Licensing issues for Octave code derived from Netlib, Statlib, et c??

[Robert Dodier]

Hello all,

Octave is a wonderful program, and I feel lucky to have
come across it.

To make Octave still more wonderful, I am considering 
porting some of my favorite code from Netlib. But I wonder
what the licensing issues are. Octave, I know, is GPL'd.
Can one make a translation of Netlib code and GPL the
translation? 

Part of the problem is that licensing for Netlib code is
ambiguous, at best. Some files show copyright notices, but
few show license information. I've written to the Netlib 
maintainers, and they replied that they are encouraging 
authors of new submissions to put a license statement in 
their programs, but that doesn't fix the mountain of existing
programs.

I looked through the documentation at the Octave web site,
but I was unable to find a discussion of licensing issues for
Octave software derived from web repositories.

I look forward to your comments.

--Robert Dodier



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