Re: Using Matlab toolboxes in Octave

[O. Scott Sands]

Hans Olav Husum wrote:
> 
> Currently I use Matlab 4.2c under MS Windows. I have had a brief look at
> Octave 2.02 under linux: it seems to be very similar. Is it technically
> possible to use Matlab toolboxes (Optimization and Statistics) under
> Octave? 

Ummmm... probably not "right out of the box". You'll probably need
to hack the toolboxes up a bit. I've run into some rather strange,
arcane, features of MATLAB which are exploited in the toolboxes. The
conventions adopted by Mathworks regarding indexing into null matrices
are a constant source of frustration and perplexity among the octave
developers (there's really only one octave developer), users and 
maintainers. You might consider getting older versions of the toolboxes
as they don't seem to be quite as MATLAB-specific as those in 4.2.

>Are there any licensing issues that prevents me from doing this
> if it is technically feasible?

I don't belive so. If you've got a legal copy of the toolboxes then
I don't think that Mathworks has, yet, tried to restrict the use of
these toolboxes outside MATLAB. I'm not a lawyer so I don't really 
know but it  seems to me that they would have a hard time telling 
you that you MUST use MATLAB to execute the toolboxes. However, they 
might restrict the use in other ways. For example, they might insist 
that you not execute a toolbox in Octave and MATLAB at the same time 
or that you not execute a MATLAB toolbox in multiple Octave processes. 

> 
> Hope someone can help me out here!
> 
> Hans Olav

Note that there are "octave versions" of many of the functions found
in the toolboxes. These "octave toolboxes" are not a complete as the
MATLAB versions however they're close. 

Try http://www.tsc.uvigo.es/GTS/Octave/oct_arch.html
Scott Sands