Robodini Q&A

[Lavir]

Please cite or provide a link to any admission by Robert that he started from Robbolito source.

Thanks in advance.

Sadly I cannot find the link. However I remember clearly a discussion between Ed and Robert where Ed said that Rybka shared similarity with Fruit code but with a million of subtle differences that made it almost completely different, and Robert said that it was exactly the case with Houdini and Robbo; i.e. that the base is shared but the differences are so much that it is as all another product in the end.

[rvida]

Oddly you failed to mention in your Q&A that for over 18 months you've had access to the RE Houdini 1.5 sources provided by Jury Osipov, and that this most certainly is 100 times more relevant for RE'ing Houdini 3 than your quoting some unknown Robbolito sources...

You were misinformed (if not outright speculating). Only thing I ever received from Jury Osipov were Strelka3 sources (=RE Rybka3) which are totally unrelated to Houdini. I never saw the sources of newer Strelkas nor any other RE sources of Houndini.

[zullil]

Please cite or provide a link to any admission by Robert that he started from Robbolito source.

Thanks in advance.

Sadly I cannot find the link. However I remember clearly a discussion between Ed and Robert where Ed said that Rybka shared similarity with Fruit code but with a million of subtle differences that made it almost completely different, and Robert said that it was exactly the case with Houdini and Robbo; i.e. that the base is shared but the differences are so much that it is as all another product in the end.

OK. Perhaps someone else recalls this and can provide a link.

[Modern Times]

It seems to me some double moral standards are at work here.

I could not agree more. People like Robert H are portrayed as villains. Let's assume Robert started with Ippo source, and has improved it by nearly 150 Elo, and even more on big hardware. He is a villain. Other authors pillage Ippo source code, pillage stockfish source code, and use ideas and modified code in their own engines. They are original engine heroes !! And in the case of Ippo, assuming that it started off life as some reverse engineered Rybka, is proprietary code that those original engine heroes were never meant to see, but they seem to have no moral objection to pillaging it. And those same original engine heroes, on their moral high ground, would have no problem in wanting to get details of Richard's reverse engineered Houdini closed proprietray source code.

Computer chess is a real mess now, of that there is no doubt.

In terms of Houdini, what are the facts ? Saying something is a fact doesn't make it so. Show me original Houdini source code side by side with Ippo source code. Then we will see the facts. And while we are at it, let's also get some other commercial engine original sources and compare them too. I wonder what we would find. Maye something, maybe nothing.

[zullil]

It seems to me some double moral standards are at work here.

In terms of Houdini, what are the facts ? Saying something is a fact doesn't make it so. Show me original Houdini source code side by side with Ippo source code. Then we will see the facts.

Perhaps Robert will provide us with his source code.

[Modern Times]

Perhaps Robert will provide us with his source code.

It would be nice, but I certainly wouldn't in his position...

[lucasart]

Perhaps Robert will provide us with his source code.

It would be nice, but I certainly wouldn't in his position...

I certainly wouldn't want that to happen. It would open another can of worms, and we'd see plenty of cheap Houdini rip-offs.

Besides, I think that Robert deserves some respect for his achievement, which is to improve the Robbolito code base by that much. There are hundreds of clone of Ippolit family, most of which are *weaker* than the original. Typically these cheap engines are coded by clueless people who don't know what they are doing and made a few trivial modifications to the eval of the search here or there and didn't do any proper testing. I really don't want the same idiots to parade around with their new Houdini rip-off.

We just want him to come clean, and stop dodging. Just to admit that Houdini started as Robbolito, and say which version. But somehow I doubt he will do it, and it is also likely that this code base is not public domain but GPL (see the many elements on that provided by Norman Schmidt).

[Rebel]

Show me original Houdini source code side by side with Ippo source code.

http://74.220.23.57/forum/viewtopic.php ... kingwhite1

[velmarin]

Show me original Houdini source code side by side with Ippo source code.

http://74.220.23.57/forum/viewtopic.php ... kingwhite1

Hi Ed, almost always you put a link, it takes me to the home of TalkChess,
with other people does not pass.

Okay the link?

Thank you.

[JuLieN]

Show me original Houdini source code side by side with Ippo source code.

http://74.220.23.57/forum/viewtopic.php ... kingwhite1

Hi Ed, almost always you put a link, it takes me to the home of TalkChess,
with other people does not pass.

Okay the link?

Thank you.

It works if you replace the IP address in the url with Talkchess' domain name

http://www.talkchess.com/forum/viewtopi ... kingwhite1