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Re: cern software



Hi Brett,

On Tue, 2006-08-08 at 12:03 -0400, Brett Viren wrote:
> Christian Holm Christensen <cholm@nbi.dk> writes:
> 
...
> > ROOT was close to hitting `main' for etch, but some unfortunate license
> > problems prevented that.  The upload to Debian is postponed till that
> > situation is remedied (upstream and I are working on it :)
> 
> I thought this was a solved problem as of 5.04/00.

Well, the major problem, that ROOT's own license was DFSG-non-free was
solved with that release.   The current problem is imported code in
ROOT.  For example the RSA encoding/decoding/key-generation code in the
`auth' sub-directory (used by the daemons) does not allow commercial
redistribution.  In `zip' sub-directory, where the old zlib code is
imported, the license is similar restrictive.  In other places, there's
code licensed under a BSD-like license, but with the advertising clause.
Upstream is contacting the appropriate people to get them to re-license
the code under a better license.  

However, there seems to be no good solution to the zlib and RSA problem.
I think for the zlib part, I'd have to take out the violating code.  For
the RSA part, it would be best to find another implementation. 

There's a bit of information on the wiki pages. 

> >>  It uses its own package
> >> manager, CMT (www.cmtsite.org) 
> >
> > CMT is an unfortunate mix of a build system and a package manager - very
> > much geared to SL.  
> 
> I don't think it is SL or any OS specific.  One of its features is to
> be cross platform.  CMT is actually pretty nice for what it does.  We
> use it on another experiement (Daya Bay reactor neutrinos) to build
> our code so I can attest that it works fine on Debian.  My only gripe
> is its documentation.  It has a detailed manual but it is very hard,
> for me at least, to find solutions to problems with it.

OK, you definitely have more experience with it than I do.  I largely
echo sentiments put forward by users I know (and sort of trust). 

> > Hopefully that's true.  However, be aware of RPM hooks in CMT, and other
> > ill-conceived hacks that could distribut the system. 
> 
> I don't know of any RPM related anything in CMT. 

OK.

> > Sounds good.   Don't you start up PROOF servers too? 
> 
> No, I haven't ever looked in to PROOF.

The RHIC experiments at BNL have plenty of experience in using PROOF.
I'm sure they could help you out if you want.  The Debian package
`root-proofd' sets up a local server on the nodes, but doesn't start it
until you configure it (see the README file).  Note, that PROOF is not a
replacement for a proper queue system - it just executes ROOT scripts in
parallel.  

Yours,

-- 
 ___  |  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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