Re: Contribution to Octave as a PM

[Philip Nienhuis]

Julien,

Julien Hamilton wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 5, 2014 at 4:38 PM, Philip Nienhuis <address@hidden
> <mailto:address@hidden>> wrote:

<snip>

>      > Yes it's always a challenge when you want to improve a software,
>     making it
>      > more "corporate", but with staying with the basic principles. I was
>      > thinking about the fact that Octave offers functions to connect
>     to the
>      > nonfree software Microsoft Excel.
>
>     What exactly do you mean by that?
>
>     Philip
>
>
> Hi Philip,
>
> I mean that according to the free software mouvement we should avoid
> using *any* nonfree software. The fact that Octave offers an interface
> to Excel can be see by some people as a contradiction to this principle.
> Don't you think?

(Your counter question could be more precise :-) )
- Sure I agree that some people think so; I can even follow their 
reasoning. It *is* somewhat contradictory, but only w.r.t. to that 
alleged aim of "the free software movement". However:
- No, I agree only partly with that opinion or aim. While sympathetic, 
it's simply impractical for many users.

To me, "free" is also about freedom to choose what software or 
combinations of software to use.
Or would you think are we more free if we are limited to only <fill in 
your favorite definition of "free" here> software?  *That* would sound 
contradictory to me....
IMO it is up to users to decide what to use, and not to me or anyone 
else to limit or take away other people's *legal* choices and options.

After all, not even the GPL forbids to *run* a mix of proprietary and 
"free" software - it limits *distribution* of such a mix.
Excel (at least my old 97 version) doesn't come with a ban to use it in 
combination with free SW.

AFAICS Octave is legally at the right side here - it doesn't mix free 
and nonfree SW, nor is it dependent on the latter. The ActiveX stuff 
used for the Excel interface can be used to interface to LibreOffice as 
well (I have that working here).
That "some people" think something there is still *morally* wrong - to 
me that's an opinion that I respect and value. No more, no less.

Philip