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Welcome to Scilab 6.0.0 beta 1

Scilab 6.0 is a major new release of Scilab, the open source platform for numerical computation. This 6.0.0 beta 1 release is a preview for all users, commercial as well as community.

As a beta, this release may not ready for production usage. But we suggest that you start using it, especially if you are already a Scilab user: helping us testing it, and reporting bugs, can be your great contribution to the Scilab community, to ensure it continues to be free and open-source. If you have developed code on Scilab, or if you are an experienced user, then this the moment to start upgrading your code, and report any issue, bugs or incompatibilities, on our Bug Tracker: we will try to address them before the final 6.0.0 release.

What's new in Scilab 6.0

New language, & new core, new Xcos

This release includes a major rewrite of Scilab's internal core, for better usability and performance: the changes to the visible aspects of the software are limited.

The first big internal change, is a complete new language parser and interpreter, with the following changes:

The language changes are not all backward compatible. You will have to update your scripts/programs/modules, but it will be very simple in pretty much all cases. In particular, the following changes may require modifications to existing code:

The second big internal change, is the ability to manipulate bigger data sets, without exhausting system resources. This includes in particular:

New in Scilab 6.0.0 beta 1. Xcos - the graphical tool for dynamic systems modeling and simulation - also uses the new re-written Scilab engine, and is now running in native code, which should provide much better performance as well as support for much bigger models. Xcos can load and run models created with earlier versions of Scilab, but models saved with Xcos 6 cannot be loaded in earlier versions.

Utilities for code productivity

This release includes also several features to write better and more efficient Scilab scripts:

Newsfeed

New in Scilab 6.0.0 beta 1. A new view is available in the visual environment of Scilab: the "Newsfeed". It provides a continuous feed of news, tips, and general communication from the community and from Scilab Enterprises. This is technical and or/professional information, about usage of Scilab, help for specific features, usage examples... We may include some professional information from Scilab Enterprises, only information directly useful to the user. We see it as way to create an open line of communication with (and between) the users.

Licensing changes

New in Scilab 6.0.0 beta 1. Scilab is now released under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL) v2.0, which you can find in the COPYING file at the root folder of this distribution. Prior to this version, Scilab was licensed under the terms of the CeCILL v2.1, and continues to be available under such terms, which you can find in the same COPYING file. This change has been made pursuant to article 3.5.4 of the CeCILL v2.1.

In this beta, as in the previous alpha releases, the Intel Math Kernel Library and the FFTW library optimized by Intel Math Kernel Library are included in Scilab. They are subject to the Intel EULA. We are still reviewing Intel EULA and GPL licensing aspects, terms and provisions. For this reason, the way the Intel MKL library is enabled in the final version of Scilab 6 may be different.

Main limitations of this beta

Xcos is finally functional in this beta 1. However, there are a few known limitations to upgrade of schemas created with earlier versions:

Platform-specific limitations

All functionalities of Scilab are present on all platforms, with a few exceptions:

Complete changelog

For a precise list of changes (in particular, bug fixes) between the 5.5.2 release and the 6.0.0 beta 1 release, please see the CHANGES file at the root of the installation.



Documentations and help

If you are new to Scilab, please use the Scilab beginners tutorial and Xcos beginners tutorial provided by Scilab Enterprises.

Scilab Enterprises provides also some documentation and tutorials.




Other resources

Scilab Homepage - Consult Scilab official website

Wiki - Consult documentations, tricks, etc.

Bug Tracker - Report bugs and wishes about Scilab

Forge - Browse and publish Scilab modules

Mailing Lists - Communicate and exchange with the community

ATOMS - Browse Scilab packaged modules

File Exchange - Exchange your scripts, results and files.

Scilab Enterprises - Professional services, developments and support on Scilab.