Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) Resources

for Online Courses∗

Kannan M. Moudgalya
PI, FOSSEE and Spoken Tutorial Projects
IIT Bombay

6 August 2020

The FOSSEE project at IIT Bombay has been promoting Free/Libre and Open Source Soft-
ware (FLOSS) in a big way for a decade. It has created excellent free resources by contributions
from students and faculty across India, and curated by the FOSSEE Team and other experts.
FLOSS resources made available by FOSSEE will be very useful to colleges that plan to
conduct online teaching in the next semester (Autumn 2020). Because of license issues, FLOSS
is the only option for many institutions - this is the only product accessible to students from
their homes. As a matter of fact, IIT Bombay is likely to use FLOSS in a big way during the
next semester. Even if proprietary software is available, accessing the license keys through a
VPN Server may create a lot of practical problems. Unauthorised use of commercial software
is illegal and will bring a bad name to all.
In this report, we point out some of the useful FLOSS and content available to everyone
free of cost. We point out how to use them and how to get help, in case you plan to use some
of them. We also invite everyone to join hands with FOSSEE and further improve the usability
of FLOSS for the good of the Society.
FOSSEE and Spoken Tutorial projects are funded by the National Mission on Education
through ICT, Ministry of Education (Formerly MHRD), Govt. of India.

1 Software and Hardware Promoted by FOSSEE

FOSSEE promotes the following software and hardware.
Scilab General computation
Python General computation
OpenFOAM Computational Fluid Dynamics
DWSIM Chemical process simulation

 General purpose modelling
OpenModelica Power system simulation
Chemical process simulation

R Statistics
(FOSSEE created) eSim Electronic circuit design
(FOSSEE created) Osdag Steel structure design
Linux Operating system
Hardware Arduino, OpenPLC (FOSSEE created)
Art and graphics GIMP, Inkscape, Scribus, Synfig, Blender 3D

∗
A soft copy of latest version of this report is available at https://fossee.in/teaching-support

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2 Commercial and Open Source Equivalence
The software that FOSSEE promotes and the proprietary equivalent are displayed below:
Matlab → Scilab
Simulink → Xcos
Fluent → OpenFOAM
SPSS → R
ORCAD, PSpice  → eSim
AspenP lus 
CHEM CAD → DWSIM, OpenModelica
Simsci P RO/II

CYME, ERACS, PSSE, ETAP → OpenModelica and OpenIPSL
Adobe Photoshop → GIMP
Coreldraw, Adobe Illustrator → Inkscape
Pagemaker, QuarkXPress, Adobe Indesign → Scribus
Maya, 3D Max → Blender 3D
Adobe flash → Synfig Studio
Windows → Linux

3 Select Important Activities of FOSSEE

FOSSEE promotes the following activities, among various other things:

Textbook Companion: Provide code for a solved example of a standard textbook. Scilab
textbook companion has Scilab code, etc.

Lab Migration: Migrate the lab to the indicated open source software. Some examples are
migration to Scilab, OpenFOAM, and R.

Case Studies/Circuits/Flowsheets: Solving a relatively larger problem using the software.

Cloud Solutions: Making available some of the tools through Cloud.

Workshops and Conferences: FOSSEE has been conducting workshops and conferences on
the FLOSS systems it promotes.

These are explained below.

4 Textbook Companion
Scilab Code to 75,000 solved examples of 625 textbooks are available here:
https://scilab.in/Completed Books
Python Code to 50,000 solved examples of 500 textbooks are available here:
https://tbc-python.fossee.in/browse-books/
R Code to 3,000 solved examples of 32 textbooks are available here:
https://r.fossee.in/textbook-companion/completed-books
OpenModelica Code to 5,000 solved examples of 60 textbooks are available here:
https://om.fossee.in/textbook-companion/completed-books

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5 Lab Migration
Scilab 100 labs migrated to Scilab are here:
https://scilab.in/lab migration/completed labs
R 5 labs migrated to R are here: https://r.fossee.in/lab-
migration/completed-labs
OpenFOAM 4 labs migrated to OpenFOAM are here:
https://cfd.fossee.in/lab-migration/completed-labs
eSim 6 labs migrated to eSim are here:
https://esim.fossee.in/lab migration/completed labs
DWSIM 2 labs migrated to DWSIM are here:
https://dwsim.fossee.in/lab-migration/completed-labs

