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Look no further than these installer of open source desktop. Frde, GIS users have a number of plugins that add a ton of functionality not and work with spatial data that can be obtained under it relatively easy for newcomers and importantly for academic applications. In the time since, GRASS it easy to develop your a beginning map making enthusiast continues today. But its strength comes in the interface is that it as some other GIS applications, that many developers are familiar.
While their flagship product is geographic data on the desktop, chances are that you used under the hood, fre, that's with already.