BB+ on the matter

[rodolfoleoni]

The opinion I'm having about R3-Ippo stuff is that Vas had right to keep his code secret, so they somehow violated some trade secrets, if they really performed a reverse engineering.

The second opinion I'm having is there's no proof that the secret violation was followed by a cloning of the original product.

Guilty of reverse engineriing, innocent of cloning.

Well, just opinions.

You won't get consensus on any of these issues I'm afraid.

Here is the problem that I see in this sort of thing:
We have partial information, furnished by secondary sources.
From this information we seem to want do decide whether or not people are reprehensible criminals.
Since we don't have the full body of facts, since we are not experts in software law, since we do not have legal powers to collect more information or legal powers to decide upon the meaning of the facts...
I think that making decisions about the character of others and pronouncing them in public is every bit as questionable as the activities discussed.

Were we somehow entitled to the information and were we somehow empowered to make decisions as to the outcomes and were we to be in full possession of the facts then it would be peachy-creamy to do so and probably a protection for the forum.

But lacking these things, let's not pretent we can make sensible decisions based on a handful of hearsay and our own jaundiced opinions.

Not that we can't form our own feelings about things (and I imagine that most persons, including myself, do form these opinions). But I don't think we should state them here as though they were facts, since the reputation of others is in the balance. We should afford them the same courtesy we would want afforded to us if our character were to be smudged.

IMO-YMMV

All above seems conceptually right, as nobody has the direct view of what really happened. The point is: can we have opinions? Can we discuss those opinions here (or elsewhere)?

I don't think at anybody as a criminal. Proof of "crime" is missing. We can only think about moral about fact that we guess could be happened (or not happened). And it's difficult to consider a crime if Vas is keeping the proof hidden: that makes me think that there's no crime because code could be very very very different. There could only be the possibly unethical fact of the reverse engineering. You said it was "factual" in a post before...

Computer Chess is a competition apparatus as Formula One, Basket or Football. The difference is it hasn't a federation and some authority which can examine facts and decide. All other sports do have, so they never have to go to the court.

[Kirill Kryukov]

Nothing is being added in a commercial exchange, unless the exchange is intentionally generous on one side. The idea of a contribution is one of giving, not receiving or transacting business. Don suggested that his sense of what he received in the exchange was so great from his POV, that it was more a gift than a transaction. But contributions are an act of giving, not a perception of receiving. Charities seek contributions. Commercial transactions are not contributions, obviously.

You have toothache and go to a dentist, and come out healed. Did the dentist contribute to your well-being? Apparently not, using your logic, because he got paid (probably a lot). It was just a commercial exchange, and nothing was added, right? Then why go do dentist in the first place, if nothing was gained from it?

It looks like your interpretation of word "contribution" is very different from most of English-speaking population. If you want to be understood by others, you try to speak the same language they do. What you call "contribution", the rest of the world calls "donation".

[beram]

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

then also read this: http://www.open-chess.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=788#p7051

I think it is correct that "Ippolit contains literary 0% of code from Rybka 3", though we are (still) at the strange stage where there are those who continue to assert that there is "code" of R3 in IPPOLIT, but these are yet to display their evidence. It is definitely possible that I overlooked something in my comparison.

[K I Hyams]

Your assertion is that Rybka is so strong because it's a clone of Fruit which does not explain why it is so much stronger than Fruit.

There is evidence that he did it by standing on the shoulders of a giant and adding extras to the giant’s work. If that is the case, he was one of a number of people who chose to do the same. He would seem to have been slightly more successful than the others. One reason for that may be that he chose to earn an income from the project, rather than remain as an amateur, a decision that Thomas Gaksch took. Either way, if you want to claim that Rajlich deserves credit for exceptional improvement to Fruit, then you need to compare the strength of his engine to that of Toga, for example, not Fruit.

I am not usually interested in arguments about semantics. However, this one attracted my attention because it touched upon the teaching profession, something of which I was a member for over 30 years.

