Re: Citing Octave in Publication

[Francesco Potortì]

>I am writing a brief book on basics of algorithms and coding,
...
>The last section in my book includes examples on real programming with
>Octave.

>I have checked about the GFDL and it states:
...
>My question is: what should I do in order to comply with the GNU Free
>Documentation License?

I am not sure what do you mean exactly.  What material do you want to
distribute under the GFDL?

Maybe you care about the Octave manual, which is distributed under the
GFDL.  If you distribute it as is, you are compliant.  If you want to
modify it, you should read the GFDL details.

Or maybe you want to distribute your book under the GFDL?  In that case,
the GFDL itself has an appendix explaining how you can do that.

>I start the last section in my book with:
>
>"Octave is a high-level programming language for scientific computing with
>built-in plotting and visualization tools. The software featuring this
>programming language is called GNU Octave and it is free software under the
>terms of the GNU General Public License. It can be downloaded and installed
>from the following link: https://www.gnu.org/software/octave/. Manuals and
>other documentations can also be found at the homepage of GNU Octave."
>
>Is this citation enough to comply with GFDL or do I have to include
>something else?

You don't need anything specific.  What you wrote is alright, apart from
the fact that for Linux distributions you should suggest to install
Octave from the distribution's installation system.  But as long as it
is a good idea to explain what Octave is, you do not have any obligation
of writing that text in your book.

-- 
Francesco Potortì (ricercatore)        Voice:  +39.050.621.3058
ISTI - Area della ricerca CNR          Mobile: +39.348.8283.107
via G. Moruzzi 1, I-56124 Pisa         Skype:  wnlabisti
(entrance 20, 1st floor, room C71)     Web:    http://fly.isti.cnr.it