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Bug#965964: ITP: geant4 -- physics simulation toolit from CERN

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  Bug#965964: ITP: geant4 -- physics simulation toolit from CERN Stephan Lachnit <stephanlachnit@protonmail.com> - 2020-07-21 16:50 +0200
    Bug#965964: ITP: geant4 -- physics simulation toolit from CERN PICCA Frederic-Emmanuel <frederic-emmanuel.picca@synchrotron-soleil.fr> - 2020-07-21 17:00 +0200
      Bug#965964: ITP: geant4 -- physics simulation toolit from CERN Stephan Lachnit <stephanlachnit@protonmail.com> - 2020-07-21 18:00 +0200
    Re: Bug#965964: ITP: geant4 -- physics simulation toolit from CERN Peter Wienemann <fossdev@posteo.de> - 2020-07-21 21:10 +0200
      Bug#965964: ITP: geant4 -- physics simulation toolit from CERN Stephan Lachnit <stephanlachnit@protonmail.com> - 2020-07-24 15:30 +0200
        Bug#965964: ITP: geant4 -- physics simulation toolit from CERN Peter Wienemann <fossdev@posteo.de> - 2020-07-25 11:10 +0200
    Bug#965964: ITP: geant4 -- physics simulation toolit from CERN Stephan Lachnit <stephanlachnit@protonmail.com> - 2020-07-24 18:50 +0200

#1018752 — Bug#965964: ITP: geant4 -- physics simulation toolit from CERN

Package: wnpp
Severity: wishlist
Owner: Stephan Lachnit <stephanlachnit@protonmail.com>
X-Debbugs-Cc: debian-devel@lists.debian.org, stephanlachnit@protonmail.com

  Package name    : geant4
  Version         : 10.6.2
  Upstream Author : CERN
  URL             : http://geant4.web.cern.ch/
  License         : a custom (MIT-like) license but looks DFSG compliant
  Programming Lang: C++
  Description     : physics simulation toolkit

 Geant4 is a toolkit for the simulation of the passage of particles through
 matter. Its areas of application include high energy, nuclear and accelerator
 physics, as well as studies in medical and space science.

Overall, it is pretty hard to build Geant4 nicely. Besides it's size and long
compilation time (~15 minutes for me), the CMake build system breaks with a lot
of Debian conventions. There is nothing really I can do about that in a
reasonable amount of time, so the lintian output is pretty ugly and that
probably won't change any time soon if there are no upstream changes.

The endresult is usable though, so I will publish the my build files soon. If
there is interest to help on this, please let me know.

Cheers,
Stephan

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#1018755

did you started from here ?

https://salsa.debian.org/science-team/geant4

cheers

Frederic

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#1018761

> did you started from here ?
>
> https://salsa.debian.org/science-team/geant4

No, that code is too old. I started from scratch. I currently have internet issues, so I can't upload the code right now.

Cheers,
Stephan

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#1018781

Hi Stephan,

On 21.07.20 16:42, Stephan Lachnit wrote:
>   Package name    : geant4
>   Version         : 10.6.2
>   Upstream Author : CERN
>   URL             : http://geant4.web.cern.ch/
>   License         : a custom (MIT-like) license but looks DFSG compliant

according to [0] the Geant4 license is not DFSG compliant.

Peter

[0] https://wiki.debian.org/DebianScience/Geant4

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#1019134

Hi Peter,

> according to [0] the Geant4 license is not DFSG compliant.
>
> Peter
>
> [0] https://wiki.debian.org/DebianScience/Geant4

The relevant part of the license [1] mentioned on the wiki page is:

> 5. You may not include this software in whole or in part in any patent
> or patent application in respect of any modification of this software
> developed by you.

I don't see how this doesn't comply with the DFSG.
It doesn't limit derived works, it doesn't discriminate anyone,
and it isn't specific to Debian or any other software product.

I'm not a lawyer though, but if indeed isn't compliant with the DFSG,
I would still want to see this in non-free.

Cheers,
Stephan

[1] https://geant4.web.cern.ch/license/license

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#1019221

Hi Stephan,

On 24.07.20 15:11, Stephan Lachnit wrote:
> The relevant part of the license [1] mentioned on the wiki page is:
> 
>> 5. You may not include this software in whole or in part in any patent
>> or patent application in respect of any modification of this software
>> developed by you.
> 
> I don't see how this doesn't comply with the DFSG.
> It doesn't limit derived works, it doesn't discriminate anyone,
> and it isn't specific to Debian or any other software product.

in my layperson's view this is a violation of DFSG clause 6: "The
license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a
specific field of endeavor."

Best regards

Peter

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#1019162

The package is now on mentors [1], the source code on Salsa [2].

Be warned, the source package is about 1.5GB big. This is mainly due to the large datasets. Without the datasets Geant4 is unusable (programs compile but don't start).

As I already mentioned, the package quality is rather bad, lintian takes ages to run on this an the output is super long. Building also takes at least 15min btw.

There a still a couple of things that can be done, and I would love some help if someone is interested. Here's a incomplete list:
* proper copyright review
* taking a look at /usr/share/Geant4-10.6.2/tools.license and find out to what it applies
* building the doxygen documentation
* write man pages for geant4-config and geant4-env
* get rid of the recursive symlink (/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/Geant4-10.6.2/Linux-g++)
* install the Python module
* use Debians CLHEP library, it is in Debian but it needs to be updated to >= 2.4.1.0
* take care of the fonts
* in geant4-env, use the user's shell instead of bash

[1] https://mentors.debian.net/package/geant4/
[2] https://salsa.debian.org/stephanlachnit/geant4

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