On Mon, 18 Oct 2004, Xavier Amatriain wrote:
I agree with you. But then, it is really hard to convince people to switch to Octave if they think that using Matlab they are still Free because they are using/publishing GPL code. The problem is that if this situation continues at the end there will be more Free than non-Free value to Matlab and then, how are we convince people to switch to Octave or any non-Free alternative?
Am I correct in assuming that you mean free alternative? I think the only way to convince people is to make the information available and try to ensure that the software one writes is of good quality. People will either use it or they won't.
It is like if everyone started writing MS Windows-only Free Software. Who would want to use GNU/Linux then?
I don't think that there is really a danger of this happening. According to the GNU Coding Standards, maintainers of GNU packages are responsible for ensuring that they run on GNU systems. Porting them to non-GNU, and especially non-free, systems is not a priority. It's not, however, discouraged. Personally, I like DJGPP very much and I think it serves a very useful purpose.
I can only speak for myself, but, generally speaking, I don't like using MS products. I prefer any Unix-like system to Windows, and I suspect that many other programmers feel the same way.
Laurence Finston GNU 3DLDF maintainer http://www.gnu.org/software/3dldf/LDF.html