Fabien's open letter to the community

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yanquis1972
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Re: Fabien's open letter to the community

Post by yanquis1972 »

still dont give a damn (or see why i should) if vas took open source code & improved it by 100+ elo. whether he charged or not.

if houdini gets to that same level of superiority i would not have a problem shelling out for it. (i would hope houdart would lead a natural evolution back towards $50 engines though).
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Laskos
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Full name: Kai Laskos

Re: Fabien's open letter to the community

Post by Laskos »

yanquis1972 wrote:still dont give a damn (or see why i should) if vas took open source code & improved it by 100+ elo. whether he charged or not.

if houdini gets to that same level of superiority i would not have a problem shelling out for it. (i would hope houdart would lead a natural evolution back towards $50 engines though).
I was waiting for Rybka fanboys, they seem all asleep at this hour, but one still came here :lol:

Kai
yanquis1972
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Re: Fabien's open letter to the community

Post by yanquis1972 »

Laskos wrote:
yanquis1972 wrote:still dont give a damn (or see why i should) if vas took open source code & improved it by 100+ elo. whether he charged or not.

if houdini gets to that same level of superiority i would not have a problem shelling out for it. (i would hope houdart would lead a natural evolution back towards $50 engines though).
I was waiting for Rybka fanboys, they seem all asleep at this hour, but one still came here :lol:

Kai
how does that make me a rybka fanboy?? a lot of people seem to want to have it both ways. i feel like my ideas are pretty firm & consistent. i am a big advocate of houdart & houdini as well.

really sad everyone here is looking to divide the forum into lines which don't (or imo shouldn't) exist.
rbarreira
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Re: Fabien's open letter to the community

Post by rbarreira »

If a = b and b = c then ?
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Laskos
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Full name: Kai Laskos

Re: Fabien's open letter to the community

Post by Laskos »

yanquis1972 wrote:
Laskos wrote:
yanquis1972 wrote:still dont give a damn (or see why i should) if vas took open source code & improved it by 100+ elo. whether he charged or not.

if houdini gets to that same level of superiority i would not have a problem shelling out for it. (i would hope houdart would lead a natural evolution back towards $50 engines though).
I was waiting for Rybka fanboys, they seem all asleep at this hour, but one still came here :lol:

Kai
how does that make me a rybka fanboy?? a lot of people seem to want to have it both ways. i feel like my ideas are pretty firm & consistent. i am a big advocate of houdart & houdini as well.

really sad everyone here is looking to divide the forum into lines which don't (or imo shouldn't) exist.
Consistent what? One is selling his toy for 5 years by now, forbidding even a shadow of Houdini on places like Playchess (yes, they are banning even IP if you are a criminal using free Houdini), having deals with ChessOK and Chessbase, while Houdini is not even tested by some groups. And is free.

Consistent what?

Kai
Ant_Gugdin
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Re: Fabien's open letter to the community

Post by Ant_Gugdin »

Wow. I can't believe Fabien had just left computer chess for five years, with no idea about the claims being made about his engine. If he is unhappy about the possibility of Rybka being a Fruit derivative (as he seems to be - understandably), this completely changes the complexion of the Fruit/Rybka debate.

Vas could be in trouble if the claims about Fruit are true. There is a key difference between the Fruit-Rybka issue and the Rybka-Ippolit issue. If Vas were somehow able to track down the authors of Ippolit and successfully sue them, I don't see what remedy he would get apart from having Ippolit, Ivanhoe etc withdrawn from the internet and possibly some small amount of damages. Nobody has made money from Ippolit.

In contrast, Vas/ Chessbase clearly have made money from Rybka and that raises the question of whether Fabien could sue either or both of them for damages based on profits from Rybka (although I imagine it would be a very difficult case to run). And Chessbase would be very unhappy with Vas if they found out they had been carrying an illegitimate derivative engine in their store...
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michiguel
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Re: Fabien's open letter to the community

Post by michiguel »

Tord Romstad wrote:My good friend Fabien Letouzey, author of Fruit, asked me to post the following message for him:
Hello,

Long time no see.

First, I am not back to computer chess, sorry about that. I just want to clarify a few things. Sorry if that's old but there is some misunderstanding I need to fix, and I found out only yesterday. Bear in mind that I am mostly unaware of what has happened for five years though.

First there was the Strelka case. Dann approached me with some "Strelka" source code for me to check. I had never heard of it. I assumed it was some closed-source free engine and that people wanted to know whether it was based on the Fruit source code.

The short answer was "no", it was not a verbatim copy of the source code. All the code had been typed (can't say "designed" though, see below) by an individual. So legally there was no issue that I knew of. It was however a whole re-write (copy with different words if you like, similar to a translation) of the algorithms. Not just an extraction of a couple of ideas as is common, and normal.

That being said, some original changes and ideas were also included in the program. So it was, as has since been stated many times in fora I suppose, a bitboard re-write of Fruit with some personal (or otherwise) ideas. Also note that the source code Dann sent me might not be the from the 2.0 version.

Edit: I've just had a look at the 2.0 sources. On top of what I said above, there are many constant and function names that are identical to Fruit's. I remember noticing it back then as well.

Hope it helps, because my email answer to Dann was unusually short and cryptic even by my standards. And Dann, please next time make it clear when you want a public statement instead of a private opinion, thanks.

I want to point out something immediately: there was no mention of Rybka whatsoever. Indeed I was unaware of any relation between Strelka and Rybka, this is precisely what I learned only yesterday. I insist because it seems I have often been quoted about "not caring" about the (possible) Fruit/Rybka relationship, but this is not so. Strelka did not look like a problem because I assumed it was free.

