Re: gnuplot, ignore if tired of thread

[David Doolin]

In message <address@hidden>, Daniel Heiserer writes:
>..... some stuff long ago ......
>
>gnuplot had a REALLY bad time from 1993-1998.
>That covered all the 3.6.???? beta stuff and maybe some more.
>They changed the copyright now.
>AFAIK current is 3.7 and they work on 3.8.
>So development has normalized ...

Daniel,  would you be so kind as to provide details on the 
current copyrights?  Last year when I investigated, it was
still the patch based system.  Thanks.


>
>> 
>>     Daniel> I think that there is nearly NO ARGUMENT AGAINST gnuplot
>>     Daniel> coming with octave.
>> 
>> True, but I guess you get trouble with the copyright.  And with the
>> strange rule '... you may not give it away with changed code
>> ... changes must be shipped as patches ...'
>
>That was my question.
>Does the come-with-gnuplot-suggestion cause licensing problems?
>If yes we have to see if we can solve it.

Yes, this would be a good idea.  Repeated polite inquiries from 
many different people requesting contributor friendly license
may turn the tide.  I have done my part.  Daniel is doing his.
Maybe someone lurking on this thread might take a turn next month.

>
>> 
>> For my taste a nice plotting library instead of gnuplot would be
>> enough.
>> Gnuplot is good but I only need 2D- and 3D-plotting functions on
>> diffent devices without a second interpreter level.
>> For this PLplot is nice but development has stopped.  But the GNU
>> plotutils (the plot-library) comes in the future I think.

I basically depend on gnuplot.  I should probably archive a personal 
copy of the source, or I am basically screwed if the license 
takes a turn for the worse.

>
>
>I definetly didn't want to open the door to the discussion 
>about THE PLOTTING TOOL.
>There was lots of discussion's about that in the last year.
>Many people talked about looked for other ones.
>AFAIK the conclusion is/was 
>-------------------------------------------------------------
>There is nothing right there NOW wich can replace gnuplot fully.
>-------------------------------------------------------------
>Please correct me if I am wrong.

Well, you did open it.  ;)  And it will come up for discussion
probably twice a year.  And "There is nothing right there 
NOW wich can replace gnuplot fully."  

>
>I also don't want to talk what the best solution is as long
>as nobody PROVIDES one which works.
>
>I think there can be a LOT of improvement with the current 
>approach with a LITTLE work.
>And that is what I would like to do.

Get the gnuplot license changed!

>
>Because most discussion's lead normally to the really amazing 
>result that EVERYBODY has lot's of nice ideas but lives
>on TIGHT TIME BUDGET. So we mostly don't see anything of it.

Yup.

>
>So please give me some more minusses:
>
>current:
>-copyright concerns

Thats it.  Thats the showstopper.  Change that and gnuplot could be dropped 
into a qt or gtk widget real fast.  There are already widgets written,
with canvas support.  The only problem is license incompatibility.

dave d

[]



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