TCEC - Is it okay to have a derivative program as champion?

[corres]

[quote="Frank Quisinsky"]Hi Robert,

often I am thinking to start a much more easy rating list!
But for the moment I have really enough from such a work.

I have more interest to help John Stanback next year and to work on stronger and stronger equal opening books (for Cutechess, Shredder and Wasp).

But of course ... in testing Wasp I need a group of interesting opponents, thinking on 20 engines with completly different styles and still in developement. Will not see again and again Spike, Zappa, Sjeng and other strong but older engines.

By the way ... your ideas are good in my opinion!

Best
Frank[/quote]

Hi Frank,
I wish you successful work to make that opening books.

[Dirt]

From 1950's all engines are derivative.

There would be not an issue of the origin of chess programs if all programs have to be open source and their source can be compiled. But the interest of money and the human enviousness prevents the spreading of the idea of open source.

I see your post uses the quote and /quote BBCode instructions, but they don't display properly. There is a setting in your profile that controls this, although I'm not certain that's the cause of your problem.

Have you any other fundamental note?
I like to know your opinion about derivative, copy, clone, open source, etc.

I votes yes in the poll.

Crafty is technically a derivative of CrayBlitz but the poll is actually about different authors.

Copies of programs are fine as long as they don't violate the license. Tournament directors should nonetheless restrict them in some way. Copying without acknowledgement, even if done legally, is cheating. Houdini is a bit of a special case since the program copied is of unknown status and announcing that the source was copied could have legal implications.

Clone is misused in the chess world. All Xboard engines are a clone as are all UCI engines.

Open source is wonderful but if an author wants to keep his source private his wishes should be respected.

[Daniel Anulliero]

It is OK if they say it is OK. It is their tourney, and they can run whatever they like.

Agreed.

Agreed too

[Henk]

It is OK if they say it is OK. It is their tourney, and they can run whatever they like.

Agreed.

Agreed too

Yes just another stupid tournament. Dance of the clones.

[Guenther]

Don't change the content and please quote right.

It was all about percentages (99/100) and copying.

BTW that platitude ' we are standing on the shoulders of our ancestors' is another cheapo w/o real meaning
in this context and no one talked about compilers and programming languages, because it is irrelevant...

You have not answered to my question (..how many years..).
The sentence "We all are standing..." is not a cheap platitude but but it is the reality even if it is heavy to accept certain peoples.
With the mention of program language, compiler, PC I only refer to the facts that when we work on something we use not only our knowledge and our idea but a lot of things created by others.
Naturally the operative rules have to be kept by all chess programmers, too.

Now I remember... I always wondered where all that bullshit and nonsense posts came from...

(I bet you'll say that's just a strange coincidence - your posting history says sth else)

http://www.open-aurec.com/wbforum/viewt ... &start=100

Code: Select all

Re: Dolphin...

Postby Christopher Conkie » 20 Dec 2008, 10:03

    Gábor Szots wrote:

        Olivier Deville wrote:
        Hi Gabor

        By the way, have you ever heard of an hungarian progammer whose name is Robert Szabo ?

        He sent me an engine called Botond the other day... He says Botond's strength is around 2500.

        The executable is packed/encrypted, and that indeed arises suspicion.

        I'll certainly not take it in "as is"... Let's see if he cares to send me an exe that is not obfuscated.

        Olivier



    Hi Olivier,

    No, I haven't heard of him. I am a member of a correspondence list of Hungarian computer chess programmers and I am sure I have never seen this name pop up. Still, I'm going to ask them.



Botond has been found to be a compressed/encrypted Rybka Beta 1.0/Strelka/Belka by Michael and I.

No need to bother the programmers I think now Gabor.

