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Re: ROOT and Debian



Hi again,

I forgot to comment on a few things.

On Sun, 2005-08-14 at 09:08 -0400, Kevin McCarty wrote:
> Hi Christian,
> 
> On 8/13/05, Christian Holm Christensen <cholm@nbi.dk> wrote:
...
> By the way, to answer a point you raised in this email on root-talk:
> http://root.cern.ch/root/roottalk/roottalk05/1772.html
> 
> > The exact license of Minuit (not CERNLIB - but Minuit)
> > is actually very restrictive (see
> > http://wwwasdoc.web.cern.ch/wwwasdoc/minuit/node1.html).
> > I'm not sure how Kevin worked around that one. 
> 
> My understanding is that since CERN has sole copyright over Minuit (as
> stated on the page you cite), Minuit, as part of Cernlib, is included
> in the relicensing of Cernlib to GPL stated here:
> http://cernlib.web.cern.ch/cernlib/conditions.html  If you think this
> is incorrect, please say so and I can email Ian McLaren to ask for a
> clarification.

To me, it's not entirely clear just what licence cover use of Minuit.
As you know, CERNLIB has in the past re-licensed software rather
brutally.  Checking with Ian McLaren is probably not a bad idea.  If you
get a reply, please forward that to me and perhaps Fons too. 

> > My biggest concern, regarding ROOT and legal issues, is the fact that
> > ROOT depends on certain TTF fonts, and these are either in the
> > msttcorefonts package, or there's no package for them in Debian
> > (symol.ttf, for example).   With some minimal tweaking, ROOT could use
> > the TTF of freefonts or something like that.  However, that's a source
> > code change, and one would need permission to redistribute that.
> 
> Not once the license is fixed :-)  Alternatively, it should be OK for
> ROOT to depend upon msttcorefonts if the root packages are placed in
> contrib or non-free (depending upon the ROOT licensing status).  I'm
> pretty sure that use of fonts doesn't qualify as "linking" so it
> should be legit for a Free Software program to use Microsoft fonts. 
> However I'd really prefer to see the TTF code added so ROOT could go
> into main -- it has a lot of advantages over contrib, such as
> automatic buildd compilation.

The buildd point is _very_ attractive to ROOT. 

This reminds me of another issue concerning ROOT.   Currently, I've only
tested the ROOT packaging scripts on Debian GNU/Linux on a i386 chip.
I've previously ported ROOT to Debian GNU/Hurd, but I haven't tried it
in a while.   However, ROOT build on many a platforms, including ia64,
Sparc, Alpha, and so on.  However, it is assumed that if you are
building for say a Sparc chip, you're using Solaris, and so forth.  It'd
be interesting to see what chips ROOT build on, assuming the normal
`linux' configuration.  If anyone out there's using some `port' other
than GNU/Linux on i386, of Debian, could you please give it a whirl to
see if it works?  Thanks. 

Concerning fonts.  I've one implemented a patch that did some hard-coded
alternatives stuff, but it wasn't very nice.  Something like that could
be revived.  The best option will be if upstream is changed. 

> > Kevin, if ROOT changes the license, will you sponsor the packages?
> 
> I am still waiting in the NM queue so I can't sponsor anything (yet). 

OK.

> I'm sure a current DD will be happy to upload the packages once they
> are finished and legally clear.

OK.

> That brings up the matter of whose packages get uploaded. :-)  I
> really suggest that you and Ricardo work together on the packaging,
> especially since he already has a place to host the .debs.  If the
> license is fixed soon, probably the 4.04 packages will go into Debian
> first.  So it would be nice if you two can ensure that upgrades from
> the 4.04 packages to the ones in ROOT CVS are smooth.  Don't forget
> about soname issues!  As always, I'll be happy to look over the
> packaging work in my spare time, but can't contribute substantially
> until my thesis is done (another month or two).
> 
> best regards,
> 
-- 
 ___  |  Christian Holm Christensen 
  |_| |  -------------------------------------------------------------
    | |  Address: Sankt Hansgade 23, 1. th.  Phone:  (+45) 35 35 96 91
     _|           DK-2200 Copenhagen N       Cell:   (+45) 24 61 85 91
    _|            Denmark                    Office: (+45) 353  25 404
 ____|   Email:   cholm@nbi.dk               Web:    www.nbi.dk/~cholm
 | |



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