Re: speed of octave

[Quentin Spencer]

Thomas Geiger wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On 13/09/2007, John W. Eaton <address@hidden> wrote:
>   
> > On 13-Sep-2007, Eric S. Carlson wrote:
> >
> > | MKL could be linked to python, and I presume that MKL could also be linked
> > | to octave.
> >
> > Is MKL free (as in speech) software?  If not, then maybe it would be
> > in our best long-term interests to work to improve free software like
> > ATLAS instead?
> >
> >     
>
> MKL is not free, but Octave may be redistributed being linked against
> it, see http://www.gup.uni-linz.ac.at/symposium/talks/descher.pdf.
>   

I'm not convinced. The document makes that statement, yes, but there is 
no information about how they came to that conclusion. I'm not an expert 
on the GPL, but I can't see how linking a GPL program to a non-free 
library would ever be redistributable.

That presentation also unfortunately did not include octave linked 
against atlas in the comparison. I would have been interested in the 
results.

Quentin