Scilab is not open-source

Posted Nov 10, 2006 18:14 UTC (Fri) by kmccarty (subscriber, #12085)
In reply to: Scilab is not open-source by mightyduck
Parent article: Get more Science into your Distribution

Sorry, but I don't give a flying f*ck about this ideological crap [...] I'm not a distributor and I don't care about the other ideological bullsh*t.

Wow, defensive much?!

Without "this ideological crap," it's highly unlikely that Linux would ever have become competitive with high-end proprietary UNIXes, and you would have to spend $$$ to even have a platform on which to run Scilab, free (as in beer) though it might be. (I guess you could run it on Windows, for which you only have to spend $. But if you would rather use that than Linux, I assume you wouldn't be posting on LWN. Right? :-)

No one is saying "Don't use Scilab"; the OP is only cautioning readers that Scilab doesn't come with some freedoms that most people using a Linux platform routinely expect of their software. For many, this is an important piece of information.

Also, distributors' needs for software to be Free (libre) are not in fact irrelevant to you! If Scilab were actually Free software, distributors would be able to support its use and integrate it with other parts of their operating systems to a much greater extent. As just one example, in the present situation no one may distribute Scilab binaries that use GPL'ed readline.

Scilab is not open-source

Posted Nov 10, 2006 18:36 UTC (Fri) by mightyduck (guest, #23760) [Link]

The OP claimed that it's not "open-source" for some definition of
"open-source" and I don't agree with THAT! I know that it's not free as
in "free speech" but it's still open-source for me because I have access
to the source and can modify it. That is how I define open-source. But
that whole discussion is all about wording and leads to nowhere. For me
Scilab is "open-source", "free as in beer" but not "free as in free
speech". I (or better, my employer) doesn't care so much about the "free
as in beer" thing and would be willing to spend $$$ if necessary, but I
care a lot about access to the source because it makes finding and fixing
bugs or adapting the program to your needs a lot easier. You are no
longer at the mercy of some company and even if the vendor goes out of
business you can still sort of use the program and port it to a new OS
for instance (happened to me already). With closed-source, even if it's
"free as in beer" that wouldn't be possible. And I don't care whether I
can distribute the modified program or not as I'm not even allowed
(according to my employment contract) to distribute substantial changes I
developed to open-source programs.