Is it safe to use Matlab?

[Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso]

The Mathworks right now mostly ignores Octave because we're still
small potatoes compared to them.

HOWEVER

Should we ever become a significant competitor, I don't doubt they'd
try a few legal assaults. In this regard, we always tell people,
"don't read Matlab source when implementing functions for Octave",
i.e. avoid legal risk.

The Matlab license has a number of restrictions, one of which is that
you cannot use Matlab to build a competing product, and you can't
provide network access. Whether it's enforceable who knows, but they
at least they're trying.

I've been careful myself to make a point of asking people "what does
Matlab do here" but not attempt to use Matlab myself to do it (clean
room reverse engineering). However, I've seen that several people
writing code for Octave also seemingly have access to Matlab to test
things. Is this safe? Someone offered to lend me their computer with
Matlab installed on it to test things, and I'm not sure if this safe
or not.

Thanks,
- Jordi G. H.