Minuit Software Usage and Insallation

Hi,
I am writing on behalf of my freind, a materials engineer. He asked me that he want to use Minuit software for some error analysis/optimizations.

  1. I could not find any source code/application for Minuit.
  2. Where can I get the Minuit?
  3. If it is obselete, what is the alternative?
  4. Is the ROOT the seccessor of the Minuit? Can I use ROOT for same purposes as MiNuit?
    Regards,
    Sajjad