A Question for Our Sponsor..IPPO Links OK or Not??

[Sven]

Hi Sven, Thanks for the detailed response. All that matters to the ICD and company is that as long as the engine is not legally questionable, It's Ok.
So, by your analysis, the engine doesn't sound illegal.

I think it's Ok to take _any_ amount of ideas as long as it's not the exact copy paste. Surely, nearly every programmer has taken some ideas and implemented the stuff on their own.

I will leave the technical discussion to Bob and others since they probably know more about the inner working of the engine than I do.

"Legal"? Difficult to say. Disassembling to understand what a program does is not illegal by itself. Taking ideas to implement them in an own work is surely legal, too. To a certain extent, at least. But when the amount of ideas taken approaches the whole set of ideas that are found in the original program then I'd raise some doubts, although this is clearly a "grey area" which will be difficult to resolve. Knowing the exact R3 source code version would definitely help a lot here but is not available.

You are clearly reducing my post to only one aspect. I wrote much more about the "being questionable" point. "Legal" is not the main question.

By mentioning "exact copy and paste" as a reference you miss another important point of my post, which was to show that taking such a huge amount of foreign "ideas" is no longer the same as taking some ideas and implementing them.

And it is not you who decides what is important for the sponsor. The charter is for the members and moderators. But the sponsor may still have its own opinion of what has "questionable legal status". His view may even differ from mine, as well as from yours.

Sven

[Graham Banks]

The key point is that those people who understand the BB report know that IP* is definitely based to a huge extent on the results of disassembling Rybka 3, with a lot of *changes* that were made. The major part of the R3 reuse obviously occurs in evaluation and search while the origin of other parts like board representation, move generator or UCI interface (to name only a few) is not clearly identified.

Sven

That alone is adequate proof that you don't understand the BB report.
The _types_ of differences exposed in the report make it near impossible to modify Rybka that much and still end up with a functioning engine.
It would be _much_ easier to write everything from scratch, exploiting concepts and code snippets from other engines (including Rybka).

If you can't understand that much, look for a different topic to discuss.

Matthias.

All this was discussed in the thread below and it was obvious that many hold differing opinions over the anonymous report.
http://www.talkchess.com/forum/viewtopi ... highlight=

Cheers,
Graham.

[Sven]

The key point is that those people who understand the BB report know that IP* is definitely based to a huge extent on the results of disassembling Rybka 3, with a lot of *changes* that were made. The major part of the R3 reuse obviously occurs in evaluation and search while the origin of other parts like board representation, move generator or UCI interface (to name only a few) is not clearly identified.

Sven

That alone is adequate proof that you don't understand the BB report.
The _types_ of differences exposed in the report make it near impossible to modify Rybka that much and still end up with a functioning engine.
It would be _much_ easier to write everything from scratch, exploiting concepts and code snippets from other engines (including Rybka).

The question is who understands what. If *you* think you would be unable to do this kind of adapting work then this does not mean that it is *impossible*. Others may be better than you. Look what BB has done. It took him a couple of months to complete his analysis but he did it. Look how detailled his understanding of single functions, parameters and variables has become.

How do you explain the huge number of IDENTICAL parts, when assuming IP* was written from scratch? Look at the example I mentioned, appendix B: was this done by "taking code snippets"?

If you can't understand that much, look for a different topic to discuss.

Not the right tone that you choose. Keeping rational would be appreciated.

Sven

[swami]

Hi Sven, Thanks for the detailed response. All that matters to the ICD and company is that as long as the engine is not legally questionable, It's Ok.
So, by your analysis, the engine doesn't sound illegal.

I think it's Ok to take _any_ amount of ideas as long as it's not the exact copy paste. Surely, nearly every programmer has taken some ideas and implemented the stuff on their own.

I will leave the technical discussion to Bob and others since they probably know more about the inner working of the engine than I do.

