While I appreciated your principled stance I believe it is more of a graded issue and one with several practical steps in between that are all 'freer' than the previous step.
- matlab + windows + CUDA
- octave + linux + CUDA
- octave + linux + Free OpenCL
So you're halfway there and it could be better but it could also be worse.
Writing a very high performance piece of software against a bunch of trade-secret grade hardware for which the manufacturer already provides a bunch of support for many people is not worth the trouble. As long as Nvidia supports their hardware using CUDA and OpenCL is not going to be brought up to that level this will likely continue.
A positive view would seem to me that this midway position will allow more people to move to Octave which in the longer run might free up some funds somewhere to tackle the problem you mention.
- matlab + windows + CUDA
- octave + linux + CUDA
- octave + linux + Free OpenCL
So you're halfway there and it could be better but it could also be worse.
Writing a very high performance piece of software against a bunch of trade-secret grade hardware for which the manufacturer already provides a bunch of support for many people is not worth the trouble. As long as Nvidia supports their hardware using CUDA and OpenCL is not going to be brought up to that level this will likely continue.
A positive view would seem to me that this midway position will allow more people to move to Octave which in the longer run might free up some funds somewhere to tackle the problem you mention.