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CERN ROOT in debian



This is a compilation of what I've picked up through google searches.

The licensing for ROOT is a bit of a mess (clearly not GPL compatible,
despite the fact that ROOT links with other explicitly GPL'd software...)
The problematic clause is the "explicit consent" bit in
    ...the authors grant permission to modify this software and its
    documentation for any purpose, provided that such modifications are not
    distributed without the explicit consent of the authors...
(from <http://root.cern.ch/root/License.html>).
Google "debian root license cern" if you want to work through some of the
relevant threads.  Upstream is aware of the problem but have been unwilling
to address it.  If anyone is aware of the current state of affairs, please
post to the list!

Kevin McCarthy (packager of PAW) has an educational article on the sorry
state of affairs here:
  <http://www.princeton.edu/~kmccarty/physics-software-rant.html>.
More good stuff here:
  <http://borex.princeton.edu/~kmccarty/nonfree.html>.
(As an aside, I think Kevin did a fantastic job of disentangling the
astonishingly bad PAW build system, package file-structure, and licensing
mess into something that conforms to debian Policy.)

Christian Holm Christensen has been involved in the 'debianizing' of ROOT.
He has some build instructions up at
  <http://cholm.home.cern.ch/cholm/root/debs/>
(FWIW, I haven't been able to get the build process to work under sid yet.
I suspect the culprit is g++-4.0, but I haven't had time to work on it
yet.)

I did find some pre-built ROOT debs at
  <http://www.physi.uni-heidelberg.de/~gbrandt/root/non-free/>
They installed smoothly and a few simple tests work.

Christian also points to the PaiPix distribution as a source of ROOT debs.
  <http://aamorimsrv.fis.fc.ul.pt/>
I poked around but didn't see any simple way of obtaining specific packages
(just links to the PaiPix live DVD iso).

-- Brad

-- 
Brad Sawatzky <brads@jlab.org>  -<>-  Jefferson Lab / Temple University
         Phone: (757) 269-5947  -<>-  Pager: (757) 584-5947
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new
  discoveries, is not "Eureka!" but "That's funny..."   -- Isaac Asimov



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