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| author | Kai T. Ohlhus <k.ohlhus@gmail.com> |
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| date | Tue, 11 Oct 2016 15:55:14 +0200 |
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3 title: Support Expectations |
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| 49 | 7 Octave is a capable free software system for numerical computing |
| 8 developed primarily by a community of volunteers. As good as it | |
| 9 is, there are certainly some flaws and a lot of room for | |
| 10 improvement. Most people who use Octave understand these things | |
| 11 and know that if they work together with the community bugs will | |
| 12 be fixed, features will be added, and Octave will improve over | |
| 13 time. Working with people who have this kind of attitude is fun | |
| 14 and rewarding. | |
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| 49 | 16 Unfortunately, there are a few people who behave as though the |
| 17 community owes them support as well as a 100% Matlab compatible | |
| 18 system, all at zero cost. It shouldn't really be necessary, but | |
| 19 we'll say it anyway: working with these people is no fun. If you | |
| 20 approach the Octave community this way, you are sure to be | |
| 21 disappointed. You should also not be surprised when your requests | |
| 22 for help are ignored. | |
| 23 | |
| 24 | |
| 25 ## Development Group | |
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| 49 | 27 People sometimes think that Octave is developed by some large team |
| 28 of well-paid programmers. Nothing could be further from the truth. | |
| 29 Most of the initial development of Octave was done by one person | |
| 30 over several years. Since then, there have been at most a half-dozen | |
| 31 or so volunteers working on Octave at any one time. | |
| 32 You can see who has done most of the work by looking through the | |
| 33 [development history](http://hg.savannah.gnu.org/hgweb/octave) | |
| 34 (prior to February 2008 it is best to look in the old `ChangeLog` files). | |
| 35 Currently, none of the Octave developers are paid to work on Octave directly. | |
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| 49 | 37 If you would like to see Octave moving forward more quickly, then |
| 38 contribute to its development, either by working on the project | |
| 39 yourself, or by donating funds. With sufficient funding, we would | |
| 40 be able to pay a few developers to work on Octave full time. | |
| 41 | |
| 42 | |
| 43 ## Help | |
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| 49 | 45 When asking for help on the mailing list or IRC channel, |
| 46 or reporting a bug, remember that the people helping you | |
| 47 are Octave users just like you who are volunteering their time. | |
| 48 They are not paid support staff. Use meaningful subject lines. | |
| 49 Try to ask clear questions. Be precise about the problems you are having. | |
| 50 | |
| 51 | |
| 52 ## Bugs | |
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| 49 | 54 No software is perfect, and Octave is no exception. |
| 55 You can search the list of bug reports to see what | |
| 56 problems have been reported. In looking at the list, | |
| 57 you might also noticed the number of problems that have been *fixed*. | |
| 58 Nearly all of these problems have been fixed by volunteers. | |
| 59 If you find a problem, you are encouraged to | |
| 60 [report it]({{ "/bugs.html" | prepend: site.baseurl }}). | |
| 61 Your report can help to improve Octave, | |
| 62 but you should not think of the bug tracker as your personal support line. | |
| 63 | |
| 64 If you depend on Octave and absolutely must have prompt responses | |
| 65 to problem reports, you should consider paying | |
| 66 for [commercial support][]. | |
| 67 | |
| 68 | |
| 69 ## Features | |
| 70 | |
| 71 When we say that Octave is "mostly compatible" with Matlab, | |
| 72 we mean that the language that it accepts is similar enough that a | |
| 73 substantial amount of code written for Matlab can also run in | |
| 74 Octave without needing to be changed. But Octave does not have | |
| 75 all the features of Matlab, and it is unlikely that it ever will. | |
| 76 Given that Matlab is developed in secret and Octave developers | |
| 77 only find out about new Matlab features when new versions of | |
| 78 Matlab are released, it is clearly impossible for Octave to have | |
| 79 new Matlab features as soon as they are available in Matlab. | |
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| 49 | 81 |
| 82 In most cases, Octave has the features that it does because | |
| 83 someone decided to add them becuase they needed them. If you have | |
| 84 the programming skills perhaps you can add the features you need. | |
| 85 If you not, then consider paying for someone to implement the | |
| 86 feature for you. Most people who provide [commercial support][] | |
| 87 services for Octave will also take on custom programming projets. | |
| 88 | |
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| 49 | 90 Even if you don't have the expertise required to implement new |
| 91 features or can't pay for someone to do the work for you, you may | |
| 92 submit feature requests to the bug tracker. But you should | |
| 93 understand that unless you are paying for someone to to add the | |
| 94 feature, no one is obligated to do it for you. | |
| 95 | |
| 96 | |
| 97 ## Releases | |
| 98 | |
| 99 The Octave project currently provides source releases only. | |
| 100 We simply don't have the volunteer resources to provide executable | |
| 101 versions of Octave packaged for different types of systems. | |
| 102 If you'd like to see this situation change, volunteer to help us, | |
| 103 or donate to the project so that an Octave developer can spend the | |
| 104 time needed to do the job. | |
| 105 | |
| 106 [commercial support]: {{ "/commercial-support.html" | prepend: site.baseurl }} |