"Legal"? Difficult to say. Disassembling to understand what a program does is not illegal by itself. Taking ideas to implement them in an own work is surely legal, too. To a certain extent, at least. But when the amount of ideas taken approaches the whole set of ideas that are found in the original program then I'd raise some doubts, although this is clearly a "grey area" which will be difficult to resolve. Knowing the exact R3 source code version would definitely help a lot here but is not available.

You are clearly reducing my post to only one aspect. I wrote much more about the "being questionable" point. "Legal" is not the main question.

By mentioning "exact copy and paste" as a reference you miss another important point of my post, which was to show that taking such a huge amount of foreign "ideas" is no longer the same as taking some ideas and implementing them.

And it is not you who decides what is important for the sponsor. The charter is for the members and moderators. But the sponsor may still have its own opinion of what has "questionable legal status". His view may even differ from mine, as well as from yours.

Sven

Hi Sven, According to the ICD, the engine shouldn't have questionable legitimacy.

The words "being questionable" and "questionable legitimacy" are quite different in their meaning.

http://www.answers.com/topic/legitimacy

But I shall fulfill your wishes, that is to remain at peace until the next moderation.

I wouldn't want to argue all day whether or not the moderators should again start allowing links. I will leave that to the next set of moderators (be it Bob Hyatt, Steve B or others) who will make decision in week's time anyway.

Best,
Swami

[Steve B]

There is no reason for this issue to be clouded in mystery

either ICD is insisting that links to Ippo and Family not be allowed or they are not
i do not believe they are or ever did although some may have interpreted it that way
my understanding is that they did not want links to pirated sites to be permitted and other questionable software which in light of recent developments cannot possibly include Ippo
there was a brief instance when a link to a pirated Rybka 4 was permitted on this board and then removed and this caused some confusion
i put the question to ICD right now point blank
as of this point in time...
what is the current ICD Position on links to Ippo and related engines?
do they at this point in time prohibit the posting of links to Ippo and related engines as a requirement to continue the sponsorship of the CCC??

note..i do not consider the requirement to post Ippo links in the EOF as a major problem because this only impacts unregistered lurkers
although i do not really favor the idea i can live with it

my guess is that all the sponsor wants is to provide a board enjoyable to all

if i were moderating right now i would be allowing links like we did last term and if i moderate in the future i would allow it

its a simple question ...

i ask Sam as the TCADMIN to please get us a direct quote from ICD on this specific question
IPPO links OK or not??

Regards
Steve

Good idea, but I strongly suggest that whatever the result, nothing is going to change until elections.

exactly and with elections only 3 weeks away it is the reason i asked the question in the first place
it would make no sense to hold elections if there are hidden dictates from the sponsor
i am happy to report that there are none

here is the TCADMIN'S reply to my question
i PM'd him as well as posting the question here for complete transparency.he chose to reply by PM

ICD is not dictating anything - they simply asked for more consistent attention to what has been policy forever here - no links to illegal software. They are continuing to leave decisions about what is and isn't legal to the mods. It is up to the membership as always.

-Sam-

as a result members will have a choice of teams that clearly defines their positions

but the Sponsor is dictating absolutely nothing

Best Regards
Steve

[swami]

There is no reason for this issue to be clouded in mystery

either ICD is insisting that links to Ippo and Family not be allowed or they are not
i do not believe they are or ever did although some may have interpreted it that way
my understanding is that they did not want links to pirated sites to be permitted and other questionable software which in light of recent developments cannot possibly include Ippo
there was a brief instance when a link to a pirated Rybka 4 was permitted on this board and then removed and this caused some confusion
i put the question to ICD right now point blank
as of this point in time...
what is the current ICD Position on links to Ippo and related engines?
do they at this point in time prohibit the posting of links to Ippo and related engines as a requirement to continue the sponsorship of the CCC??

note..i do not consider the requirement to post Ippo links in the EOF as a major problem because this only impacts unregistered lurkers
although i do not really favor the idea i can live with it

my guess is that all the sponsor wants is to provide a board enjoyable to all

if i were moderating right now i would be allowing links like we did last term and if i moderate in the future i would allow it

its a simple question ...

i ask Sam as the TCADMIN to please get us a direct quote from ICD on this specific question
IPPO links OK or not??

