spellcast for Debian -------------------- Spellcast is a classic game of might and magic for the X Windowing System. Two or more wizards duke it out with spells, summons, and plain old poking with fingers. Good for hour[s] of fun. Currently, Debian provides only one binary of this game, spellcast, which is the game adapted to be run in 1024x768 or greater displays. If you want you can download the sources and recompile the program to have a version that can work in a smaller resolution (800x600) Unfortunately, this game is not maintained any more. A spin off of this game, written in Java and using a GPL license, is available at Sourceforge here: http://spell.sourceforge.net/ FAQ: 1.- Spellcast will not work! This is because the default behavior for X is to not listen for tcp connections. You must remove "-nolisten tcp" in the X server configuration file which can be found at /etc/X11/xinit/xserverrc Please note that X does not allow one to setup a TCP socket so it is restricted to only localhost connections. Consequently, this opens up a potential security risk in your system as it exposes a TCP socket to your X window system (your screen basically) to any other computers that share your network (LAN, WiFi or any other connection type) Alternatively, you can install the 'socat' tool and create a wrapper that sends connections from localhost to your local socket. To do so run something like this: socat -d -d TCP-LISTEN:6000,fork,bind=localhost UNIX-CONNECT:/tmp/.X11-unix/X0 This will create local TCP socket you can connect to, which uses the existing X11 socket. 2.- Why isn't spellcast GPL the main author says it can be distributed for free? Some sites, like linuxbert (see http://linuxberg.inter.net.il/games/strategy_license.html), say that Spellcast is GPL when in fact it is not. The answer is more complex than you would imagine. It all boils down to the original author of the spellbinder game, Richard A. Bartle, who asks any derivatives who states in http://mud.co.uk/richard/spellbnd.htm: "None of these products are commercial, which is just as well: I retain full rights to the game, and if any commercial incarnation appears then I want a royalty! I have no objection to people implementing or running derivatives of the Spellbinder so long as they make no money from it, though. Of course, if you are interested in publishing the game commercially, email me a proposal! " Andrew Plotkin acknowledged Richard Bartle's demands and the README file states (available in the /usr/share/doc/spellcast/copyright file) that derivative works or source code cannot be sold without permission. This affects not only spellcast, but a number of derivatives of the original spellbinder game (some of them are listed at the author's webpage): * Firetop Mountain (a Pbem implementation) at http://www.gamerz.net/~fm/ which holds a specific license that does not hinder commercial use (FM Public License at http://www.gamerz.net/~fm/LICENSE) * spellcast at Sun's Java games-forge https://spellcast.dev.java.net/, which holds a BSD license *'Spellcast: Deathmatch' a reimplementation with Java applets at Sourceforge (http://spell.sourceforge.net/) which is GPL but has an annotation for commercial use which obviously does not make it GPL, http://spell.sourceforge.net/README.txt * "Spellcast", the X window version package in Debian (http://www.eblong.com/zarf/spellcast.html) * wxSpellcast, a portable version (wxWindows) written by Dennis Taylor (http://www.funkplanet.com/spellcast/), using the same ambiguous "free" license from the X implementation. Of course, the original author of Spellbind can limit the use of the original game (if trademarked) and of writing of the original rules. But implementations of this game really don't need to be limited for non-commercial use, it's just that some authors have accepted Richard Bartle limitations on use. It is enlightening to read http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=contactinfo/legal which provides the legal information from Wizards of the Coast, the provider fo the Magic The Gathering (R) game. The game is patented and, so, they can limit implementations of the game. Spellbinder, however, is not patented and thus, no implementation can be hindered by the original author as long as no of his original work is copied (like, for example, if the original rules were included verbatim in the implementation) Ben Gertzfield , Wed, 23 Sep 1998 18:43:26 -0700 Javier Fernández-Sanguino Peña Sun, 19 Oct 2003 11:57:15 +0200