Re: Matlab p files

[Mike Miller]

On Wed, May 25, 2016 at 18:44:53 +0200, Julien Bect wrote:
> Actually, I'm not sure at all about the correct answer to this question.  I
> would like to hear from Octave's core developers about that.

I suspect you may get as many different opinions as there are
developers.

Personally, I think the main motivation for Octave to support Matlab's
syntax at all is to allow users to move their interpreted source code
(in m-file form) from Matlab to the better, free Octave environment,
thereby increasing the "value" of the code.

IMHO, supporting obfuscated Matlab executable files does little to
increase the value of the code. The p-file is still a black box, users
do not have the freedom to study or improve the code.

Even if it works in one version of Octave, there is no guarantee that it
will work in a future version of Octave — not only because the
obfuscation format may change, but because some unrelated behavior may
change and we have no insight into what expressions are actually being
evaluated.

If someone were to ask me whether they can run p-files in Octave, I
would ask why they don't have access to the original m-files. It's
possible there is a legal issue in tandem with the technical issue.

Cheers,

-- 
mike