Re: Octave and CUDA/GPGPU programming

[John Swensen]

On Sep 11, 2008, at 4:22 PM, John W. Eaton wrote:

> On 11-Sep-2008, isaacgerg wrote:
>
> | They are indeed free.
>
> This page: http://www.nvidia.com/object/cuda_get.html, says "CUDA
> tools are provided free of charge" but that is not the same as what I
> meant by "free software".
>
> Looking at the detailed license terms, I see
>
>  Source Code: Developer shall have the right to modify and create
>  derivative works with the Source Code.  [...]
>
> and that's encouraging, but then I also see:
>
>  Object Code: Developer agrees not to disassemble, decompile or  
> reverse
>  engineer the Object Code versions of any of the Materials.  Developer
>  acknowledges that certain of the Materials provided in Object Code
>  version may contain third party components that may be subject to
>  restrictions, and expressly agrees not to attempt to modify or
>  distribute such Materials without first receiving consent from  
> NVIDIA.
>
> so are there binary-only blobs that are required and that are not
> free (as in speech) software?
>
> jwe

Yeah, sorry about mentioning it.  In my enthusiasm about fancy new  
things that are on the surface "free of charge", I often overlook the  
limitations of not being "free software".  This would be more  
appropriate for the nonfree section of OctaveForge.

John Swensen