BB+ on the matter

[mhull]

I have to say one thing about reverse engineering of commercial products. I don't know if this is legal or illegal. But to me that is a minor consideration - it's clearly a violation of ethics.

No it's not iligal and no it's not unethical.
Unethical is selling other ppl's ideas (and code). And not being able to see that is just sad.

I agree this is a valid distinction that Don didn't address.

Please tell me which ideas Vas stole and marketed that made his program far stronger than any other program?

I wouldn't know, other than what Vas seemed to admit himself which implies he'd violated the GPL for profit.

What I was getting at was that the alleged cloners are not making any money on their alleged reengineering. Vas allegedly profited monetarily from hoarding GPL'd code in his project.

It would seem that the more serious ethical allegations are against Vas, not the IPPO programmers.

[bob]

... he has made an important contribution to computer chess.

What do you feel his contributions have been? Selling a strong product isn't most people's idea of a contribution (I mean if you have to pay for the thing). Contributions are what you give without thought or promise of a return.

It's no wonder that none of the commercial engine authors seem to post here any more. A crying shame actually.

This is not just a "here" problem. Commercial authors are secretive, and don't like to be called out on that. Same thing happened in r.g.c.c years ago. They all left there. Most have left here. Most have left _every_ site unless they run one themselves where they can control/limit discussions.

[bob]

I have to say one thing about reverse engineering of commercial products. I don't know if this is legal or illegal. But to me that is a minor consideration - it's clearly a violation of ethics.

No it's not iligal and no it's not unethical.
Unethical is selling other ppl's ideas (and code). And not being able to see that is just sad.

I agree this is a valid distinction that Don didn't address.

Please tell me which ideas Vas stole and marketed that made his program far stronger than any other program?

That's a biased question. Does that mean it is OK to steal ideas and sell them if they just allow you to catch up to the best program? OK to steal and sell if it gets you within 100 points of the best?

Copying code is simply wrong, unless you attribute the source and abide by whatever license it falls under.

[Ralph Stoesser]

The contribution from the developer of the best chess software is to deliver the best chess software.

To the delight of chess software enthusiasts.
And to the envy of the competitors.

He's able to sell his program because there's a demand for the best chess program.

Seems very hard to understand for some people.

[bob]

I have to say one thing about reverse engineering of commercial products. I don't know if this is legal or illegal. But to me that is a minor consideration - it's clearly a violation of ethics.

No it's not iligal and no it's not unethical.
Unethical is selling other ppl's ideas (and code). And not being able to see that is just sad.

I agree this is a valid distinction that Don didn't address.

Please tell me which ideas Vas stole and marketed that made his program far stronger than any other program?

I wouldn't know, other than what Vas seemed to admit himself which implies he'd violated the GPL for profit.

What I was getting at was that the alleged cloners are not making any money on their alleged reengineering. Vas allegedly profited monetarily from hoarding GPL'd code in his project.

It would seem that the more serious ethical allegations are against Vas, not the IPPO programmers.

This is another slippery slope issue. While I agree with your statement, I don't like the "this wrong is not as bad as that wrong..." Both are still wrong, obviously...

[Suji]

It's basically a vindictive mob mentality against someone primarily based on the fact that he wants to profit from his hard work fairly - he wants us to pay for something of value in exchange of something of value. And people apparently resent this - and the resentment seems based on the fact that they can now get something almost as good for free.

You are constantly distorting the facts.
Vas has not made a single contribution to computer chess. Only to his pockets. Period. Instead of constantly repeating it, give us some argument what is exactly Vas's contribution to computer chess? Being first for 5 years, sorry, but that's not contribution. Having constant bugs in programs, that's not contribution either. Where is his contribution?
Vas doesn't profit from his "hard" work (hard is really questionable, since we don't know, and will never know how much is really his work) fairly since fairly profiting doesn't mean profiting on other ppl's ideas (and code).
Almost as good, is just false. It is not almost as good it is much better. Stronger, better in analysis, not obfuscated, bugfree, constantly updated, users treated with respect.

