Re: Mathworks-hosted GPL'd software

[Carlo de Falco]

On 15 Feb 2010, at 08:13, Jaroslav Hajek wrote:

> Here's a plan: we'll setup a simple hosting place. I think we can use
> OctaveForge. Then we start browsing the contributions that are usable
> in Octave, and email their authors, warning them about the restriction
> imposed by MathWorks on the BSD license and asking them to provide us
> with a copy of their software (under a free license of their choice),
> so that it will be available also for Octave authors.

I would be willing to help with this project.
I know of at least one package on OF (nurbs) which started as a fork  
of a project originally distributed
via the MFX under a free sw license. I see that now the nurbs package  
is no longer on MFX, probably because the authors did not agree
to change the license (or were unreachable). Since the fork, I have  
been developing a lot of octave code depending on
the nurbs package which has been used to publish at least one research  
paper. This would have not been possible if I were
to comply to the new ToS of MFX.
c.