Xref: utzoo comp.lang.fortran:1339 comp.sources.wanted:5314 sci.math:4665
Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!pyrdc!pyrnj!rutgers!mailrus!caen.engin.umich.edu!cvink
From: cvink@caen.engin.umich.edu (charles e vink)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran,comp.sources.wanted,sci.math
Subject: Re: Public Domain MATLAB
Summary: ftp'd it OK.  No copyright notice found
Keywords: Matlab, numerical analysis
Message-ID: <3f1d88f4.fef1@violet.engin.umich.edu>
Date: 17 Oct 88 18:46:00 GMT
References: <628@ndcheg.cheg.nd.edu>
Organization: U of M Engineering, Ann Arbor, Mich.
Lines: 46

In article <628@ndcheg.cheg.nd.edu>, jeff@ndcheg.cheg.nd.edu (Jeffrey C. Kantor) writes:
> 
> Someone (at colo state, sorry but I've lost your name) said that the
> sources are ftp'able from unmvax.unm.edu.  (129.24.12.128).  I tried
> this, but uncompress choked on the file MATLAB.tar.Z only about 25Kbytes
> into the job (out of 440Kbytes).  Examing the first bit of what came out
> looks a bit discouraging in that I saw some VAX assembler, stuff that appears
> to be difficult to port.  But maybe there are some conditional things for
> different machines.
>
   I was able to ftp > uncompress > untar the file successfully.  Be
   aware that compressed files must be ftp'd in binary mode or you
   will get 440K of garbage!  A quick glance at the distribution files
   suggests that this program is not system dependent (i.e. there are
   files for CDC, IBM CMS, DEC 10's and 20's, Prime 400, and IBM TSO
   machines as well as the files for UNIX).
 
> Since I'm not an uncompress guru, is there something I should be aware of
> that might explain what's going wrong?
> 
    I simply put the MATLAB.tar.Z file in a directory, then used
    "uncompress MATLAB.tar", then "tar xf MATLAB.tar".  Everything
    seemed to unpak OK.

> Secondly, is there someone who knows more about this particular piece
> of code.  Esp. as to whether it is really public domain, and its general
> pedigree?
> 
    I looked in the README file, the install file, several source files, and
    several miscellaneous files and found no copyright notices.  It does
    bother me that there is now a commercial program with the same name and
    appears to use roughly the same syntax (I haven't read the users guide
    yet for this version).  The only thing that makes me feel a little
    better is that this version is dated November 1983 and has the name
    and phone number of what appears to be the author:

        Cleve Moler
        Department of Computer Science
        University of New Mexico
        Albuquerque, NM  87131
        (505)277-3112 or (505)268-8631

    The best bet would be to get in touch with him to verify that this
    version is indeed in the public domain.

Chuck Vink        cvink@caen.engin.umich.edu