Re: License Problem and Other Questions defining new package Geant4 from CERN for Partical Physcis Simulation

[zimoun]

Hi Sebastian,


On Thu, 18 Feb 2021 at 10:30, Sebastian <njuemail@126.com> wrote:
>
> Dear developers at Guix,
>
> I am a physics student willing to use  the Geant4 simulation toolkit from the 
> European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN).
> https://geant4.web.cern.ch/
> The Geant4 code is distributied under its own licence, Geant4 Software 
> License Version 1.0.
> https://geant4.web.cern.ch/license/LICENSE.html
> Let's call this license G4SL1.0. After some searching, finding it is NOT 
> listed by FSF or GNU in their license list.
> https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html
> But from a personal perspective, G4SL1.0 do seems like a free software 
> license.
> So, may it be included into the Guix proper (gnu packages)?

Even if it cannot be included in Guix proper because of license, it
could be included in specific Scientific channels,

   <https://hpc.guix.info/about/>

examples:
https://github.com/guix-science/guix-science
https://gitlab.inria.fr/guix-hpc/guix-hpc
https://github.com/BIMSBbioinfo/guix-bimsb
https://github.com/UMCUGenetics/guix-additions
etc.


> I am currently testing the package under a custom channel,using 
> cmake-build-system.
> https://git.nju.edu.cn/nju/chngix/-/blob/master/gix/packages/geant4.scm

Are substitutes available for this channel?


> is it possible to define a package fetching multiple files and extracts them 
> into the desired directory, using the Guix package definition?

You mean fetch from multiple URLs, right?  If yes, AFAIK, it is not
possible but there are workarounds.  For example, you can define the
package A for the data and another one B for the code where A is an
input of B.  Or you can define an origin directly in the inputs; see
r-shinytree as an example:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
    (native-inputs
     `(("uglify-js" ,uglify-js)
       ("js-jquery"
        ,(origin
           (method url-fetch)
           (uri "https://code.jquery.com/jquery-3.3.1.js";)
           (sha256
            (base32
             "1b8zxrp6xwzpw25apn8j4qws0f6sr7qr7h2va5h1mjyfqvn29anq"))))))
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---


All the best,
simon