Re: [slightly OT]: Octave featured in Free Software magazine

[David Bateman]

John W. Eaton wrote:
> On  5-Jun-2007, Jordi Gutierrez Hermoso wrote:
> 
> | This isn't a question about help, but it's nice to see that Octave got
> | mentioned in Free Software Magazine and was quite favourably compared
> | as "an almost perfect clone of MATLAB."
> 
>>From TFA:
> 
>   Being such a perfect MATLAB clone it shares all of MATLAB?s advantages
>   and all its disadvantages like its speed. The only exception being its
>   price.
> 
> And that's a statement in "Free Software Magazine"?  Huh?  At least
> there is a link on the front page that points to an attempt at an
> explanation of free software that includes the lines:
> 
>   What is free software?
> 
>   Wherever you encounter free software, you?ll find the term free is
>   being used in relation to freedom and not cost. You may also
>   encounter the phrase ?Free as in speech, not as in beer? which
>   reinforces this idea. Whilst reading this article I suggest you
>   forget about cost altogether as it might be a distraction.
> 
> And even here, there seems to be some confusion about "cost"
> vs. "price".
> 
> Perl wins?  Really?  Ugh.
> 
> jwe
> 

He gets all the speed difference as Alex points out from the use of the
PDL clip function and forcing Octave/Matlab to use something less efficient.

D.