Re: Can ALPS be included in the Guix repo? The question is about the licenses.

[Efraim Flashner]

On Sat, Aug 12, 2023 at 04:03:31PM +0500, nigko wrote:
> Hello Guix!
> 
> The ALPS project* (Algorithms and Libraries for Physics Simulations) 
> https://web.archive.org/web/20210508050408/https://alps.comp-phys.org/mediawiki/index.php/Main_Page
> is an open source effort aiming at providing simulation codes for strongly
> correlated quantum mechanical systems as well as C++ libraries for
> simplifying the development of such code.
> 
> According to https://alps.comp-phys.org/mediawiki/index.php/Licensing the
> ALPS _Libraries_ are available for _academic and non-commercial_ use under
> the terms of the ALPS _Library_ License version 1.0,
> 
> https://web.archive.org/web/20210506121129/https://alps.comp-phys.org/static/software/ALPS/LICENSE.txt/,
> 
> the ALPS _Applications_ under the ALPS _Application_ License version 1.0,
> 
> https://web.archive.org/web/20210512081507/https://alps.comp-phys.org/static/software/applications/LICENSE.txt/.
> 
> I wonder can ALPS be included in the Guix repo? My concern is in the
> licenses. In particular, the ALPS licenses state that the ALPS is for
> "non-commercial academic use", but according to
> https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html "a free program must be
> available for commercial use, commercial development, and commercial
> distribution", which are in the contradiction.
> 
> Regards,
> N Y
> 
> *Since 2022-10-21 the project is being dormant,
> https://green.physics.lsa.umich.edu/alps_legacy/index.php?title=Main_Page
> 

Placing the limitation of 'academic and non-commercial' the license is
non-free and cannot be included in Guix proper.  If something depends on
it that you're looking to upstream it'll need to be buildable without
that library.

I apologize for being the bearer of sad news.

-- 
Efraim Flashner   <efraim@flashner.co.il>   רנשלפ םירפא
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