The implications of proprietary versus open source tools
Over the past 20 years, there has been a significant change in technology that enables teams and individuals to design, develop, and deploy analytical applications. The change has been in the evolution and refinement of open source software and related platforms.
20 years ago, there were only proprietary software offerings from SAS, SPSS, Statistica, Minitab, and others. An entire generation, or possibly two generations, of psychologists, social scientists, mathematicians, and analysts grew up using these software systems in undergraduate- and graduate-level academic programs. When entering the business, research, and governmental workforces, those people brought their favorite tools with them.
More recently, open source systems like Knime, RapidMiner, and others offer community versions for free. In addition to the many open source tools and community versions available, the rise and evolution of the R and Python languages...