Regards
Steve

Good idea, but I strongly suggest that whatever the result, nothing is going to change until elections.

exactly and with elections only 3 weeks away it is the reason i asked the question in the first place
it would make no sense to hold elections if there are hidden dictates from the sponsor
i am happy to report that there are none

here is the TCADMIN'S reply to my question
i PM'd him as well as posting the question here for complete transparency.he chose to reply by PM

ICD is not dictating anything - they simply asked for more consistent attention to what has been policy forever here - no links to illegal software. They are continuing to leave decisions about what is and isn't legal to the mods. It is up to the membership as always.

-Sam-

as a result members will have a choice of teams that clearly defines their positions

but the Sponsor is dictating absolutely nothing

Best Regards
Steve

Hi Steve,

Thanks for posting this!

I hope you and Bob together along with Dann take up the moderation in the next term. I liked the last term moderation!

Best wishes,
Swami

[Robert Flesher]

ICD/ Your Move & Chess and company didn't specifically ask links to (IPPOLIT/Robbolito) to be deleted. They DIDN'T name _any_ engine. They just asked that the links to questionable software to be deleted.

Posts from both yourself and Jeremy in the mods forum straight after this show clearly that you two also knew that they were talking specifically about these engines as you clearly stated so.
I will not quote from that forum because it's private, but at least when a new moderation team gets access to it, they'll be able to see everything in there.

Cheers,
Graham.

They're not questionable anymore (more strong evidence from BB reports)

I have asked Jeremy to read this thread and ask him to comment since he's on a holiday.

The BB report is not universally accepted as far as I'm aware. Who is BB?

Graham, come on, you are not really that naive are you?
Many completely respected authors, Ed Schroder, Chris Whittington, Dr. Bob Hyatt, and others have read the report and seem to feel it's good enough .To my understanding (correct me if I am wrong)you have zero skills in chess programming ?
Yet you question the validity of a report you cannot grasp ? Absurd!
To me, your like the plumber telling the the electrician how to wire the house. Your hands and thoughts belong in the toilet (metaphorically speaking) not on the technical aspects for which you have not been trained. Capiche ?

Many months ago I told you, " it seems you jump to conclusions to fast and assume to much", yet nothing has changed. It begs the questions, what are your motives ? what is your agenda ?

BB is most likely a well known programmer who is tired of the lies and decided to end the debate, bravo ! I say, bully for him!

[swami]

BB is most likely a well known programmer

Agreed!

BB is certainly a well know programmer. He had met Zach Wegner and had talked with Larry Kauffman a great deal. What more could one ask....

As you correctly pointed out, it doesn't make sense to talk about his identity(why would anyone would be so interested in that is beyond me) especially when he's produced finest piece of report there is.

[Robert Flesher]

BB is most likely a well known programmer

Agreed!

BB is certainly a well know programmer. He had met Zach Wegner and had talked with Larry Kauffman a great deal. What more could one ask....

As you correctly pointed out, it doesn't make sense to talk about his identity(why would anyone would be so interested in that is beyond me) especially when he's produced finest piece of report there is.

Because it's the only point they have left to argue. The clone debate seems to have ended for the logical minds. It's the kill, " Zorro " complex. Only in this narrative "BB" is the masked villian they seek to explose. Great for a chuckle !

[Roger Brown]

The BB report is not universally accepted as far as I'm aware. Who is BB?

Hello Graham,

Note that your acceptance - or mine - is not the central issue. Far too much importance is being attached to our opinions in that case BUT we should give weight to the opinions of those who are technically equipped to understand the report - whether we find their conclusions personally repugnant or not.

While that jury may still be deliberating, I find your demand for an identity amusing.

2 + 2 = 4.

Do you need to know who I am to debate the content of that formula? Really? It is either true or not. Surely the content is what matters in a technical discussion.

Later.