user manual.
• Free Software; licensed under GPLv3 or later.
• Cross platform; Runs on many different computers and many different operating systems.

PSPP is particularly aimed at statisticians, social scientists and students requiring fast convenient analysis of sampled data.

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Features

This software provides a basic set of capabilities: frequencies, cross-tabs comparison of means (T-tests and one-way ANOVA); linear regression, reliability (Cronbach’s Alpha, not failure or Weibull), and re-ordering data, non-parametric tests, factor analysis and more.

At the user’s choice, statistical output and graphics are done in ascii, pdf, postscript or html formats. A limited range of statistical graphs can be produced, such as histograms, pie-charts and np-charts.

PSPP can import Gnumeric, OpenDocument and Excel spreadsheets, Postgres databases, comma-separated values– and ASCII-files. It can export files in the SPSS ‘portable’ and ‘system’ file formats and to ASCII files. Some of the libraries used by PSPP can be accessed programmatically; PSPP-Perl provides an interface to the libraries used by PSPP.

Origins

The PSPP project (originally called “Fiasco”) is a free, open-source alternative to the proprietary statistics package SPSS. SPSS is closed-source and includes a restrictive licence anddigital rights management. The author of PSPP considered this ethically unacceptable, and decided to write a program which might with time become functionally identical to SPSS, except that there would be no licence expiry, and everyone would be permitted to copy, modify and share the program.

Release history

• 0.7.5 June 2010 http://pspp.awardspace.com/
• 0.6.2 October 2009
• 0.6.1 October 2008
• 0.6.0 June 2008
• 0.4.0.1 August 2007
• 0.4.0 August 2005
• 0.3.0 April 2004
• 0.2.4 January 2000
• 0.1.0 August 1998

Third Party Reviews

In the book “SPSS For Dummies“, the author discusses PSPP under the heading of “Ten Useful Things You Can Find on the Internet” ^[1]. In 2006, the South African Statistical Association presented a conference which included an analysis of how PSPP can be used as a free replacement to SPSS ^[2].

Citation-

Please send FSF & GNU inquiries to gnu@gnu.org. There are also other ways to contact the FSF. Please send broken links and other corrections (or suggestions) to bug-gnu-pspp@gnu.org.

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