Re: Iran, copyright, Matlab and Octave

[Pascal Dupuis]

I agree with John point-of-view. Let us Octave developers focus on Octave development, before this threads degenerates into trolling or flamewar.

Regards

Pascal 

2013/4/10 John Swensen <address@hidden>

Morality is the purview of philosophers and the religious. Even those who try to loosely define morality as harm to individuals and society, you could argue that copying Matlab is immoral because it affects the livelihoods of those working for The Mathworks. Your argument that The Mathworks is not losing anything by Matlab being copied is pure conjecture on your part, as you don't have access to their marketing, sales, revenues, and other financials.

I realize that this discussion is simply re-hashing the whole free vs. non-free software argument that has been conducted on message boards across the interwebs for decades and the conclusion is always the same. You fall into a variety of camps that lie somewhere between Richard Stallman-esque "militant all software should be free" and others who use and contribute to free software but understand the position of those who  sell software.

On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 9:15 AM, Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso <address@hidden> wrote:

On 10 April 2013 09:07, Andy Buckle <address@hidden> wrote:
> I would add that, even if it is not illegal in Iran to copy Matlab freely,
> it is still immoral.

I don't think so. Copying is not wrong. Copying is not theft:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GU7axyrHWDQ

The Mathworks isn't actually losing anything by having Matlab being
copied. It's just not *gaining* anything monetarily, but they are
gaining mindshare. For this reason, most of the time TMW turns a blind
eye to the rampant copyright infringement. Some of the most benign
actions, such as taking a Matlab m-file, modifying it, and hosting it
along with your own Matlab package are actually copyright
infringement, but few would think this is immoral.

As long as everyone is using Matlab, TMW can still profit from it one
way or another, whether with license fees today outside Iran, or
license fees tomorrow when our Matlab-addicted Iranian student goes to
a country where copyright lawsuits are profitable.

Copying Matlab isn't any more wrong than copying Octave is. Just
because we don't try to guilt trip you into thinking copying Octave
isn't wrong, doesn't mean the action is any different than copying
Matlab. We would like you to pay for Octave as much as TMW wants you
to pay for Matlab, but we don't guilt trip you into doing so by
calling you names like "pirate" if you don't pay. Because really, we
aren't losing anything.

- Jordi G. H.