Re: About Octave

[Jiquan Ngiam]

Hi Jordi,

Thanks for the response!

Ok, so SSL may be desirable. We're already using libcurl and I
understand this does SSL, so it should just be a matter of turning it
on. Can you give me an example of what kind of code you have in mind
that should use SSL? Does Matlab already have an interface to do this?

You can take a look at https://www.coursera.org/course/ml  - look for the programming exercises ( https://class.coursera.org/ml-2012-002/assignment/index  ). They come with a submit script that basically uses urlread to do the communications. If we could turn on https with urlread, that'll be awesome! 

 

Yes, we keep having trouble with paths on Windows. This is a recurrent
bug. The biggest problem is that we don't have enough people working
on Windows, so our Windows bug hunting always lags behind. Can you or
someone else at Coursera help us with Windows development.

I'll recommend posting on the forums on the ml course (link above) to reach out for windows developers who'd like to contribute to Octave. There're many students who are really good engineers and would like to contribute back to the community and the great work you've done.

 

In order to help with the headaches of distribution on non-free OSes,
we are considering making binaries for Windows and Mac OS X and offer
them on a pay-what-you-want scheme for download (but not pay nothing).
However, we will be doing this freely. If for example Coursera obtains
these hypothetical binaries from us after paying whatever Coursera
thinks is appropriate, there can be no further restriction on
redistributing these binaries, as required by the GPL. So Coursera
could buy these binaries once and give them out to their students as
needed.

We'll be happy to provide links from our site to provided downloadable binaries!

Reading them again, they seem to have changed since last time I looked
at them. What I now find objectionable is that the ToS forbid me from
freely using Coursera's materials but requires that I give them my own
materials for them to use freely. I do not consider this a fair trade.
Is it really impossible to use a CC license for Coursera's own things?
I wish Coursera encouraged sharing. I see lots of benefit from
students learning from each other, and it helps if Coursera's own
materials aren't restricted.

Thanks for the feedback, and we definitely want to encourage sharing and contributions. We'll be discussing and reviewing our ToS.

Thanks,

Ngiam