xscreensaver may have non-free licenses in parts of it.

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Other_Cody
Desconectado
Joined: 12/20/2023

The file breakout.asm in xscreensaver shows

; Brick Out by Blake Ramsdell <name at domain> http://www.blakeramsdell.com

; A poor attempt at brick out with no player involved. Maybe someday I'll
; let you play it, or you can view this as an exercise for the reader to put
; in a paddle that is user-controlled.

; I guess this is Copyright (C) 2007 Blake Ramsdell, and you have a license to
; do whatever you want with it, just tell me what you did and give me a
; mention. If you want to sell it, and you make a billion dollars, then good
; for you. You might at least throw a party and invite me.

; The gist of it is pretty simple -- you have a ball, and the ball has an X
; and a Y velocity. When it hits something, it bounces off of it. If the thing
; that it hits is not a wall, then it erases it. Pretty dead-simple behavior.

; I don't like the vertical movement -- there's a shortcut in here somewhere
; to make it less computationally expensive I think. Right now it just does a
; two byte add and subtract of $20.

; The ball motion is also a bit weird looking. I don't know if this is an
; artifact of the simulation environment combined with a normal tearing
; artifact related to refresh or what.

; Blake Ramsdell, May 2007

So even though do whatever you want with it may be nice the just tell me what you did may make this non-free software as

https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html

shows non-free licenses like Reciprocal Public License (#RPL)

The Reciprocal Public License is a nonfree license because of three problems. 1. It puts limits on prices charged for an initial copy. 2. It requires notification of the original developer for publication of a modified version. 3. It requires publication of any modified version that an organization uses, even privately.

and

Sybase Open Watcom Public License version 1.0 (#Watcom)

This is not a free software license. It requires you to publish the source code publicly whenever you “Deploy” the covered software, and “Deploy” is defined to include many kinds of private use.

and

Old Plan 9 license (#Plan9)

This is not a free software license; it lacks essential freedoms such as the right to make and use private changes. Of course you should not use this license, and we urge you to avoid any software that has been released under it.

And this license (the one breakout.asm is licensed under) also shows modification or even use requires telling Blake Ramsdell about any use/"what you did", even if done privately.

So like the other non-free licenses this program may be non-free because of the license.

There is also a pacman screen saver in it, and wikipedia shows at

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Pac-Man_clones

Mighty Mouth is a game by A-1 Machines that District Court Judge Warren Keith Urbom described as "for all practical purposes, identical to ...Pac-Man"[3] Among the similarities cited were the color and shape of the player character and ghosts, the maze configurations, the sound effects, the paths of the characters in the attract mode and the paths of the characters in both the attract mode and a game where the player does not move.[4] Midway, owners of the Pac-Man copyrights, were granted summary judgment for copyright and trademark infringement in 1983.[5]

So I do not know if the Pacman screensaver can be distributed at all.

I do not yet know if more non-free software like breakout.asm or non-free artwork (as in not even shareable/copyrighted and not to even be distributed by 3rd parties, like Gnu/Linux distros) is in or distributed with xscreensaver or any extra xscreensaver part.

I think these may be easy to remove if needed though.

Other_Cody
Desconectado
Joined: 12/20/2023

Maybe Blake Ramsdell was just trying to make a license, and not trying to make end users tell about any use, and may put it under CC0 or another free license. Though I do not know. As the "just tell me what you did" may have been in that license by mistake, as it could be hard to make a free license.

I also saw pictures for Apple, Android, and maybe Amiga WorkBench in bsod.c or/and xscreensaver.

I do not know if these are pictures are parts of that non-free software or just libre fan made works.

A large listing of Blue_screen_of_death things are in the xscreensaver settings of the BSOD screensaver.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_screen_of_death

Not all the BSOD setting things look like non-free things.

The list in BSOD settings shows

Windows 3.1
Windows NT
Windows 2000
Windows 10
MS-DOS
GLaDOS
AmigaDOS
Android
Apple ][
Ransomware
NVidia
OS/2
Sad Mac
Mac Bomb
MacsBug
MacOS X
VMWare
Atari
OS/390
HVX/GCOS
Encom
NCD Xterm
ATM
DVD
Nintendo
Tivo
VMS
BSD
Linux (fsck)
Linux (sparc)
Linux (hppa)
Solaris
SCO
HPUX
Tru64
GNOME

The Amiga Workbench wikipedia shows as Proprietary software. Though I do not know if this BSOD screensaver is from that program/OS.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workbench_(AmigaOS)

GLaDOS may be from Portal, though I have never played that game, so I do not know if this is just a fan made libre work or not. I just looks like a BSOD screen, but I do not know if the text is from the game or not.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal_(video_game)#Characters

Encom may be a Tron movie thing, though I do not know as I never watched that movie.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ENCOM

AmigaDOS may be Proprietary as shown by

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AmigaDOS

Though I do not know if this BSOD screensaver is from that program/OS.

So maybe parts, but not all of the BSOD screensaver are about proprietary software. I do not know if these were copied from that software though.
And breakout.asm may or may not be proprietary software also.

Psion
Desconectado
Joined: 12/29/2023

Funny thing, Hyperbola devs discovered that stuff too, regarding xscreensaver.

Other_Cody
Desconectado
Joined: 12/20/2023

I was looking at xscreensaver screen savers near the time Hyperbola developers were likely looking at xscreensaver, and I at first found about the pacman thing at

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Pac-Man_clones

than I was checking some other files and saw the license in

breakout.asm

So I also posted at

https://forums.hyperbola.info/viewtopic.php?pid=8133#p8133

but it is very likely the Hyperbola developers found those things before I posted anything there or at Trisquel.

I hope my posts somehow could have helped Trisquel and Hyperbola developers though. I may have been slow in posting after I found it though. Though both Trisquel and Hyperbola developers are fast in checking things.

I also saw the

Nonfree license for SGML?

https://gitlab.trisquel.org/trisquel/package-helpers/-/issues/156

post by Caleb Herbert and how it may be better to solve questions on the forum as typed about by Luis Guzmán @Ark74

So that is why I posted in this forum mostly about breakout.asm but also about the pacman and court case information I saw on wikipedia.

I think the Companion Cube may also be from Portal, though I have never played that game, so I do not know if this is just a fan made libre work or not.

And also the Matrix is likely from the Matrix movies and franchise, though I also did not see that, so it also could be a fan made libre work, though I do not know.

That artwork may also be like the information on wikipedia about pacman so that is why I was posting about that data here as well.