Re: Octave vs. Matlab legal matters [was: Re: spline with NaNs]

[Judd Storrs]

On Tue, May 25, 2010 at 2:50 PM, Jaroslav Hajek <address@hidden> wrote:
> On Tue, May 25, 2010 at 7:14 PM, Judd Storrs <address@hidden> wrote:
>> You are not a lawyer and you cannot offer clarity. Sorry.
>
> Well, not really. But saying that nobody but lawyers can understand
> laws is like saying that maths can only be understood by
> mathematicians :)

Physics would be a more natural analogy rather than an entirely
artificial construct such as math. Yes, you can understand the narrow
world described by Newton's laws. You can make predictions about
future behavior based on your understanding of Newton's Laws. That
doesn't mean the world always follows Newton's Laws precisely. When
the world misbehaves you can protest until you're blue that Newton's
Laws say that reality is wrong. You have to know when and how the
rules fail to apply or break down. Even if you understand what is
written in a contract, the contract may be unenforceable or other laws
may place other implicit obligations on the contract.

The bottom line is unless you show me an enforceable contract with
Mathworks that says "please study all aspects of this program and it's
source code so that you can implement a competitor" absolutely
*nothing* is debunked.

Encouraging other people to post Matlab's source code to a public
mailing list is cruel and dangerous. You're not taking the risk and I
hope that nobody you're encouraging ends up the target of legal
action.


--judd