Windows and free software

[Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso]

On 12 September 2011 08:29, Chipmuenk <address@hidden> wrote:
> Having said that, I perfectly understand the Octave developers who are not
> too keen on supporting a commercial operating system that they are
> unfamiliar with,

I don't have a problem with commercial operating systems as long as
they're free (e.g. Red Hat, so free that CentOS exists).

> that requires kludges to get things going and that is not
> Open Source,

I don't care so much about open source. It's more important to be free
(frei) than open.

> In my case, _all_ the scientific software I need is available for
> Windows (Labview, Xilinx ISE, Actel Libero, Matlab, LTSpice, Cadence
> and Mentor EDA, ...),

Please don't advertise non-free software in the Octave mailing list.

> I think there is no need for the "holier-than-thou" attitude of some
> people when it comes to *nix.

While I think that Windows *users* are an important target, and we do
need a good Windows distribution of Octave, the above holier-than-thou
attitude is because it's also important to keep in mind why we're
making Octave in the first place. It's not because we don't want you
to pay for your software. Instead of paying for a Matlab license,
consider sending the equivalent amount to Octave's lead developer
who's dedicated 20 years of his life to this work. As for me, I work
on Octave because I think you deserve an alternative that you can use,
study, modify, and distribute without a license manager and without
hidden source code. How many times have you or your students asked how
does Matlab's operator \ work? I've wondered how does bwlabeln work,
which is another secret. And as you said your students already copy
Matlab as if it were free, and is this an acceptable way to conduct
education? Break the law while you can get away with it, because we
all agree the law is unjust? Perhaps, but we need to either change the
laws, or work with the laws we have. For the moment, the latter is all
we have, with Octave. And even if the laws change, that won't help
with the operator \ question. And your students will likely not be
able to break the law forever, but you've already bred a Matlab
addiction in them for when they go on to get jobs later where breaking
a license will not work because companies are much more afraid of
copyright lawsuits than university students are.

If we make Octave for Windows users it is because they need help,
because they won't be able to be free otherwise as long as they keep
using Matlab and they feel locked down without an alternative.

Windows is the opiate of the masses. ;-) And a Windows version of
Octave (or Scilab or Scipy) is their rehab programme.

- Jordi G. H.