Automatic License Plate Recognition system is a real time embedded system which automatically recognizes the license plate of vehicles. There are many applications ranging from complex security systems to common areas and from parking admission to urban traffic control. Automatic license plate recognition (ALPR) has complex characteristics due to diverse effects such as of light and speed. Most of the ALPR systems are built using proprietary tools like Matlab. This paper presents an alternative method of implementing ALPR systems using Free Software including Python and the Open Computer Vision Library.