Source: xsok
Version: 1.02-19
Severity: serious
Justification: possible DFSG violation
[Please do not Cc: me, as I’m “on the list,” so to say, and
I prefer to reserve my inbox for private communication only.
I’d have set up Mail-Followup-To:, but there doesn’t seem
to be a way to make it point to the report being filed.]
The xsok debian/copyright file seems to suggest that xsok
was created solely by Michael Bischoff:
$ tar --xz -xO -- debian/copyright < xsok_1.02-19.debian.tar.xz
This is Debian GNU/Linux's prepackaged version of xsok.
xsok was written by Michael Bischoff <michael.bisch...@gmx.net>.
The upstream source was downloaded from
ftp://ftp.io.com/pub/mirror/FreeBSD/ports/distfiles/xsok-1.02-src.tar.gz
The current Debian maintainer is Peter Samuelson <pe...@p12n.org>.
Much of the packaging work was done by previous Debian maintainers
Sven Rudolph and Joel Rosdahl.
Copyright (c) 1994 by Michael Bischoff (m...@mo.math.nat.tu-bs.de)
[GNU GPL 2+ notice follows.]
There’re two issues with this. First, xsok includes
doc/cyberbox.doc, authored by Doug Beeferman (I presume
lib/Cyberbox/ files are also derivatives rather than
original xsok work.) The .doc file (quoted below) appears
to allow verbatim redistribution of the respective game,
but there’s no indication that ‘modifications and derived
works’ are allowed (as DFSG requires) as well:
S O R T A F R E E W A R E N O T I C E
This game can be distributed freely and played free of charge. If you like
it, however, I wouldn't mind a small donation for the effort I put into
writing the program and (ughh!) in making the levels. I say "ughh!" because
making the levels was by far the more time-consuming of the two projects.
Neither is there any such indication on http://dougb.com/ .
(I intend to contact the author of Cyberbox shortly to comment
on this issue and (or) possibly re-release at least the
portions of xsok derived from the original game in DFSG-
compliant fashion.)
Worse still, the ‘screens’ (= maps, levels) included in
lib/Sokoban/ appear to mostly come from the original,
proprietary version(s) of Soko-Ban. Consider, e. g.:
http://web.archive.org/web/2023/https://www.mobygames.com/game/1715/soko-ban/
http://web.archive.org/web/20230407165659im_/https://cdn.mobygames.com/8e54fc3c-bee0-11ed-9c42-02420a000140.webp
http://web.archive.org/web/20230407165658im_/https://cdn.mobygames.com/0b7522d4-c204-11ed-ab6b-02420a000194.webp
The first Soko-Ban screen, identical to lib/Sokoban/screen.01 .
http://web.archive.org/web/20230407165658im_/https://cdn.mobygames.com/058c7f98-ab6b-11ed-aaf5-02420a00019c.webp
The second Soko-Ban screen, identical to lib/Sokoban/screen.02 .
Moreover, taking a look at an earlier curses-based implementation
of the game from [1], which (according to its README.v2, as
quoted below) borrows screens from ‘the PC-version’, we find
out that likely /all/ levels from 1 to 50 inclusive are taken
from other software, while several other levels (86‒88) are
derived from the same.
I’m not aware of any evidence to suggest that the original
Soko-Ban might be out of copyright or ever released as free
software, from whence I conclude it’s likely proprietary,
including the level designs.
The first thing I have to say is that I don't have the sources for SOKOBAN
under MS-DOS. I believe that this program is copyrighted. I took only the
idea and the screens of the PC-version.
[1] http://ibiblio.org/pub/linux/games/strategy/sokoban-src.tar.gz
bash$ diff -dbuF^\; -- \
<((tar -zxOv --wildcards -- \*/screen.\? < sokoban-src.tar.gz ; \
tar -zxOv --wildcards -- \*/screen.\?\? < sokoban-src.tar.gz) \
2>&1 | sed -e "s,^sokoban.*\\.,;LEVEL ,;") \
share/games/xsok/Sokoban.def | head -n23
--- /dev/fd/63
+++ share/games/xsok/Sokoban.def 2019-01-05 12:10:54 +0000
@@ -1,3 +1,14 @@
+;WALLS
+ 12 f f ff 0 standard floor
+. 13 f f ff 4 target field
+# 0 0 0 0 0 walls
+
+;OBJECTS
+@ 0 f 0 101 201 1 0 player
+$ 1 f 0 100 0 2 1000 heavy box
+
+;MAXLEVEL 88
+;ATOP *$.
;LEVEL 1
#####
# #
@@ -759,3 +770,521 @@ ;LEVEL 50
# ### ## #
# # # ##
#### ######
+;LEVEL 51
+#########
--
FSF associate member #7257 http://am-1.org/~ivan/
