Sorry for trolling

[Ben Abbott]

On Jan 16, 2009, at 6:55 PM, Chuck Dorval wrote:

>>> So I am guessing at least 20 main contributors in the last year  
>>> and at
>>> ...
>>> I guess Matlab's main team is about 10 active + 10 backup  
>>> developers/
>
>> Pretty much right for Octave though perhaps high, I'd say 10 to 15
>> rather than 20. For mathworks however ...
>>
>> they employ 2000 people, and I'd guess 10% of those at least are
>> developers given that mathworks is a software company. So you  
>> expect 10
>> to 15 un-paid part time developers to do the same job for 200 paid  
>> full
>> time developers?
>
> The thing is, the 10 to 15 highly adept part timers who do develop
> Octave in their free time, do such a ridiculously fantastic job that
> they are heralded as a near-equal development force, the main
> competition even, with Mathwork's 100s to 1000s of full time paid
> developers.  If that's not proof that Octave is in good hands, I don't
> know what is.
>
> I've been using Matlab for over 15 years, and Octave for close to 10.
> I still use both extensively, depending on the situation and who I'm
> working with, but all of my serious number crunching is done
> exclusively in Octave.  Yes, not everything translates perfectly.
> There was a period a few years ago where I was trying to port a Matlab
> package, written by other people and dependent upon the mex compiler
> system, to Octave.  Something not done very often, and the package
> developers had used many rare mex/C commands, so naturally there were
> bugs in the porting to Octave.  But after reporting them, each one was
> fixed in a matter of hours.  The developers of Octave, in their free
> time, cared enough about their 'product' to help me with dozens of my
> personal problems!  I've found many bugs in Matlab over the years, and
> I've always had to work around them.
>
> The developers of Octave are saints who spend undo effort to keep
> Octave compatible with Matlab in spite of the occasional poor
> operational decisions made at The Mathworks.  They do this *not* to
> steal _customers_, but to enable _users_ like you and me to
> collaborate with people who insist on sticking with Matlab. If you
> believe Matlab delivers a product worthy of the student-starter-kit
> they inject into your arm for free (or $100), by all means use Matlab,
> and leave the Octave developers alone.  But keep in mind that you
> won't be a student forever, and Mathworks doesn't make its money off
> the student licenses.  Most importantly, no one is forcing, or even
> encouraging you to use Octave.  If you don't like it, go away. We're
> all very sorry you failed to purchase Matlab from your Amazon.com
> basket two months ago.
>
> I'm sorry to be mean.  But you really need to understand how amazing
> the Octave developers are.  They're not out to get you.  So you had a
> problem and regret that you didn't buy Matlab -- I get that. But don't
> take it out on volunteers!  It's like berating doctors who are
> donating their time in ghetto neighborhood clinics, for not having all
> the amenities of the Beverly Hills plastic surgery spas.  I don't
> think you intended to be as mean as you were, eh :).
>
> Peace-
> Chuck

Nice testimony Chuck,

You've inspired me to share my first experience with Octave  
development. It was about 10pm on a Saturday night and I found a bug  
(can't remember the details but it was about 10-12yrs ago). I sent out  
an email (or posted to a newsgroup, I can't recall) and a few minutes  
later I got a reply with a patch attached (my memory correlates this  
with Paul Kienzle). Take note that the developer (Paul?) who helped me  
out lived in Europe and was 6hrs ahead (about 4am).

I've been an advocate of open-source/free-software ever sense.

Ben