Is this the appropiate list?

[Laurence Finston]

On Mon, 18 Oct 2004, Xavier Amatriain wrote:

>
> I agree with you. But then, it is really hard to convince people to
> switch to Octave if they think that using Matlab they are still Free
> because they are using/publishing GPL code. The problem is that if this
> situation continues at the end there will be more Free than non-Free
> value to Matlab and then, how are we convince people to switch to Octave
> or any non-Free alternative?
>

Am I correct in assuming that you mean free alternative?
I think the only way to convince people is to make the
information available and try to ensure that the software
one writes is of good quality.  People will either use it or
they won't.

> It is like if everyone started writing MS Windows-only Free Software.
> Who would want to use GNU/Linux then?
>

I don't think that there is really a danger of this
happening.  According to the GNU Coding Standards,
maintainers of GNU packages are responsible for ensuring
that they run on GNU systems.  Porting them to non-GNU, and
especially non-free, systems is not a priority.  It's not,
however, discouraged.  Personally, I like DJGPP very much
and I think it serves a very useful purpose.

I can only speak for myself, but, generally speaking, I
don't like using MS products.  I prefer any Unix-like system
to Windows, and I suspect that many other programmers feel
the same way.

Laurence Finston
GNU 3DLDF maintainer
http://www.gnu.org/software/3dldf/LDF.html