Re: IO package and Excel

[Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso]

On Thu, 2014-02-06 at 22:02 +0100, Philip Nienhuis wrote:
> Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso wrote:

> > If you've made an interface between Excel and Octave that only
> > works with Excel, this is a GPL violation, regardless of my or
> > your opinion of what "free" means.
> >
> > If you wrote a generic interface that does not depend on Excel, then
> > there is no problem.

> 
> This already came up 5 years ago when I made the first xlsread/xlswrite 
> for io and it was concluded at the time that there were no problems.
> Since that time I haven't thought much about it.

Okay, glad you've thought about it.

> Yesterday I've re-read the entire GPL on-line, and I couldn't find clear 
> stanzas that -AFAIU- would support the illegality of the IO package 
> Excel interface as it stands. OK, IANAL, though I find the stuff there 
> pretty clear.
> Do you have pointers?

The language of the GPL aims to be both general and precise. These
goals are contradictory, so there is always room for interpretation.
It all depends on particulars.

> FYI, Octave doesn't depend on Excel nor does xlsread/xlswrite depend
> on it. It can invoke Excel; but there are 4 or 5 alternative
> "interfaces", currently mostly Java-based. Users can (de-)select one
> or more interfaces if desired.

Without knowing more details about the situation, and still conceding
that I could be wrong, this sounds like there is no problem.

- Jordi G. H.