8-)

Christopher

Christopher Conkie
     
    Posts: 43
    Joined: 13 Dec 2008, 12:12
    Location: Scotland

[corres]

In this sub-forum the object of debate is about the derivative programs and their participant on TCEC. If you look at the result of the vote you can see that the majority of voters have other opinion about the derivatives then you.
If you are familiar well with Rybka 1.0, Strelka, Belka you must know that these are different engines so the text what you have gotten from Gabor Szots (thanks Gabor) "Botond has been found to be a compressed/encrypted Rybka beta 1.0/Strelka/Belka..." is very desultory statement. Strelka and Belka were a real derivative of Rybka 1.0.
Botond was a exercise only and it was made from sketch of Strelka.
And again, if you are familiar well with Strelka its Elo was more higher then 2500 of Botond. So at most you can accuse me that I was a derivative maker.
Congratulations!
But you have not answered my question ... how many years...???
I have no comment on your method of dispute.

[corres]

[quote="Dirt"][quote="corres"][quote="Dirt"][quote="corres"][quote="corres"]From 1950's all engines are derivative.[/quote]
There would be not an issue of the origin of chess programs if all programs have to be open source and their source can be compiled. But the interest of money and the human enviousness prevents the spreading of the idea of open source.[/quote]
I see your post uses the quote and /quote BBCode instructions, but they don't display properly. There is a setting in your profile that controls this, although I'm not certain that's the cause of your problem.[/quote]

Have you any other fundamental note?
I like to know your opinion about derivative, copy, clone, open source, etc.[/quote]
I votes yes in the poll.

Crafty is technically a derivative of CrayBlitz but the poll is actually about different authors.

Copies of programs are fine as long as they don't violate the license. Tournament directors should nonetheless restrict them in some way. Copying without acknowledgement, even if done legally, is cheating. Houdini is a bit of a special case since the program copied is of unknown status and announcing that the source was copied could have legal implications.

Clone is misused in the chess world. All Xboard engines are a clone as are all UCI engines.

Open source is wonderful but if an author wants to keep his source private his wishes should be respected.[/quote]

Thanks for your answer.
It looks like we agree in the essence. But literally "copy" is not a good word. Maybe to work up, to prepare or to employ are the more precise expression to voice the activity around making a (derivative) chess program.

[MikeB]

Well Sean, you asked a simple a question and received a fury of responses. Exposing some very strong feelings. It's sort of sad in a way - we're talking about game , game a child can be taught to play at a very young age. No different than a group of neighborhood kids play football, baseball or soccer in somebdoy's backyard or adjoining field. But as always , you get adults involved and things just get mucked up - you need rules, bylaws, definitions , what is morally correct, what is legal , what is not legal, taking the higher ground, copies, clones, derivatives, reversed engineered yada yada yada.

At the end of the day, the TD makes the rules and if you don't like them - go become a TD and make your own rules and run your own tournament .

enuf said, Now I understand some are earning an living form this endeavor - but for most of us - this is supposed to be fun ..now go back to your chess computer and have fun!

[Guenther]

...
Pleasae, let's suppose that there is a very expert programmer who knows the rule of chess but who have not seen any bytes from a source code of chess program and who have not read any technical description of a chess program.
What do you think, how many years he needs to make a chess engine with -let's speak- 2000 of Elo???
...
But you have not answered my question ... how many years...???
I have no comment on your method of dispute.

The answer is 0,728 years in average...

Are you happy now? There are simply too much other factors to consider.
One might need only two months, another a few years, another won't acchieve it forever,
depending on the time spent on it.

I had not answered it yet, because it is obviously a silly question.

[Guenther]

In this sub-forum the object of debate is about the derivative programs and their participant on TCEC. If you look at the result of the vote you can see that the majority of voters have other opinion about the derivatives then you.

What opinion? I don't think you know my opinion at all and I told
nothing about it.

I only answered to one specific post until I was stalked by you.
Of course the specific content I answered too was never quoted by you.

I never care about polls coming from Sean and I don't care for TCEC
nor will they care about a silly poll elsewhere.
Seans 'polls' are always done for creating some hassle.
This one is ill-defined anyhow and most people don't know what a derivate is.
At least this poll was chance for your 'coming out'.

Last post in this tragicomical thread...