come with gnuplot

[Daniel Heiserer]

Hi,

octave uses lots of external packages which are compiled into it
e.g. linpack, eispack, .... .

They all are part of octave's distribution.

Can octave come also with the gnuplot source?
Compile gnuplot and put *THIS* gnuplot into
"/usr/local/share/octave/gnuplot".
So it doesn't disturb an "offical" installed gnuplot.

The advantages would be:
o       Your installed octave works always with the latest gnuplot
o       You needn't care of having the latest version
o       all coding inside octave concerning plotting (as long as gnuplot is
the default)
        is much easier, because you needn't take care of the gnuplot verion
        no if_gnuplot_has_frames
        no if_gnuplot_supports_multiple_figures and so on ....
o       code contributors for octave's plotting could take advantage of the
latest gnuplot 
        features, and if they are not sufficient, patch gnuplot, because they
can take care
        that these features appear in the latest octave-release immediatley
==>     plotting in octave needn't be a STEPCHILD any more.
==>     developers time can be spent much more efficiently


For gnuplot 3.7 the licensing of gnuplot changed as far as I can see.
As far as I see it, gnuplot is not GPL and the license is not complete
GPL compatible.
If this is a big problem, what has to be done?
Is a BSD license sufficient for octave to work with gnuplot in that way
(upward compatible).

Let me know what you think.

daniel



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