Being first for _any_ length of time _is_, in itself a contribution. Any person that has half a drop of competitiveness in them knows that. It's harder to stay on top, than to get to the top. He is making the Stockfish, Critter, Naum and other program authors, near the top, want to make their programs better, an external motivation if you will. That is _one_ contribution that he _has_ made.

Whether one believes he stole code or not, is completely irrelevant here. There is something shady about the entire Fruit/Rybka issue and the Rybka/Ippolit issue, I'll admit. Ignoring that, some of his ideas clearly made his program stronger, therefore, once again he contributed.

By your logic, Junior and Shredder when they were on top contributed nothing, but I guarantee that you think otherwise.

Just because the controversies overshadow Vas's contributions, does _not_ mean that he hasn't contributed anything.

[Dann Corbit]

I have to say one thing about reverse engineering of commercial products. I don't know if this is legal or illegal. But to me that is a minor consideration - it's clearly a violation of ethics.

No it's not iligal and no it's not unethical.
Unethical is selling other ppl's ideas (and code). And not being able to see that is just sad.

I agree this is a valid distinction that Don didn't address.

Please tell me which ideas Vas stole and marketed that made his program far stronger than any other program?

That's a biased question. Does that mean it is OK to steal ideas and sell them if they just allow you to catch up to the best program? OK to steal and sell if it gets you within 100 points of the best?

Copying code is simply wrong, unless you attribute the source and abide by whatever license it falls under.

For computer programs, ideas are free unless there is a patent on them.
You can take all the ideas that you want with impunity (sans patents). It is the code that you cannot take.

It is possible that Vas has taken code beyond fair use. On the other hand it is possible that he hasn't. I am unconvinced either way.

As far as reverse engineering goes, it is always legal to reverse engineer for educational purposes (so, for instance, Zach's analysis of the Rybka code is strictly legal according to my understanding). It is also legal to reverse engineer for interoperability purposes. Of course, there are also very many times when reverse engineering is illegal. So whether or not the reverse engineering of Rybka that has occured is legal or not is not something definite to me either.

I think that Vas is basically a good guy (I base this upon private correspondence I have had with him). I can't say anything about the ippolit crowd because I don't even know who they are, but they do seem to have some sort of vendetta against Vas.

As far as BB+ goes (whoever he is) -- I think he is trying to be fair and objective. I don't know why he does not publish his name. I do think it would be better if he did, but it is none of my business.

[Don]

... he has made an important contribution to computer chess.

What do you feel his contributions have been? Selling a strong product isn't most people's idea of a contribution (I mean if you have to pay for the thing). Contributions are what you give without thought or promise of a return.

This is like saying that teachers make no contribution to society since they get payed.

Selling a strong product IS a HUGE contribution. It's just not appreciated by stingy people who want something for nothing. Whenever you make a purchase both parties should feel they profited otherwise there would be no transaction.

But it goes WAY beyond that. In another post I mentioned that the very presence of a "strongest" program telegraphs to everyone else that something is possible and the very possibility makes everyone else push forward. It's like the 4 minute mile, or the space race program - it would have never happened if the Soviets had not "embarrassed" the western world into pushing forward.

There were unintended contributions too. Because of Rybka we have Robo, Ippo, critter, Houdini, firebird, Stockfish, Komodo, ....

Part of my inspiration for resuming chess programming was the interest generated by Rybka in the computer chess community.

Likewise, Fruit was an inspiration to many because they showed that you could build a very strong program without any radically new ideas - just solid engineering. That's why your position that Vas "stole" Fruit such a ridiculous notion - even if Vas had literally started with that source code it did not provide anything other than a few days head start and even that was probably negated by the necessity to completely rewrite whatever he initially had in order to make any serious progress.