I was perceived by some as being rather good at my job and as a consequence I would receive plaudits and misplaced gratitude from parents of the pupils that I taught. I used to find such attention extremely embarrassing because I was simply providing a service for which I was paid. No pay, no service. As simple as that.

There was a mixture of reasons why I decided to be good at my job, every one of them was self-centred. They all boiled down to one thing, I simply could not behave in the way in which I had decided to behave if there were chinks in my armour.

Rajlich is the same. He has made himself good at his job and his reason or reasons for doing so are both blindingly obvious and clearly self-centred. If you want to acknowledge the fact that, by standing on giant’s shoulders, he has turned himself into a competent programmer then that is your prerogative. Why you should want to offer him gratitude/respect for simply doing what was in his own interests is beyond me. Hyatt deserves gratitude/ respect, not Rajlich.

Let me put it this way. IF, that is what Vas did it was wrong. That would be his crime but this is not really what is being argued even though we want to make it seem like it is.

There is a great deal of dishonesty in this discussion because I seriously doubt most people REALLY cares if that happened or not. And even if it did happen, it's not why people are getting so excited.

That quote is from another of your posts. If he did infringe the GPL conditions, his veracity and business ethics leave something to be desired. One reason why you may not be particularly bothered about that could be because you didn’t suffer financially as a consequence. I wonder whether the authors of Shredder and Fritz are so laid back about it. Either way, it is not up to you to write the incident off, that is their prerogative.

You point to the beneficial effect that Vas has had on the CC community. If he did use GPL code improperly, his actions could have put the programmers of Fritz and Shredder out of business, something which would have been beneficial to Vas, but not the community as a whole.

[OliverUwira]

If he did use GPL code improperly, his actions could have put the programmers of Fritz and Shredder out of business, something which would have been beneficial to Vas, but not the community as a whole.

Sorry, but don't you think it is likely that the other commercial programmers had a deep look into Fruit as well?

The cat had been out of the bag for everybody, not only for VR.

[Don]

Your assertion is that Rybka is so strong because it's a clone of Fruit which does not explain why it is so much stronger than Fruit.

There is evidence that he did it by standing on the shoulders of a giant and adding extras to the giant’s work. If that is the case, he was one of a number of people who chose to do the same. He would seem to have been slightly more successful than the others. One reason for that may be that he chose to earn an income from the project, rather than remain as an amateur, a decision that Thomas Gaksch took. Either way, if you want to claim that Rajlich deserves credit for exceptional improvement to Fruit, then you need to compare the strength of his engine to that of Toga, for example, not Fruit.

I am not usually interested in arguments about semantics. However, this one attracted my attention because it touched upon the teaching profession, something of which I was a member for over 30 years.

I was perceived by some as being rather good at my job and as a consequence I would receive plaudits and misplaced gratitude from parents of the pupils that I taught. I used to find such attention extremely embarrassing because I was simply providing a service for which I was paid. No pay, no service. As simple as that.

So you are arguing that you made no contribution to society and you are offended when someone compliments you for doing a good job because you know that you are not really interested in their welfare other than for purely selfish reasons. I would argue that in fact you are a horrible teacher then. Perhaps you were coldly efficient in the mechanics of your job, but I cannot see how any teacher can reach the hearts and minds of their students without actually caring about them. And I don't see how you can be so proud of that fact.

I'm just really glad I did not have any teachers like you. I have fond recollections of many teachers that genuinely cared, and even after I left school they would get visits from their former students, and they always welcomed those vistis - not out of vanity but because it was obvious that they really cared. You are a horrible example of a teacher even if you had some people fooled into thinking you were well qualified.

So you are not a good example of what I am saying about teachers or people who contribute to society. The kind of people I am talking about enjoy what they do for reasons that go beyond themselves. For example teachers who teach because it gives them satisfaction to help others - not because of the paycheck.

They myth that you and others here are trying to propagate is that somehow receiving a paycheck makes every good motive go away. Some people receive a paycheck because it's the only way they can support themselves and their families. Most full time teachers could not teach unless they received a paycheck.

