question for GCP: are you planning a new release of Sjeng?

[George Tsavdaris]

Yeah - the general glee with with which some have accepted the illegal engine with both hands and run with it is very disappointing.

If it is illegal (I haven't been following the threads on this engine) what would be more disappointing is if other competitor commercial engine authors studied the code with a view to improving their own engines. Their hands would be just as dirty as the person who committed the alleged illegal act in the first place. It must be a huge temptation, but one I'd hope most if not all would resist.

Why do you believe that knowledge should be locked on a cave?
Ideas and knowledge is free and anyone can use anything without any moral issues.

Of course the one who reverse engineered Rybka 3(if he did) and produced the code and provided it to the public, is illegal and probably immoral. But not the ones who look at the code.

I equate it to the crime of receiving or fencing stolen goods. That's why it's wrong.

Agreed

I don't consider knowledge to be a part of "goods".
Knowledge is free for anyone and it can't be stolen or copyrighted.

You disagree and it's your right to do of course.

I consider it wrong and immoral to reverse engineer a program and publish its source code before even giving to the programmer the chance of doing it himself when he thinks it's the right time

How do you make that decision? Give me an example where and when it would be ok, as per your view, to take and publish his confidential work.

If for example he says that he would never publish the code or give the ideas of his program. Then one should reverse engineer the program and give the knowledge it finds to the world.

I believe that knowledge belongs to everyone with all costs! And that people should give all their ideas to the public. Eventually.
The latter means after taking advantage from the ideas and make some money. And when there is a point where gain of money has decreased so much(e.g after 2-3 years for Rybka 3) the ideas/the knowledge has to be shared.

[DomLeste]

I wonder if this reverse engineering would've been done if Rybka didn't build such a huge gap between itself and rest of the other engines? I'm guessing no

[Gian-Carlo Pascutto]

Aside from that, there's the risk it also gets reverse engineered and republished for free, and then I get called I liar when I point this out, and have to post an extensive analysis revealing the secrets of my engine before people believe me and stop downloading (or not even that) the illegal clone.

I get the point you're trying to make with this bold way, but i think you are not actually right.

I believe too that Ippolit is 99.9% related with Rybka 3 on some way(reverse engineered probably), but you have to admit that just because it's damn strong and just because Vasik says it's a clone of Rybka are not serious reasons for any person to believe is a clone 100% in order to stop using it.
Until someone provides certain proof that it is a Rybka 3 clone, how, with what possible arguments, you can make anyone to stop using it?

George, in what way am I wrong? Your second paragraph ironically agrees exactly with what I said. I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm pointing out that your reasonable stance produces a result that's unreasonable on my side.

I don't claim to have a solution for this. If I had, maybe Deep Sjeng 4 would have been out

[George Tsavdaris]

i consider it also wrong and immoral that a person keeps all the knowledge for himself without giving any signs of any intentions to give the ideas to the public some day.

So is it immoral to keep things secret in order to reach significantly higher levels? No.

I didn't say that. I've put and an AND in your above statement.
AND to not have the intention to give your ideas someday in the future.

It's not immoral to have an idea and make money from it without giving this idea. It's immoral when you do the above and not have any intention about releasing one day the idea to the public.
The knowledge belongs to everyone and it's very selfish to intend to keep it a secret forever from the world. So immoral too.

[Gian-Carlo Pascutto]

It's not immoral to have an idea and make money from it without giving this idea. It's immoral when you do the above and not have any intention about releasing one day the idea to the public.

I believe this is how the patent system was supposed to work. I don't disagree with your stance.

But I also don't think the Ippolit way is the way to go. For one, I would consider proper attribution to be rather important.

[Alexander Schmidt]

Yeah - the general glee with with which some have accepted the illegal engine with both hands and run with it is very disappointing.

Is Ippolit illegal? Finally someone showed some evidences?

[Albert Silver]

How do you make that decision? Give me an example where and when it would be ok, as per your view, to take and publish his confidential work.

I believe that knowledge belongs to everyone with all costs! And that people should give all their ideas to the public. Eventually.
The latter means after taking advantage from the ideas and make some money. And when there is a point where gain of money has decreased so much(e.g after 2-3 years for Rybka 3) the ideas/the knowledge has to be shared.

Let us suppose now that selling Rybka 1 has no real commercial value. By your argumentation the knowledge behind its success has to be shared. Why?

What moral obligation does he have to explain to his opponents how he beat them silly? There have been several engines topping the lists in the past, such as Fritz, Hiarcs, and Shredder, and I don't recall anyone arguing the authors had some obligation to publish the code of their engine's older incarnations.

Vas has single-handedly revived the entire field of chess-programming after a long period of stagnation. This isn't meant to belittle the efforts of other programmers, whether commercial, or helping teach (such as Bob), but I clearly recall, when Rybka beta was first announced, a period of YEARS, where the most software progress seen per year was in the order of 30 Elo. Furthermore, if we actually got that much, it was considered the work of genius. Suddenly Vas comes along, not only clobbering the field to the tune of at least 100 Elo, but delivering that same 100 Elo progress year after year. A one-hit wonder he is not.

And strangely enough, suddenly engines left and right were displaying serious progress, which years before would have been considered miraculous. Now do NOT get me wrong: I am absolutely NOT suggesting that the progress seen in Shredder or Hiarcs is in any way related to Rybka secrets. I am suggesting that they have been forced to step up the pace *considerably* in order to not be permanently condemned to choking on Rybka's dust as it speeds ahead.

Feel fortunate you actually have the option to buy Rybka and are not faced with it being a privateware engine such as Ferret.

Albert

[Graham Banks]

Yeah - the general glee with with which some have accepted the illegal engine with both hands and run with it is very disappointing.

Is Ippolit illegal? Finally someone showed some evidences?

Being an ostrich can be useful at times for those who prefer not to trust the word of honest people.

[Alexander Schmidt]

Then you are violating the international human rights.

[Graham Banks]

Then you are violating the international human rights.

Then you are violating the international human rights.
_________________
International Human Rights, Article 11:

"Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence."

Sounds like that could apply to the Rybka stole Fruit code accusation.