WCCC 2011 - Junior is the 2011 World Champion

[Terry McCracken]

Better than you could do, honestly.

There are other ways to get respected in life beside making the "original" chess program. I know this is unimaginable for some "programmers" on this forum, but I can't help them with that .

You're right, I should have taken advantage of this great opportunity 5 years ago! What was I thinking?

Oh...maybe you're talking about programming in another area? Say poker?

[Milos]

I don't follow your logic. I develop (which, as you might not know, is a bit different from 'maintain') WinBoard to satisfy my GUI needs, mainly research on evaluation of Chess pieces. Why do you think Chess programmers would be interested in 'my engine'?

None of course, but the real question is why do you "pack it up" with the GUI you "develop" (whose author you are not)? Yes other authors (and fans/users) do use your GUI, but who uses your engine? Fans? But you don't care about them? If you don't care about them why pack your engine?
Looks to me there is some desire to get some respect from fans, and now since that is not coming you get resigned and claim you don't care about them at all. Sour grapes...

[fern]

Of course...Are you working on it? I cannot wait to see your program...

Fern

[fern]

I cannot agree with you, Rolf, because your position assumes something that should be proved first: that a violation happened.
Before downgrading a sentence, you must first condemn the guy.
All the discussion here has not gone beyond this last point.
It only has gone very far in the sense that some people believe that ANY use of a previous piece of code, no matter how minimal, is a show of cloning and that that use is not dissipated by the fact that NEW and BETTER code has been added.

my best
to you
Fern

[Don]

Start your own competing organization then. No one's stopping you.

No I won't. Financial interest in the field is pathetic and I don't have an ego trip like most of "poor honest programmers". However, that won't stop me from criticizing a hypocritical competition with the completely fake title.

From your comments and the readings on the Ippolit site I get the sense that you are victim of propaganda. Vas is portrayed as a billionaire capitalist with enormous power and an Iron fist.

The truth of the matter is that chess has almost no respect in the US and the west in general. The average person does not know how to play the game and most people have ridiculous misconceptions about it. And it would be even worse if Bobby Fischer had not come along - now when you say "chess" the average person will often ask me, "what ever happened to Bobby Fischer?"

So there is no attention on chess, no money, no power. Our top players struggle to even make a living with chess and this is usually by given lessons.

If you choose to eke out a living with chess, it's just another profession, like being a construction worker or something. There is no guarantee you will even be able to make it doing chess and you certainly will not be wealthy.

The Ippo site reveals a lot of generalizations and cliches about the west that you have probably been taught since you were a kid in school that are either not true at all or wildly exaggerated.

All this whining from the clone-lovers is extraordinarily tiresome. Use whatever excuses you want to try and justify it, but in the end you're all just selfish people who think that the ends (having stronger programs) justify the means (allowing and accepting clones and illegal derivatives on the computer chess scene, even in the most prestigious tournaments). Its like saying "I want better medicines for myself (I mean, for the good of humanity!) so we should allow them to be tested on human slaves so that we can develop them more easily." Difference in degree maybe, but not in kind.

You guys keep advancing every argument you can think of for why we should allow cloners to steal the hard work of honest programmers, then you turn around and complain when those honest programmers object to this, and you try to paint THEM (the victims) as the bad guys. It makes me sick.

You are the one who is whining, however you didn't present any counterargument which speaks volumes about the position you are "defending"...

[fern]

Right on target, Don. But I believe those people in that site does not talk seriously. All is kind of a joke as his own "decembrist" name show it.
Now, if he DO seriously talk of millionaires in chess, then they are really imbecile.

Fern

[Milos]

The truth of the matter is that chess has almost no respect in the US and the west in general. The average person does not know how to play the game and most people have ridiculous misconceptions about it. And it would be even worse if Bobby Fischer had not come along - now when you say "chess" the average person will often ask me, "what ever happened to Bobby Fischer?"

So there is no attention on chess, no money, no power. Our top players struggle to even make a living with chess and this is usually by given lessons.

If you choose to eke out a living with chess, it's just another profession, like being a construction worker or something. There is no guarantee you will even be able to make it doing chess and you certainly will not be wealthy.

The Ippo site reveals a lot of generalizations and cliches about the west that you have probably been taught since you were a kid in school that are either not true at all or wildly exaggerated.

I am pretty aware of all this, and agree with you, just don't know why you think I understand seriously things on the Ippo site (regarding politics, money and their motives, programming is a different issue)?
Chess is hardly a profitable profession for GMs and even less for chess programmers. Vas had a specific status and was enough for him for comfortable living but the only financial influence he could made was through free copies of Rybka. Chessbase on the other hand is a different story...

[M ANSARI]

I would like it in a tourn against the engines that all know are the strongest, cloned or not.

That's like wanting to see clean athletes compete against doping athletes.

God ... I can't believe you can even possibly equate this to doping !!! Really you guys must be going a little crazy. Face reality and progress. If there is nothing legally wrong with an engine, please do not equate that to doping ... something which is definetely illegal and very harmful to your health.