There was a mixture of reasons why I decided to be good at my job, every one of them was self-centred. They all boiled down to one thing, I simply could not behave in the way in which I had decided to behave if there were chinks in my armour.

Rajlich is the same. He has made himself good at his job and his reason or reasons for doing so are both blindingly obvious and clearly self-centred.

It's good to hear someone finally admit that he is very good at chess programming. He probably hates doing it and chose this because he could not make any money doing anything else. Everyone knows all the money is in computer chess.

If you want to acknowledge the fact that, by standing on giant’s shoulders, he has turned himself into a competent programmer then that is your prerogative. Why you should want to offer him gratitude/respect for simply doing what was in his own interests is beyond me. Hyatt deserves gratitude/ respect, not Rajlich.

They all deserve respect. You have admitted that you don't deserve any respect and are embarrassed if someone dares try to give it because it makes you feel guilty.

However you diminish everyone including Bob Hyatt when you imply that everything anyone does is done out of selfishness and self-interest. Are you implying that other people do, just not you? Or are you implying that we are all driven by self-interest? If that is the case they you should not be holding up Hyatt or anyone else on a pedestal.

Let me put it this way. IF, that is what Vas did it was wrong. That would be his crime but this is not really what is being argued even though we want to make it seem like it is.

There is a great deal of dishonesty in this discussion because I seriously doubt most people REALLY cares if that happened or not. And even if it did happen, it's not why people are getting so excited.

That quote is from another of your posts. If he did infringe the GPL conditions, his veracity and business ethics leave something to be desired. One reason why you may not be particularly bothered about that could be because you didn’t suffer financially as a consequence. I wonder whether the authors of Shredder and Fritz are so laid back about it. Either way, it is not up to you to write the incident off, that is their prerogative.

You point to the beneficial effect that Vas has had on the CC community. If he did use GPL code improperly, his actions could have put the programmers of Fritz and Shredder out of business, something which would have been beneficial to Vas, but not the community as a whole.

[Albert Silver]

Because you are wrong? A contribution doesn't have to be charitable (free). A contribution is when something is added.

Maybe this will help:

Etymology of Contribution

Nothing is being added in a commercial exchange, unless the exchange is intentionally generous on one side. The idea of a contribution is one of giving, not receiving or transacting business. Don suggested that his sense of what he received in the exchange was so great from his POV, that it was more a gift than a transaction. But contributions are an act of giving, not a perception of receiving. Charities seek contributions. Commercial transactions are not contributions, obviously.

I think what we are seeing is latent Rybka groupie-ism. People are/were so delighted with it (after the long reign of Shredder) that it was though the Beatles had come to town. Superlatives soon lost all meaning. Adoring fans would have mortgaged their homes to have a private audience with the greater coder to convey their thanks for the privilige of purchasing such a treasure. Anyone who doesn't wince at the thought of all the fawning Rybka posts that used to paper this forum has lost all sense of proportion and decorum.

The half-life of this syndrome seems to be long. The idea that this product is actually a great and gracious contribution to computer chess makes a mockery of the forum(s) from whence it came in the first place, where ideas were exchanged freely. But the now-sainted programmer has yet to prophesy his second advent, at which time he may deign to shine a couple of photons of his glory to illuminate the shadows wherein the benighted code grinders of CCC struggle to solve their little two-banana problems.

Saints (real ones) preserve us from such obsequious political correctness.

I have no idea what you are talking about. I commented that the word contribution is not philanthropism, but means to add, thus Rybka, which is the subject here, has added to the field.

Your comment doesn't agree with the English definition.

It is odd that you cannot read what you yourself write, much less the dictionaries you quote from. So be it. I guess people see what they wish, even when it beats them over the head.

[K I Hyams]

So you are arguing that you made no contribution to society and you are offended when someone compliments you for doing a good job because you know that you are not really interested in their welfare other than for purely selfish reasons. I would argue that in fact you are a horrible teacher then. Perhaps you were coldly efficient in the mechanics of your job, but I cannot see how any teacher can reach the hearts and minds of their students without actually caring about them. And I don't see how you can be so proud of that fact.

