Re: ML License agreement

[Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso]

Replying privately because these legal matters are touchy.

On 8 March 2012 11:45, CdeMills <address@hidden> wrote:
> I've looked at bit into ML license.

Note that there are several Matlab licenses. They change the license
around depending on how much they think they can get away with and to
whom they are giving it.

> What about the following scenario: some .m file results which seems
> erroneous to the user. The user looks into the source code, finds some
> issue, and creates its own version of the .m file solving the issue.
> Is it allowed? Allowed for internal use by the user only ?

This is probably a copyright violation, but the Mathworks has a
history of allowing small copyright violations. It's more beneficail
for them, at any rate, to allow modification and distribution of their
code and turn a blind eye to some of it than to act like an ogre.
Copyright lawsuits are only beneificial only against large targets who
are able to pay and can't easily escape a law. It's a cost-benefit
analysis for lawsuits. Lawsuits are expensive, so only do them when
you think you'll get a huge compensation for them.

If more people read the Matlab licenses and tried to understand and if
they were actually enforced literally, I am sure a lot of people would
stop using Matlab.

- Jordi G. H.