[Neurodebian-devel] Adding a resting-state fMRI toolbox to the repository

[André Hoffmann]

> Was nice chatting to you at OHBM 14 (given the context I think it was
> you ;-))

Indeed :)

>>   On 29 Jul 2014, at 14:24, Michael Hanke <[1]michael.hanke at gmail.com>
>>   wrote:
> 
>>     The fslio that FSL builds against, in contrast, is maintained and more
>>     advanced. However, it is treated as an integral part of FSL, changes
>>     frequently and cannot become its own library package.
> 
>>   It couldn�t even become a standalone package in the non-free section?
>>   So I�m neither supposed to be using the library from nifticlib because
>>   it�s out-dated and nor the one from FSL because of licensing issues?
>>   That�s quite tricky :-/
>>   I suppose if no one comes up with a different idea I�ll have to find a way
>>   to remove that dependency altogether..
> 
> Ideally -- yes, BUT
> 
> comparing code of fslio as shipped within nifticlib and fsl: 
> 
> - fsl team introduced IMHO a minimal set of changes to it since
>  the version in nifticlib and changes are not really that frequent

I also just had a look at it and don’t think that my code would be affected by their changes, so migration to FSL should be quite painless.

> - both fslio.c and fslio.h "has now been placed in the public
>  domain.”

What about this?

> On 29 Jul 2014, at 12:42, Gert Wollny <gw.fossdev at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Regarding the fslio library: the source code is actually still in the
>> nifti source package, it is just not compiled, because the copyright is
>> not cleared, see: 
>> 
>> https://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2006/09/msg00026.html

> - they seems to be not using any other piece of FSL

The includes for nifti1.h and znzlib.h (which also come with nifticlib) refer to paths within the FSL-codebase, but apart from that there seem to be no other dependencies.

> - so theoretically (correct me if I am wrong), libfslio.so  could be
>  also considered "GPL-compatible" and could be loaded at run time

That still would require me to include fslio.h which I don’t believe is currently provided by any package or is it?

> So, I see two possibilities:
> 
> - Andre adjusts his code to just dlopen that library at run-time (given
>  FSLDIR env variable to specify location of the FSL), just Suggest
>  fsl-core package (can't recommend stuff from non-free)

Is the libfslio.so that comes with the current FSL-package compiled in a way that it can be loaded at runtime(a module)?
Other than that I don’t really see a problem in doing so.

> - we do talk to FSL and NIfTI folks to adopt fslio changes from FSL
>  codebase into nifticlib and build a system-wide available fslio
>  library

I would very much like that - that is if it doesn’t take forever :)

Best,
André