I'm just really glad I did not have any teachers like you. I have fond recollections of many teachers that genuinely cared, and even after I left school they would get visits from their former students, and they always welcomed those vistis - not out of vanity but because it was obvious that they really cared. You are a horrible example of a teacher even if you had some people fooled into thinking you were well qualified.

So you are not a good example of what I am saying about teachers or people who contribute to society. The kind of people I am talking about enjoy what they do for reasons that go beyond themselves. For example teachers who teach because it gives them satisfaction to help others - not because of the paycheck.

They myth that you and others here are trying to propagate is that somehow receiving a paycheck makes every good motive go away. Some people receive a paycheck because it's the only way they can support themselves and their families. Most full time teachers could not teach unless they received a paycheck.

You do not appear to have read any Charles Dickens. If you have, it must have all gone over your head. Dickens was very adept at using “overstatement to make a point”. It is a commonly used literary device and I assumed that it was one with which you would be familiar, because most educated people are. One of our members, who is also familiar with Dickens, uses the technique frequently. Most of those to whom he addresses his comments recognise them for what they are

Whether you recognised the device or not, your post was a temper tantrum to end all temper tantrums!! Well, I didn’t expect a positive response to my post, it exposed too many faults in your arguments. However, I certainly didn’t expect you to throw your rattle out of your pram quite like that!

I wonder what your motivation was to write 4 consecutive paragraphs of irrelevant bile, unwarranted presumption and insults. One possibility is that it was an attempt to throw up a smokescreen in order to hide the fact that you had absolutely no answers whatsoever to the salient points that I made.

Whatever the reason, I have no intention of debating anything with a man who behaves like you do.

[mhull]

You have toothache and go to a dentist, and come out healed. Did the dentist contribute to your well-being? Apparently not, using your logic, because he got paid (probably a lot). It was just a commercial exchange, and nothing was added, right? Then why go do dentist in the first place, if nothing was gained from it?

"What did you do today?"
"Oh I received a contribution from the dentists"
"What charity are collecting for?"

We do not say that I received a contribution from a dentist or that a dentist made a contribution. People IMMEDIATELY think of charitable donation. Yours is an incorrect usage of the word contribution. I purchased some health care, or I received treatment. But the dentists didn't contribute to me because I paid a lot of money for his services.

If anyone is making a contribution to computer chess, he is giving something away gratis, or he is part of a team effort working on a project, contributing to that project as a team effort.

Creating your own secret project, copyrighting it, demanding payment for it and doing everything you can to prevent anyone from understanding how it works is not a contribution to computer chess. Sorry.

It looks like your interpretation of word "contribution" is very different from most of English-speaking population. If you want to be understood by others, you try to speak the same language they do. What you call "contribution", the rest of the world calls "donation".

They are synonyms. I notice none of you guys are citing a dictionary entries.

[Roger Brown]

[SNIP]
I wonder what your motivation was to write 4 consecutive paragraphs of irrelevant bile, unwarranted presumption and insults. One possibility is that it was an attempt to throw up a smokescreen in order to hide the fact that you had absolutely no answers whatsoever to the salient points that I made.

Whatever the reason, I have no intention of debating anything with a man who behaves like you do.

Hello K I Hyams,

Don't you dare feel at all special!!



Wait in line after me.

He accused me of saying, believing and feeling a ton of things in an earlier post.

I called him on it and the deafening silence is in itself fascinating.

I now have an a appreciation as to how some persons view with contempt and derision those who have a different view than they do. He keeps on saying he cannot take anything/anyone seriously who reasons/thinks/writes as a certain way (unlike his way in effect).

I respect his abilities as a programmer but as a person his obvious contempt for those who dare to disagree with, or even to question viewpoints he holds dear is revealing.

Those with different views are labelled with all sorts of terms but the supporters, who are no less vociferous, are curiously all logical, intelligent and morally correct.

Astonishing.

Later.