Next, I was approached by Ryan (I think) and Christophe Theron about whether I could help with some "possible Fruit code inside Rybka" issues. I answered "yes, but how?", but did not get a reply. This did not make me really aware of a clone possibility however because I thought they were talking about some insignificant UCI-handling code or whatnot. Also this was several years after the initial Rybka release, and I guess quite a few people had a close look at it. Apparently Chrilly did?

Now if someone could tell me a bit more about the major events last five years and the current state of affairs, I'd be much obliged.
In 2006 Italy won the World Cup and in 2010 it was Spain.
It is difficult to analyze the current state of affairs, but Messi keeps scoring no matter what (except for the Argentine soccer team :evil: ).

Miguel

A few things I noticed yesterday, can you confirm?
- Rybka search info was obfuscated in some way (like displaying depth-3 or something), any pointers on details please?
- Vasik claimed that Strelka 2.0 is a clone of Rybka 1.0 (and you know what that would imply!)
- Zach Wegner found many Fruit ideas (and nearly identical code) in Rybka 1.0; I think someone else did, too
- Some even stronger open-source program appeared as a decompilation of Rybka (with own ideas, sounds familiar), what came up of looking at those?

Any questions, now is the one time to ask.

Thanks for your attention,

Fabien Letouzey.
Robert Flesher
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Re: Fabien's open letter to the community

Post by Robert Flesher »

The proverbial saying is, " The shit just hit the fan". Yikes :shock:


p.s

Also, and by the way, regarding all the endless debates I wasted my time on in the past regarding Vas being a liar, and Rybka's questionable origins. ..............


I WIN! :wink: <------------------
Robert Flesher
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Re: Fabien's open letter to the community

Post by Robert Flesher »

Ant_Gugdin wrote:Wow. I can't believe Fabien had just left computer chess for five years, with no idea about the claims being made about his engine. If he is unhappy about the possibility of Rybka being a Fruit derivative (as he seems to be - understandably), this completely changes the complexion of the Fruit/Rybka debate.

Vas could be in trouble if the claims about Fruit are true. There is a key difference between the Fruit-Rybka issue and the Rybka-Ippolit issue. If Vas were somehow able to track down the authors of Ippolit and successfully sue them, I don't see what remedy he would get apart from having Ippolit, Ivanhoe etc withdrawn from the internet and possibly some small amount of damages. Nobody has made money from Ippolit.

In contrast, Vas/ Chessbase clearly have made money from Rybka and that raises the question of whether Fabien could sue either or both of them for damages based on profits from Rybka (although I imagine it would be a very difficult case to run). And Chessbase would be very unhappy with Vas if they found out they had been carrying an illegitimate derivative engine in their store...

Fabian has implied that Strelka is Fruit, and Vas then inferred it by stating and claimed Stelka as his OWN ( copied Rybka). Fate has a cold sense of humor it would seem, amusing.
gerold
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Re: Fabien's open letter to the community

Post by gerold »

Tord Romstad wrote:My good friend Fabien Letouzey, author of Fruit, asked me to post the following message for him:
Hello,

Long time no see.

First, I am not back to computer chess, sorry about that. I just want to clarify a few things. Sorry if that's old but there is some misunderstanding I need to fix, and I found out only yesterday. Bear in mind that I am mostly unaware of what has happened for five years though.

First there was the Strelka case. Dann approached me with some "Strelka" source code for me to check. I had never heard of it. I assumed it was some closed-source free engine and that people wanted to know whether it was based on the Fruit source code.

The short answer was "no", it was not a verbatim copy of the source code. All the code had been typed (can't say "designed" though, see below) by an individual. So legally there was no issue that I knew of. It was however a whole re-write (copy with different words if you like, similar to a translation) of the algorithms. Not just an extraction of a couple of ideas as is common, and normal.

That being said, some original changes and ideas were also included in the program. So it was, as has since been stated many times in fora I suppose, a bitboard re-write of Fruit with some personal (or otherwise) ideas. Also note that the source code Dann sent me might not be the from the 2.0 version.

Edit: I've just had a look at the 2.0 sources. On top of what I said above, there are many constant and function names that are identical to Fruit's. I remember noticing it back then as well.

Hope it helps, because my email answer to Dann was unusually short and cryptic even by my standards. And Dann, please next time make it clear when you want a public statement instead of a private opinion, thanks.

I want to point out something immediately: there was no mention of Rybka whatsoever. Indeed I was unaware of any relation between Strelka and Rybka, this is precisely what I learned only yesterday. I insist because it seems I have often been quoted about "not caring" about the (possible) Fruit/Rybka relationship, but this is not so. Strelka did not look like a problem because I assumed it was free.

Next, I was approached by Ryan (I think) and Christophe Theron about whether I could help with some "possible Fruit code inside Rybka" issues. I answered "yes, but how?", but did not get a reply. This did not make me really aware of a clone possibility however because I thought they were talking about some insignificant UCI-handling code or whatnot. Also this was several years after the initial Rybka release, and I guess quite a few people had a close look at it. Apparently Chrilly did?

Now if someone could tell me a bit more about the major events last five years and the current state of affairs, I'd be much obliged.

A few things I noticed yesterday, can you confirm?
- Rybka search info was obfuscated in some way (like displaying depth-3 or something), any pointers on details please?
- Vasik claimed that Strelka 2.0 is a clone of Rybka 1.0 (and you know what that would imply!)
- Zach Wegner found many Fruit ideas (and nearly identical code) in Rybka 1.0; I think someone else did, too
- Some even stronger open-source program appeared as a decompilation of Rybka (with own ideas, sounds familiar), what came up of looking at those?

Any questions, now is the one time to ask.

Thanks for your attention,

Fabien Letouzey.
Thanks Tord for posting Fabien's message.

Best,
Gerold.