Spreadsheet support in core Octave instead of io package?

[John W. Eaton]

xlsread, xlswrite, and xlsfinfo are all core functions in Matlab.  I'd 
like to make them core functions in Octave as well, as I suspect many 
users would like to have these functions available by default without 
having to install a separate package.  Is there any objection to moving 
them from the io package to core Octave?

I'd also consider moving the odsread, odswrite, and odsfinfo functions 
to core Octave at the same time, though I also wonder whether it might 
make sense to just put the XLS and ODS capabilities in a single function 
instead of splitting them up in separate functions.

Comments?

jwe