bob wrote:
The houdini issue has been shown with 100% clarity on open-chess. Direct comparison of houdini ASM vs Robolito ASM. Zero doubt.
Thanks, I don't visit that forum.
But that is not a comparison of original source code. I'm pedantic I know in only accepting original source code comparisons as the truth, but that is my right. If other people are happy with ASM, good for them.
I'll take your word for it without looking, but I bet there is no original Houdini source code compared to it side by side..
Edit: but all said and done, I just don't care about this. If Robert did use Robbo as a stating point, good on him. It is often smart not to re-invent the wheel. Of course some authors gain no satisfaction from studying or using other code, and do want to to everything from scratch. All credit to them also.
Ray, I agree with you on some of that, but firstly, no cloner shows their source code, and thus we cannot compare the original source. With your requirements, no engine could ever be "proved" a clone/derivative. In fact I could produce a new clone of Ivanhoe in 5 minutes and claim it as my own - since you can't see the original source code, is it not a clone?
How sure are you that Houdini did not start from Robbolito? If you are not sure, as you indicate, please do not argue that way. Furthermore, you said you did not care - but do you not think we should encourage honesty? RH deserves credit but he should be honest about the origins of his engine.
Jerry
Jerry, you are way too smart to be saying this. You then put Robert in a "lose-lose" situation. He can't win. He is being goaded into showing the code of his commercial engine to others. Go ahead- produce a clone of Ivanhoe in 5 minutes. But remember- it has to be a clone that can win 9 of every 10 games against the Ivanhoe it came from. Short of that- you haven't proved or accomplished zero.
gts
George, I am not putting RH into a lose-lose situation. All I ask is for him to be honest about the origins of his engines, it is obvious he started from Robbolito. I do not want to see his source code released, there would just be a lot of Houdini clones.
I agree with you about producing a _stronger_ Ivanhoe (or Robbolito, etc.). If I could I would, and I also agree that RH deserves a lot of credit for his work. If RH would just be honest - the matter is proven - I would have no problem at all here.
jd1 wrote:
I agree with you about producing a _stronger_ Ivanhoe (or Robbolito, etc.). If I could I would, and I also agree that RH deserves a lot of credit for his work. If RH would just be honest - the matter is proven - I would have no problem at all here.
Jerry
Whether it is proven or not is a matter of opinion, depending on what level of proof that you require in order to start calling someone a liar.
jd1 wrote:
I agree with you about producing a _stronger_ Ivanhoe (or Robbolito, etc.). If I could I would, and I also agree that RH deserves a lot of credit for his work. If RH would just be honest - the matter is proven - I would have no problem at all here.
Jerry
Whether it is proven or not is a matter of opinion, depending on what level of proof that you require in order to start calling someone a liar.
A matter of opinion? Don't think so. It's pretty obvious.
jd1 wrote:
I agree with you about producing a _stronger_ Ivanhoe (or Robbolito, etc.). If I could I would, and I also agree that RH deserves a lot of credit for his work. If RH would just be honest - the matter is proven - I would have no problem at all here.
Jerry
Whether it is proven or not is a matter of opinion, depending on what level of proof that you require in order to start calling someone a liar.
A matter of opinion? Don't think so. It's pretty obvious.
Exactly! Ray, I respect you highly, but in this case the evidence is really overwhelming. Complete consensus among programmers, and legally it is beyond "reasonable" doubt, not a matter of opinion. You can shut your eyes to the evidence if you wish but this attitude hurts computer chess. So please think about it and reconsider
jd1 wrote:
Exactly! Ray, I respect you highly, but in this case the evidence is really overwhelming. Complete consensus among programmers, and legally it is beyond "reasonable" doubt, not a matter of opinion. You can shut your eyes to the evidence if you wish but this attitude hurts computer chess. So please think about it and reconsider
Best wishes,
Jerry
No need to reconsider. There is zero evidence based on comparison of original source code. After the Rybka investigation debacle, that is the only evidence I accept. What he did or didn't do I don't know, but the point is that it is irrelevant to the vast majority of Houdini customers. And Chessbase clearly have no concerns about it. So learn to live with it
Don wrote:So if you did not solicit the idea and someone like Richard publishes it, then you are in good conscience free to use it, right? But if I pump Richard for this information then I would be guilty. In other words, once the cat is out of the bag and it becomes common knowledge, there is not much the original creator of the idea can do except go after the one who revealed it and/or anyone else involved actively in the quest. Did I get that right?
