As far as clones go, I do not know for sure about the legality or non-legality of Rybka, Ivanhoe, Houdini, or any other strong, recent chess engines. I suspect that most of them will have at least one foot on the grey and so it would be hard to decide anyway.Roger Brown wrote:Dann Corbit wrote:This is a very insightful commentary.SuneF wrote:Please follow that line of thought through.tomgdrums wrote:He has a point Graham! If the first version of Rybka IS bogus then they should all be eliminated from your list. OR you do have to add AT LEAST Houdini.Graham Banks wrote:I'd much rather test a new version of Big Lion!Matthias Gemuh wrote: Why do you then reject latest Ivanhoe versions even if Ippolit were a clone ?
Matthias.
You can't have it both ways!
If he adds Houdini he would also have to add Fire and Ivanhoe and whatnot. Do you seriously want to go down that road? What will happen next week when there are 10 new "original" super strong engines for them to test? Oh goodie.
This is not all black and white unfortunately, the line must be drawn somewhere. If Rybka is a bitboard version of Fruit written from scratch I don't think it can be called a clone or derivative.
One might even imagine that Fruit was converted to bitboard primarily to bypass clone detection and yet at the same time keep its strength.
If so this would be very deceitful indeed but where is the line between copying ideas and copying code.. It has to be drawn somewhere, and if the code is rewritten it makes some sense to draw the line there, obviously YMMV. (Now I'm sure you're hard at work on a mailbox Ippolit..
Also let's keep some perspective here. Copying of ideas is taking place all the time. OpenSource engines have made it possible for any idiot to do it, but there are also other engines on the list, old engines whos authors are so skilled in assembly that they can read the tricks and ideas in closed engines as well.
Here is the problem that I see: There are several roads that lead to the same endpoint. One road is criminal. One road is not criminal but dishonest. One road is entirely honorable. We are somehow left guessing which road was taken (albeit with a few clues, but primarily based upon the endpoint) and making the wrong choice besmirches the driver.
I have no idea what the proper choice is here.
Hello Dann,
This is my problem with the commentary and your comments on it. There is reference to a line being drawn but it seems that the line curves around Rybka and excludes "the accused engines".
Decisions were made then. Why is there this distinct impression of sudden mental helplessness now?
I am not saying what a person is to do with their life - as no-one can tell me what to do with mine - but this bout of indecisiveness and hand wringing is amusing at best.
I am of course not referring to you.....Curiouser and curiouser....
Later.
As for "Why the sudden hand-wringing?" ... I think it was brought about by Fabian's inquiry. Since he is surely the most injured party {if the guesses about cloning are correct} I think that it is quite logical to re-address the matter at this time.