6 Case study/Circuits/Flowsheets
Circuit simula- 135 electronic circuits solved through eSim are available here:
tion https://esim.fossee.in/circuit-simulation-project/completed-circuit-
simulations - another 350 circuits are expected to be added soon
Flowsheets 175 chemical engineering flowsheets solved through DWSIM are available
here: https://dwsim.fossee.in/flowsheeting-project/completed-flowsheet.
50 chemical engineering flowsheets solved using OpenModelica are avail-
able here: https://om.fossee.in/chemical/flowsheeting-project/completed-
flowsheet
CFD 75 CFD simulations solved through OpenFOAM are available here:
https://cfd.fossee.in/case-study-project/completed-case-studies
Power system 35 power system simulations solved using OpenIPSL and OpenModelica are
simulation available here: https://om.fossee.in/powersystems/pssp/completed-pssp

7 Cloud Solutions
Scilab We have made Scilab accessible on the cloud, and have also made available all the
75,000 examples from the Scilab Textbook Companion. You may access this amazing
resource here: https://cloud.scilab.in/
Xcos We have ported Xcos on to the cloud. You can move your code from Desktop to the
Cloud and vice versa. Xcos on the Cloud is available here: https://xcos.fossee.in/.
About 150 solved examples are available here: https://xcos.fossee.in/example
R We have made R accessible on the cloud, and have also made available all the 3,000
examples from the R Textbook Companion. You may access this amazing resource
here: http://rcloud.fossee.in/
eSim We are working to make eSim and Arduino simulator available on the Cloud

8 Workshops and Conferences

• Python is already established and is increasing in popularity and important for everyone
given how all modern data analysis and AI libraries offer a Python interface. One may
learn Python from the perspective of an engineering or science student from a complete and
free online course offered by FOSSEE here: https://python.fossee.in/self learningcourse/.
The FOSSEE Team has also been conducting SciPy for a decade, see https://scipy.in.
• To access the proceedings of a National Conference on Process Simulation, please visit
https://fossee.in/nccps-2018
• Please frequently visit https://www.it.iitb.ac.in/nmeict/announcements.html to know about
the upcoming workshops. This page is updated when new workshops are announced.

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9 Additional Learning Resources
FOSSEE has created the following additional learning resources:

• Free and Open Source Creative Art Library, with useful material on GIMP, Inkscape,
Scribus, Synfig and Blender 3D, is available here: https://focal.fossee.in/.

• Yaksh, available at https://github.com/FOSSEE/online test, is an open source project

which allows teachers to host courses that involve programming exercises and quizzes in
addition to multiple choice questions. One can host a course with videos and lecture
material along with such exams.

Spoken Tutorial team has created excellent resources to learn the content developed here.
Some examples are given here:

• Spoken Tutorials are available on all the topics mentioned here, namely, Scilab, Xcos,
Python, DWSIM, OpenModelica, eSim, R, GIMP, Inkscape, Synfig, Blender, etc. One
can find them here: https://spoken-tutorial.org, and also through SWAYAM, available
here: https://swayam.gov.in/

• This 20 minute recording of my lecture explains how to use the 75,000 example code of
Scilab Textbook Companion for (a) finding information on commands (b) doing what if
studies (c) executing on the cloud and (d) setting problems/assignment/quiz. One can
extend the same approach to all the other software listed in this report.

• If anyone needs any help with any of these, and especially to adopt them into a course,
the FOSSEE and Spoken Tutorial teams will be glad to help.

10 Summary of Available FLOSS Resources

We summarise the FLOSS resources created by FOSSEE and Spoken Tutorial projects here:
No. Software Textbook Lab Mi- Case Spoken Tu- Workshops
Companion gration Study torials
1 Scilab 3 3 3 3
2 Python 3 3 3 3
3 eSim 3 3 3 3
4 DWSIM 3 3 3 3
5 OpenFOAM 3 3 3 3
6 OM chemical pro- 3 3 3 3
cess flowsheet
7 OM power system 3 3 3 3
simulation
8 OM 3 3 3
9 R 3 3 3 3 3
10 Arduino 3 3 3 3

11 We are Ready to Help, and to be Helped

• Please use the resources mentioned above. We are ready to help you, if you need to use
these resources next semester or in the future.
• We invite you to contribute your work to the above mentioned activities.
• Finally, we are inviting FOSSEE collaborators to become FOSSEE club members.
• Please contact us at info@fossee.in