Joe Vornehm Jr. wrote: > License discussions seem to generate a lot of bandwidth! I believe Judd is > correct that this is off-topic, so I will try to fork the discussion by > changing the subject line. > > I spoke today with a representative from The MathWorks who works with MATLAB > Central and the File Exchange. The short version is that any code downloaded > from MATLAB Central is covered by the BSD license and nothing more. The use > of BSD licensing is a recent change, so the Terms of Use are outdated and > will be reviewed by the legal team, with the intent of modifying the line > restricting use to MathWorks products. For the sake of documentation, I have > included the e-mail conversation below, with the rep's name removed. > > The rep clarified explained in a follow-up phone call that MathWorks wants to > encourage openness and broad use of MATLAB Central, they just don't want to > become a repository for Octave and R code. That was the original intent of > that line in the Terms of Use. I asked about dual-use code that ran on > MATLAB and another platform, and the rep said it would be welcome and even > recommended mentioning in the upload description that the code can run on > Octave or R as well. The rep also confirmed that the Terms of Use apply only > to the use of the website, not the code downloaded from it. > > I thought this was an interesting discussion thread. I felt the only > uncertain area was whether the Terms of Use could be construed as modifying > the license. I didn't think that could be the case, but I asked. > (Sometimes, asking is simpler than debating.) Mostly, I thought the ToU were > in conflict with the license and needed to be modified, and I'm glad to see > they will at least take steps in that direction. > > So, in summary, yes, code downloaded from MATLAB Central and the File > Exchange marked as being BSD licensed is definitely only under the BSD > license, with no further restrictions. Hope this helps. > > Joe V. >
Well till they make the change in the ToU I believe the question is still in doubt from a legal point of view. However, if I'm ever sued, I'll contact you for the version of the mail with MathWorks tech support with the names to defend myself ;-) Cheers David ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This SF.net Dev2Dev email is sponsored by: Show off your parallel programming skills. Enter the Intel(R) Threading Challenge 2010. http://p.sf.net/sfu/intel-thread-sfd _______________________________________________ Octave-dev mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/octave-dev
