Re: CERN root
Bas Zoetekouw wrote:
> You wrote:
>
>> The license is at http://root.cern.ch/root/License.html. I'm assuming the
>> specific cause of concern is:
>>
>> "Additionally, 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"
>
> Even worse, it apparently links against Xclass (LGPL) and Cernlib (GPL)
> libraries[1], while the above license it clearly GPL- (and possibly(?) LGPL-)
> incompatible. Theredore, it cannot even be legally distributed.
>
> [1] http://www.princeton.edu/~kmccarty/physics-software-rant.html
Just a nitpick -- I'm the author of the referenced page, so maybe this
is my own fault for being unclear. The situation is even a bit worse
than this: Root doesn't just link against Xclass or Cernlib, it actually
*includes derived code* from them. And it can't be trivially removed or
rewritten -- Xclass-derived code provides the core of the GUI, and
Cernlib-derived code (MINUIT) provides the core of the function fitter.
--
Kevin B. McCarty <kmccarty@princeton.edu> Physics Department
WWW: http://www.princeton.edu/~kmccarty/ Princeton University
GPG public key ID: 4F83C751 Princeton, NJ 08544
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