Whether Rybka 4 Should Be Allowed To Play At the WCCC?

[Zach Wegner]

Have you _actually_ looked at any of the technical information that has been shown, or are you simply another brand of sheep following a different (and not so ethical) shepherd???

Hi Bob,

I only looked at Zach's report. It is a nice work and Zach definitely knows what he is talking about . Although I think it is not a smoking gun report for the "case". That said, I think it is not right to make such kind of allegations without a reliable proof - it is not ethical. Specially when it comes from respected names like yours.

Attention Bob Hyatt:

Would you please do us all a big favour, download Rybka 4 from their website and do a reverse engineering test to determine if Crafty is part of Rybka 4, making it a derivative program and not allowed to be used at the WCCC. If both you and Zach protest, hopefully, that will be enough to make the WCCC take this seriously.

Thank you,

Sean

If there are parts of Crafty in R4, I suspect they are acceptable parts. Vas has said he uses rotated bitboards. Since that idea was a Crafty development, it is likely that was copied. It has been copied by many others and we all agree that is OK, just as some of use are now using Pradu's magic move generation which is even more flexible.

Rybka 4 uses magic bitboards.

[Rolf]

Rybka 4 uses magic bitboards.

Please let's not digress, let's better focus on unethical!

[Wayne Lowrance]

Why would Vas want to prove anything ? Let all talk all they want. Just one thing I would add:
Rybka has and is the top program for years now. Hyatt has worked on yesterday monster hardware/programs to sit at the top of the heap. Now Rybka cluster is in a league all by itself. I suspect Hyatt would just love to unseat the cluster with Crafty, if for no other reason that Hyatt has in the past been critical of Vas cluster programming.
Wayne

[Rolf]

On Vas I agree with you but Hyatt is still a fine teacher. In his youth he was among the best but due to classes and old age Bob must pay the price. Dont get me wrong, also Vas will become a senior soon. Life is so fast and you have it only once. So, yes, I would say, let's not waste our precious time with agendas and flame wars.

Perhaps this is what some in CC dont get. Perhaps those who retired are the wisest. Although I wished that Bob would live forever. Serious.

[Wayne Lowrance]

Okey Dokey Rolf. I have not a single argument with what you say. I too hope the senior Hyatt has a full long life. BTW many, many years ago I had huge respect for Hyatt. If only he would crank down his confrontational part of him I could regain that respect.
Wayne

[bob]

Why would Vas want to prove anything ? Let all talk all they want. Just one thing I would add:
Rybka has and is the top program for years now. Hyatt has worked on yesterday monster hardware/programs to sit at the top of the heap. Now Rybka cluster is in a league all by itself. I suspect Hyatt would just love to unseat the cluster with Crafty, if for no other reason that Hyatt has in the past been critical of Vas cluster programming.
Wayne

I am critical of poor implementations. Whether it be mine or someone else's. The cluster algorithm used previously was not good. If it hasn't changed, it _still_ is not good. There is a right approach and an easy approach to doing this. Easy is almost never good. And in this case it certainly isn't.

[bob]

Okey Dokey Rolf. I have not a single argument with what you say. I too hope the senior Hyatt has a full long life. BTW many, many years ago I had huge respect for Hyatt. If only he would crank down his confrontational part of him I could regain that respect.
Wayne

Is it "confrontational" to challenge a statement you disagree with? Is it "confrontational" to make statements founded in fact that some don't like to see in writing?

Otherwise I don't get your "confrontational" meaning.

[Rolf]

Okey Dokey Rolf. I have not a single argument with what you say. I too hope the senior Hyatt has a full long life. BTW many, many years ago I had huge respect for Hyatt. If only he would crank down his confrontational part of him I could regain that respect.
Wayne

Is it "confrontational" to challenge a statement you disagree with? Is it "confrontational" to make statements founded in fact that some don't like to see in writing?

Otherwise I don't get your "confrontational" meaning.