Yes, you got it right.
Don wrote:But what if I have a truly revolutionary idea that will add 100 ELO to any program and for example Richard or someone reverse engineers the idea and then publishes it on a web site or forum and it becomes common knowledge. Your last paragraph implies that this is the same as a patent, than nobody can use (even if they independently come up with the idea on their own) because the author can "prove" it was not published prior. So I don't see how anything I said was wrong.
Here, we were talking of an idea never expressed before and then published in the open after reverse-engineering: the person doing that is guilty. If, yourself, you got the same idea independently and had it in your program already, there is nothing that can be reproached to you (you could produce your sources in court to prove you had this idea for a while, if you were challenged to do so.)*
For patents it is different: if two inventors get the same invention independently, only the one who will patent it first (and providing that this invention has never been disclosed anywhere before) will get a patent for it... If you try to patent the same invention, fruit of your work, the day after, you won't get granted a patent... and will have to get a license from the other inventor. Dura lex sed lex.
*Note anyway that copyright don't protect ideas (ideas aren't protected, not by the copyright, nor by patents, only their realization, embodiment, is), but the source code.
That is a technicality however with patents. Usually the idea IS the realization so for all practical purposes the idea is protected, at least in many cases. For example if there is only one feasible way to do something and you figure it out then your idea is HOW to realize the process and so you patent it. You can say that only the "realization" of the idea is protected and that nobody is actually forbidden from having the same idea and that might be technically correct, but you are not allowed to do anything with that. Imagine that you had knowledge of how to save someones life but was forbidden to actually use that knowledge. Saying that you were not forbidden to have the knowledge would not be very comforting to the ones losing their dead loved one because you couldn't use your knowledge.
So the prohibition of disclosing ideas from reverse-engineering doesn't come from intellectual-property but more from criminal law and business law notions. (I'm just telling this for the sake of being exact.) Reverse engineering of program is only allowed in two cases:
- it is allowed to the USER (not the competitor), for the sake of understanding the program (and only if this is not documented). And of course, disclosing his findings is forbidden.
- to the competitor for interoperability. A typical example is Open-Office foundation Reverse-engineering Word's file format, for inter-operability. Same thing for communication interfaces.
So the reverse-engineerer disclosing such ideas wouldn't be guilty on the ground of intellectual property but on the ground of criminal law and business law.
Thanks Julian. It's nice to have someone with real legal expertise on the forum!
jd1 wrote:
Exactly! Ray, I respect you highly, but in this case the evidence is really overwhelming. Complete consensus among programmers, and legally it is beyond "reasonable" doubt, not a matter of opinion. You can shut your eyes to the evidence if you wish but this attitude hurts computer chess. So please think about it and reconsider
Best wishes,
Jerry
No need to reconsider. There is zero evidence based on comparison of original source code. After the Rybka investigation debacle, that is the only evidence I accept.
Which means, you will NEVER accept any evidence - of course RH is not going to show his code. Fortunately most here are reasonable enough to accept this evidence, which as I stated is legally beyond "reasonable" doubt. However, the one who has to learn to live with his dishonesty (and Robodini!) is Robert Houdart. Nevertheless, we won't make much progress here I fear, so let's end the debate here. Who knows, we may agree in a year's time
http://chessengines.wordpress.com/2013/01/30/robodini/ wrote:We got a hack of Houdini 3. The community is puffed up. For me it is time to recall the roots of Houdini: Houdini is a clone of RobboLito. RobboLito is a derivative of Ippolit. Ippolit was supposed to be a hacked version of Rybka. Rybka started as Fruit…
