Fabien's open letter to the community

[Watchman]

I never had the impression there were much people in computer chess concerned about morals. The interesting thing is if it is legal or not. (This, not much people care about either )

Hi Gian,

There are still a few of us around that do care about both.

[michiguel]

In the data you sent me before, Glaurung is closer to Fruit than R1 or Strelka to Fruit, which makes me doubt of the "stylistic" relationship between R1 or S to F. In Adam's data and Michael Hart's, when they included more engines, the relation between S and F fell apart. More engines got in between (but I am saying this without checking details). I always saw distinct branches.

Of course, this does not mean absence of cloning or confirmation of it (the material tables may be a dominant factor in changing the "style" of the engine) but I am not sure we can say Strelka's style is close to Fruit more than Glaurung's.

It is very clear, Strelka's "style" is w/o question Rybka's.

Miguel

Using my data, in your tree (not the dendrite), Fruit appears as an isolated engine, which, I am sorry to say, is unlikely, Fruit being an inspiration to many.

That is because you did not include more engines. When you do, Strelka and Fruit fall in complete difference branches.

For instance, I just found:
http://www.talkchess.com/forum/viewtopi ... =&start=83

Miguel

We are using different clustering methods, for now I trust my graph better, all obvious things are confirmed, and there are some surprises too (you know ).

Disregarding this,

The fact is, my point (1) stands, _therefore_ it is up to Fabien to make claims about the relation between Strelka and Fruit (with implications on Rybka 1.0 Beta).

Kai

[jwes]

There is no way of knowing wether or not the code has its origin in a decompile or if its a rewrite. Its possible to write code that looks exactly like a decompile.

Indeed. Like it is possible to write code that looks exactly like the original. But it would be a bit stupid to do either of that, as it would be a way to make sure the original copyrights still apply to it. The mechanism by which you actually produce the copy is irrelevant. What is relevant is how much it looks like the original.

If decompiling produces the exact same output as rewriting it then you need to explain why decompiling is cloning while rewriting is not. Both are clearly cloning in my opinion, both are at least derivatives

By 'output' you mean here 'moves it makes', as opposed to the binary output from the compiler? This has been a well-fought battle in the software industry. If I write an operating system that requires exactly the same input as Unix, and gives us the same output on it, would it be a violation of the AT&T copyrights on it? The answer is an unequivocal 'no'. Hence we have Linux...

JUST so long as there is _no_ AT&T sys V unix source included. This has happened a few times in the Linux past, and code was completely rewritten to solve the problem... It is not always clear whether code was written by AT&T or by users, after a long time elapses. But AT&T has a memory like an elephant.

It has been a long time since ATT transfered the copyrights on Unix. So far the courts have ruled that Novell owns the copyrights but SCO is appealing. SCO has some interesting legal theories about software copyright which could make almost any derivation from copyrighted source a copyright violation, but if they cannot prove they own the copyrights to Unix, it becomes moot. I might compare SCO to an animal, but it would not be an elephant.

[Xann]

Anyone remembers this or knows who "duncan" is?

Apparently Duncan was quoting Rick Fadden :
http://www.talkchess.com/forum/viewtopi ... t&start=30

Anyone remembers this thread or knows who Rick Fadden is?

Fabien.

[Ryan Benitez]

I took a brief at look at Fruit v2.1.2 and compared it to Strelka 2.0, there are many differences though.

* Strelka is all bitboard Fruit is not.
* Strelka has multiple specialized search routines for check and null windows, Fruit does not.
* Evaluation and move selection looks quite different.

Looks are not so important.

Several experts that possibly don't want to be mentioned plus myself concluded that Strelka contains a large amount of Fruit algorithms.
Ryan, however, did not see Fruit in Strelka.
Anthony concluded that it was perhaps a modified version of Fritz 5.
Anthony is most certainly an expert.

How are these differences possible?
It's because I, and I assume some others as well, look "through" the code all the way to what it computes (the mathematical function that the code implements).
And we compare what Strelka computes with what Fruit computes.
"What", not "how".
And we find a match.

Bob, does this makes sense to you?

Fabien.

I only cared about GPL violations. That is the only thing that the FSF can do anything about.

[Ovyron]

About Vas' statement of Fabien's agreement:

May be my memory fails, but was not in Vas' interview by Alan (also known as Banned For Life)?
Unfortunately I'm now unable to find the interview in the forum. Maybe somebody saved it...

BFL never interviewed Vas, it was Nelson Hernandez. Here's a transcript of the interview:

http://rybkaforum.net/mwf/rybkaattach/2 ... ewW031.doc

[AdminX]

About Vas' statement of Fabien's agreement:

May be my memory fails, but was not in Vas' interview by Alan (also known as Banned For Life)?
Unfortunately I'm now unable to find the interview in the forum. Maybe somebody saved it...

BFL never interviewed Vas, it was Nelson Hernandez. Here's a transcript of the interview:

http://rybkaforum.net/mwf/rybkaattach/2 ... ewW031.doc

Yes, Here was my reply to M.

I think too much is being made about Rybka 1.0 beta and since that was free, I don't see it as a big deal

Not all Versions of Rybka 1 were a free beta. Vas himself said that later versions of Rybka 1 were Commercial. You can here him say so in this Nelson Hernandez video. (About 14:30 minutes into the video)

http://chessok.com/download/A%20Convers ... ajlich.wmv

also posted here

http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforu ... ?tid=14546

[Christopher Conkie]

And so what will you do? (and I don't mean you specifically Chan), I mean you or anybody else? I for one will continue to use Fabian's Go programs if that's helpful?

Where will you "go"? (As Mr Berliner once told me)

Hi Christopher,

I remember your name, but not sure about the topic.
Was it Arena?

What Go programs?

You talked to Berliner?!!!

Fabien.

Hello Fabian,

Yes it was/is Arena back then along with Alexander Schmidt. The go old days of Toga and Patriot (come back please, all is forgiven)

The reference to Go is a play on words only because of what he said to me. He said that Go was more interesting than Chess as an exercise in AI programming. That Chess was a dead end. I'm starting to believe him. Next we will probably get Go clones.

Anyway.....to fill in the gaps.......

Here is the famous Strelka thread that I remember......

http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforu ... l?tid=1655

There is also this.......

http://www.talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=30245

And this......

http://www.talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=30219

It's a funny thing.....I used to remember more links but I'm cured now.



Chris

[Sylwy]

See that telescope he has? It might come in handy looking for another planet to relocate on.......
So what planet do you think for Robert?
Surely there is one that supports methane breathers somewhere?
I'm just trying to be helpful of course......dinnae want the wee man tae perish......know what ay mean?

Jawohl !

Here's Herr Robert ( together with his uber secret source code number 1.5a ) walking to Uranus (copyrighted image !) :



Walking to Pluto regards ,

S

[Milos]

Hi Fabian,
Nice to have you back, at least in order to clarify the issues.

I hope you'll have time to revise the following detailed compendium that was very professionally prepared by BB and contains his own findings and findings of Zach W.
IMHO it speaks volumes.

http://www.open-chess.org/download/file.php?id=219