MATLAB: License files from the FEX

fexfile exchangelicense file

FEX submissions are accompanied by a file called "license.txt", which contains the name of the author. You can copy the files of a submission to a specific folder and include if in the Matlab path.
When a user downloads 100 submissions, there are two methods:
  • Either 100 folders are added to the path. This increases the danger of getting the strange and frequent "exhausted change notification handles" problems, see Solution 1-18IFI.
  • Save the functions to one folder and overwrite the license files. This does collide with the BSD license conditions.
Especially when I think about a tool, which automatically resolves dependencies to other FEX submissions, the pile of equivocal license files is a tedious obstacle. How can this problem be solved considering the large number of already existing submissions?

Best Answer

You could download each FEX submission to a separate folder and then create links (hard or symbolic) to the MATLAB files (m, p, mex, etc.) in a single common folder for all FEX submissions. This might cause problems with name collisions to common files (e.g., contents.m).
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