The Fruit argument is just noise and has absolutely no relevance to the real issues going on here and I think you should drop it for your own credibility. I think some of things you are saying may be valid or at least arguable, but pinning everything on this one thing just makes you look like you are flailing.

[mhull]

... he has made an important contribution to computer chess.

What do you feel his contributions have been? Selling a strong product isn't most people's idea of a contribution (I mean if you have to pay for the thing). Contributions are what you give without thought or promise of a return.

This is like saying that teachers make no contribution to society since they get payed.

They don't (unless they teach for free). The idea that they do make contributions to society is just a politically correct kliche, IMO.

Selling a strong product IS a HUGE contribution. It's just not appreciated by stingy people who want something for nothing. Whenever you make a purchase both parties should feel they profited otherwise there would be no transaction.

But it goes WAY beyond that. In another post I mentioned that the very presence of a "strongest" program telegraphs to everyone else that something is possible and the very possibility makes everyone else push forward. It's like the 4 minute mile, or the space race program - it would have never happened if the Soviets had not "embarrassed" the western world into pushing forward.

There were unintended contributions too. Because of Rybka we have Robo, Ippo, critter, Houdini, firebird, Stockfish, Komodo, ....

Part of my inspiration for resuming chess programming was the interest generated by Rybka in the computer chess community.

Likewise, Fruit was an inspiration to many because they showed that you could build a very strong program without any radically new ideas - just solid engineering. That's why your position that Vas "stole" Fruit such a ridiculous notion - even if Vas had literally started with that source code it did not provide anything other than a few days head start and even that was probably negated by the necessity to completely rewrite whatever he initially had in order to make any serious progress.

The Fruit argument is just noise and has absolutely no relevance to the real issues going on here and I think you should drop it for your own credibility. I think some of things you are saying may be valid or at least arguable, but pinning everything on this one thing just makes you look like you are flailing.

There is a big difference between the contributions of fruit and those you claim for Rybka. Vas took much from the forum that was given freely, but didn't give freely in return. The appearance is that a programmer comes here to take, then goes commerical, never to return -- all takin amd no givin. Then he sells you his winning program and you say, gee thanks, that's a great contribution.

I don't think so, Tim.

[michiguel]

To get a clean thread on the matter what BB states about R3 and Ippolit I copied this from the original thread http://www.talkchess.com/forum/viewtopi ... 41&t=36829 from where this discussion started with M Ansari. Don't blame me on copy pasting this stuff... but it find it most interesting

As my R3/IPPOLIT report seems to be being used in the kangaroo courts of TalkChess, perhaps I should comment:
M ANSARI: You ask "where is the proof" that they are clones ... I think the best proof is the BB report.

That's a fairly jaundiced view of the report. Maybe if "clones" were put in inverted commas I could agree. I interpret the word "clone" rather strictly, and by that measure,
R3 and IPPOLIT don't come remotely close to such a descriptor. The word "derivative" has a technical quasi-legal meaning that I prefer to avoid (similarly with "code") -- by the traditional standards of computer chess, I would say that R3/IPPOLIT and Fruit/R1 are essentially on the same footing [qualitatively, and as I say, quantitatively it can depend on your metric], in that both R1 and IPPOLIT re-use a substantial quantity of specifics of the respective pre-cursors. [The fact that Fruit was "free and open source" and R3 a "commercial product" is not relevant to me -- there are a number of dissenters in the intellectual property world, but the more common opinion is that once software is obtained legally, an end-user can use it for the purposes of discovery unless there is an agreement to the contrary]

I just went to quickly browsed openchess and the first BB+ post I see in the last page of the pertinent thread is

"In short, I might agree that R3/IPPOLIT is closer than R1/Fruit [though it depends on how much weight one gives to the various similarities/differences], but not by anywhere near 90%."

(bold is mine)
http://www.open-chess.org/viewtopic.php ... 5&start=30

If we are going to quote BB+, then this should be quoted to.

For the record,
Miguel