Re: Further on MEX

[John W. Eaton]

On  6-Jan-2009, David Bateman wrote:

| Some free software developers work for companies with a lot of 
| proprietary code and so I think there is no issue in finding some one to 
| write the code.. The API/ABI exists already in the form of MEX. We only 
| have to optimize that a bit to avoid some of the current copying of data 
| in the Octave MEX implementation. For example with functions to get/set 
| C99 complex values,

It seems to me that if you add new functions that are only in Octave
and then write code that uses those functions, that you have something
that depends on Octave.

| and avoid the copy when an octave_value is converted 
| to an mxArray if the MEX api is greater than v4....

What is it that is dependent on the version?

| Since we already have an API to Octave that doesn't invoke the GPL and 
| there exists a technical means to get an ABI that doesn't invoke the GPL 
| for the distribution of compiled MEX files, why should we make a fuss 
| about just accepting that the existing Octave MEX ABI itself doesn't 
| invoke the GPL for the distribution of compiled MEX files?

My objection is that it is at least against the spirit of the GPL and
I would not like to move further in this direction.  I have no
interest in encouraging proprietary add-ons for Octave.

jwe