[hgm]

None of course, but the real question is why do you "pack it up" with the GUI you "develop" (whose author you are not)? Yes other authors (and fans/users) do use your GUI, but who uses your engine? Fans? But you don't care about them? If you don't care about them why pack your engine?
Looks to me there is some desire to get some respect from fans, and now since that is not coming you get resigned and claim you don't care about them at all. Sour grapes...

It seems you misjudge the situation. (Big surprise... ) The engine is not packed with the GUI, but the GUI is packed with the engine. Because it is the only available GUI that could run it, (it was especially adapted so), and playing engines from the command-line in WB protocol is something I would not even wish upon you. So people that want the engine would inevitably need the GUI, and packing them separately would serve no other purpose than to make life harder on them. For the same reason I pack the WinBoard Alien Edition with Nebiyu.

I supply the engine because there is interest in it, and I am not the kind of person that jealously tries to deny others things I have that could benefit them. But it was primarily developed as a research tool.

I thought it was well known that Tim Mann was the principal author of WinBoard (although the origins section in the help file suggests that he was also not the original author, but ported an early XBoard version written by others). I never really made an attempt to quantify how much of the current code is from his hand, and how much from mine.

I coudn't care less whether people respect me or not. Let them hate me, as long as they pay me, as Caligula used to say...

[Don]

I cannot agree with you, Rolf, because your position assumes something that should be proved first: that a violation happened.

The problem is that there is no proof that will meet the standards of unreasonable people. The top programmers (in some cases the top people in the entire world of computer science) all agreed unanimously that a violation occurred but then a few people (such as you, no disrespect intended) who have no clue about computer science pretend to be superior judges of what happened.

If you look at local skirmishes such as Ireland's Catholics vs Protestants you see that when a killing takes place, it's either a senseless immoral murder, or it's justified righteous retribution and the only difference is who's side you are on and who did the killing.

So there is no standard of proof that would ever make sense to you or anyone else who is predisposed to a given belief.

Before downgrading a sentence, you must first condemn the guy.
All the discussion here has not gone beyond this last point.
It only has gone very far in the sense that some people believe that ANY use of a previous piece of code, no matter how minimal, is a show of cloning and that that use is not dissipated by the fact that NEW and BETTER code has been added.

Over the years a lot of the very best and top programs have shared and used the same ideas and yet there has been NO conflict. The Richard Lang programs for a while were more dominant that Rybka was just 3 or 4 years ago. Nobody ever made any accusations. You have to ask yourself, what is different here? The answer is so obvious that I feel I am trying to explain 2 + 2 to a child here.

You can put this into perspective simply by asking the question, why bother starting with someone else's program? Why couldn't Vas have simply started from scratch and honored the rules? Did the copying give him a huge advantage or not? If it did not give him an advantage then why did he bother? If it DID give him a big advantage then you have admit that he made a profit off of someone else's hard work.

There is something here that is rather funny. There are some here supporting both Ippo and Rybka, Some that condem both Ippo and Rybka. But Rybka condemns Ippo and Ippo thinks that Rybka is an evil capitalist and code thief. So the people you are supporting are at war with each other and apparently there is NO honor among thieves. They don't even have a consistent philosophy among themselves and they certainly don't agree with anything you have to say on this, as they are both contemptuous of anyone who would steal code (and accuse each other of it) and yet they have your loyalty and support.

The Ippo people, or at least Milos seems to be jealous and contemptuous of Junior's title and thinks that Junior should not have been shown any honor for the win. They don't respect anyone but themselves and they have the over-inflated EGO's.

If you look at the "real" authors you will see there is no such infighting among them. I'm not saying there has never been a single conflict, but in general we show great respect for each other and do not show the pettiness that is often ascribed to us. When I lost the world championship in Hong Kong as runner up I drank a beer with the winner and we are friends to this day. I have won and lost to most of them and it did not prevent our friendships. We shared program techniques and I have told people things to improve their programs as they have also done for me.

I happen to agree with you about one point. I am much less strict in my interpretation of what Plagiarism is. I don't think copying 1 line of code meets that standard but of course 1 line of code could be ridiculously trivial or pack a lot of punch. The FSF probably would not agree with on this, but I am more forgiving - the ONLY serious concern for me is the wholesale rip-off of a an entire program or major parts of it. No matter how liberal I might be about this I can tell the difference when a program plays the same moves with the same score and PV as another program and yet represents itself as an original program.

I also don't care if the author manages to find 50 or 100 ELO to add to someone else's program, it's STILL someone else's program copied without that someone else's permission. You show a general disrespect for them to not consider their feelings. Sometimes we have to sacrifice the rights of the individual for the greater good but most progressive societies recognize that this can EASILY get out of hand and it surprises me that you are so willing to go down the path of this kind of oppression. We will take it from him because he doesn't deserve it.

I don't think this is your intention, but this trait is shared with the most oppressive tyrants in history. It's the excuse used to persecute people, that they stand in the way of needs of the state and that the greater good is served by limiting the rights of the individual.

my best
to you
Fern