Re: Octave presentation

[Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso]

 At 06:13 PM 11/4/2008, David Bateman wrote:
> I'll believe the R/S vs Octave/Matlab thing when Cleve Moler contributes
> to Octave..

So, wildly dreaming here, has anyone tried contacting him? I am
thinking of something along these lines:

     Hello.

     I am contacting you on behalf of the GNU Octave project, which
     aims to be an open source and freedom-respecting implementation
     of the MATLAB computing language and software suite. Recently,
     the project has come under some duress as the current lead
     developer, John W. Eaton, has seen his economic support for
     working on the object dwindle. We are hopeful, however, that the
     project can continue, since in recent times a great deal many
     other contributors have surfaced besides Eaton, although we are
     still doing all we can to keep him on board.

     A frequent comparison arises between the relationship that Octave
     has to MATLAB as the relationship that R has to S, the
     statistical computing language. In short, R is a successful and
     widely used free implementation and is an example of what Octave
     strives to be. Perhaps one of the reasons why R succeeds is that
     one of the core developers of S is also a core developer of
     S. The analogy has come full circle to you, who are a core MATLAB
     developer.

     Might we interest you in Octave? Have you looked at the project
     recently? It has made advances we are proud of, and I personally
     think it is doing a lot for the advancement of mathematical
     computing and can still do lots more.

with appropriate links, perhaps more details of Octave and why we have
been doing well recently, and a few more motivational details of why
he would like to dedicate some of his time working on Octave instead
of MATLAB (which I spell in allcaps except for diplomatic purposes,
heh). Or perhaps make it shorter and more succinct.

Of course, even if a miracle occurs and he's interested in
contributing, would that help us much? He would probably need some
time to get used to the code, and taking into account coding ego,
would probably want to change just about everything the way Octave is
coded.

2008/11/5 David Bateman <address@hidden>:
> Octave inevitably is competition Mathworks... They choose to ignore
> Octave for now with the specious argument that experience with octave
> prepares the user for a much better experience with Matlab....

I found that quote from some Matlab top developer rather dismissive
and inflammatory when I first read it. Now I can't find it and reread
it and get all riled up again. That's probably for the best.

- Jordi G. H.