From help-octave-request at bevo dot che dot wisc dot edu  Thu Feb  8 23:20:19 2001
Subject: quadratic programming
From: Dirk Eddelbuettel <edd at debian dot org>
To: Phil Cummins <cummins at jamstec dot go dot jp>
Cc: help-octave at bevo dot che dot wisc dot edu
Date: Thu, 8 Feb 2001 20:51:15 -0600 (CST)


  "Phil" == Phil Cummins <cummins at jamstec dot go dot jp> writes:
  Phil> I have seen some references to Gill and Murray's QPSOL, which
  Phil> apparently can be used with OCTAVE but is not free. The new version
  Phil> of this appears to be QPOPT, which comes with a MATLAB interface.

AFAICT the Octave interface to QPSOL no longer works, and hasn't for _long_
time. 

  Phil> There is also a public domain program called QLD, written by Klaus
  Phil> Schittkowski of U. Bayreuth, which some sites seem to be using as a
  Phil> replacement for QPSOL, but I haven't heard any details about this.

Yes, but it is not "free" (as in e.g. the Debian sense) as you cannot
redistribute his code. Witness that in order to obtain the routine, you have
to ask Prof. Schittkowski by email for a copy. At least that was the case
when I used it in my Ph.D. work.

  Phil> Does anyone have any experience with using these or or other packages
  Phil> under octave? Many thanks,

Optimization code (as e.g. on Netlib) has had a long and sad tradition of
using arbitrarily restrictive and silly licenses.  Hopefully this will
improve with a new generation of researchers raised on "free" licenses as the
GPL, BSD, Artistic, ... licenses.

Dirk

-- 
According to the latest figures, 43% of all statistics are totally worthless.



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