Let's take a look:
MATLAB Student Suite
Includes:
Product Cost to _me_ (non-student)
MATLAB $US 2150
Simulink $US 3250
Control System $US 1000
Data Acquisition $US 1000
DSP System Toolbox $US 1350
Image Processing $US 1000
Instrument Control $US 1000
Optimization Toolbox $US 1250
Signal Processing $US 1000
Simulink Control Design $US 1250
Statistics and Machine Learning $US 1000
Symbolic Math Toolbox: $US 1000
Total cost to non-students $US 16250
Price for eligible students $US 100
The price to you is 0.615% of what it would cost me to buy the same things.
Do you feel that as a student you have a right to the labour of other people?? Do the people who work on developing the software not have groceries to buy, rent / mortgage to pay, water and heating to pay for, transportation costs to get to the office to make the software? Does the company not have equipment to pay for, mortgage for the office building, maintenance for the office building, electricity to pay for, data charges to pay for?
You know, as a volunteer here, I provide investigation and research and programming services at no cost ("free") to many people, the majority of whom are students. Even if my time were somehow of no value, it costs me money to contribute -- water, gas, electricity, data costs, food to keep going hour after hour. The number of times that a student has offered for "free" to cut my lawn, or shovel my snow, or do house repairs, or cook, or help me with my Repetitive Strain Injury due to so much typing... is precisely zero. There are real people on the other side of the computer, who have real costs to provide you with that more than 99.37% discount that you already get. Are you offering anything in trade?
