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You can get Octave from a friend who has a copy, by anonymous FTP, or by ordering a tape or CD-ROM from the Free Software Foundation (FSF).
Octave was not developed by the FSF, but the FSF does distribute Octave, and the developers of Octave support the efforts of the FSF by encouraging users of Octave to order Octave on CD-ROM directly from the FSF.
The FSF is a nonprofit organization that distributes software and manuals to raise funds for more GNU development. Buying a CD-ROM from the FSF contributes directly to paying staff to develop GNU software. CD-ROMs cost $240 if an organization is buying, or $60 if an individual is buying.
For more information about ordering from the FSF, contact [email protected], phone (617) 542-5942 or anonymous ftp the file /pub/gnu/GNUinfo/ORDERS from ftp.gnu.org.
If you are on the Internet, you can copy the latest distribution version of Octave from the file /pub/octave/octave-M.N.tar.gz, on the host ftp.che.wisc.edu. This tar file has been compressed with GNU gzip, so be sure to use binary mode for the transfer. `M' and `N' stand for version numbers; look at a listing of the directory through ftp to see what version is available. After you unpack the distribution, be sure to look at the files README and INSTALL.
Binaries for several popular systems are also available. If you would like help out by making binaries available for other systems, please contact [email protected].
A list of user-visible changes since the last release is available in the file NEWS. The file ChangeLog in the source distribution contains a more detailed record of changes made since the last release.