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 <che@debian.org>, 
Wed, 23 Sep 1998 18:43:26 -0700
Javier Fernández-Sanguino Peña <jfs@computer.org> 
Sun, 19 Oct 2003 11:57:15 +0200

