I used to be a big fan of octave until I learned python + numpy + pandas dataframes. After that I did not have much need for octave.

There are a lot of engineers and financial quants using Matlab, and the Octave project makes a lot of that Matlab code usable without an expensive Matlab license.

I guess it's not clear to me why (at least in the 'first world') it's wrong for quants and engineers to pay something for the tools they use. (i have spent a fair amount of time contributing to open-source, so I've no problem with OS generally, but I also don't think their is anything wrong with the folks at Matlab getting paid for their efforts. Quants are sure as hell getting paid for theirs).

I agree that Matlab has a right to be paid for its product, but it is still nice to have a free alternative.

The better the free software, the greater the exploitation by other people making a bunch of money on it, while the devs work nights and weekends for nothing. I don't have a solution, but there it is.

I just think that Matlab shouldn't be taught at universities.

I used to use and love GNU octave, but much prefer Julia these days, which is also open-source.