Certainly that is a fundamental process of science. But it's also clear that this means that you shouldnt make premature allegations and insults. Because only if based on facts a statement could be sound but hey, this famous quotation isnt sound, where Theron offered, that if he would have no ethics, he could also stand on top of all other competitors. And obviously you didnt put this under any thinkable confrontational examination. You agreed with that insult. I remember well because already then I opposed that dirt. Note well, this was when no ZW webpages existed nor anything else as potential evidence for such a dirty campaign which goes on and on. Now this is certainly strange for a scientist to be involved with. Perhaps Wayne means something like that.

[Uri Blass]

http://www.grappa.univ-lille3.fr/icga/f ... s-2010.pdf

18th WORLD COMPUTER CHESS CHAMPIONSHIP TOURNAMENT RULES

2. Each program must be the original work of the entering developers. Programming teams whose code is derived from or including game-playing code written by others must name all other authors, or the source of such code, in the details of their submission form. Programs which are discovered to be close derivatives of others (e.g., by playing nearly all moves the same), may be declared invalid by the Tournament Director after seeking expert advice. For this purpose a listing of all game-related code running on the system must be available on demand to the Tournament Director.

I think it is important for them to define the term derivative.
It is very clear that Rybka 1.0 uses Fruit ideas (I do not know how much is known about current Rybka versions). Does the use of these ideas make it (Rybka 1.0) a clone?

Consider that all chess programs use Alpha-Beta from John McCarthy's 1956 proposal. So under a loose definition, all programs are clones. So what *exactly* is a clone?

I completely agree with you.
Using ideas is not cloning.
It is curious how this Fruit-Rybka topic got so much attention and no one could prove anything serious so far.

The funny thing is that most people attacking Vas are only doing that because they believe in others "experts" statements. They don't have a clue about the "thing" itself, they just like pointing fingers. Poor sheep following the shepherd.

Best to all,

Have you _actually_ looked at any of the technical information that has been shown, or are you simply another brand of sheep following a different (and not so ethical) shepherd???

Aren't you the Sheep? Following all these calls years after the event. You missed your chance to make a formal complaint when R1 was released. The author of fruit also missed his although he says he does not care.

Come back to the real world. This was first noticed when Strelka came out. Which was long after rybka 1 was out, and replaced by rybka 2 and maybe even 3. I don't know of anyone that has the time to disassemble every commercial engine and compare it to others looking for a copy. Strelka provided the disassembly of rybka 1 (again, according to Vas' own claim) and that opened Pandora's box.

Strelka was very similiar to rybka1 beta based on the output of the analysis.
The similiarity in the output was so high that you did not need reverse engineering or claim of Vas to get the conclusion that Strelka is derived from rybka.

I remember that I tested both of them in some positions with blocked pawns when there is no tactics in order to compare them and I posted examples of similiar analysis before Vas's claim.

When I talk about similiarity I do not talk only about move selection and evaluation but also about depths of fail high and fail low depths(if rybka fails high at depth d then strelka fails high at depth d+3).

Uri

[bob]

Okey Dokey Rolf. I have not a single argument with what you say. I too hope the senior Hyatt has a full long life. BTW many, many years ago I had huge respect for Hyatt. If only he would crank down his confrontational part of him I could regain that respect.
Wayne

Is it "confrontational" to challenge a statement you disagree with? Is it "confrontational" to make statements founded in fact that some don't like to see in writing?

Otherwise I don't get your "confrontational" meaning.

Certainly that is a fundamental process of science. But it's also clear that this means that you shouldnt make premature allegations and insults. Because only if based on facts a statement could be sound but hey, this famous quotation isnt sound, where Theron offered, that if he would have no ethics, he could also stand on top of all other competitors. And obviously you didnt put this under any thinkable confrontational examination. You agreed with that insult. I remember well because already then I opposed that dirt. Note well, this was when no ZW webpages existed nor anything else as potential evidence for such a dirty campaign which goes on and on. Now this is certainly strange for a scientist to be involved with. Perhaps Wayne means something like that.

I don't make "premature allegations and insults" so what is your point?