Hi Tord,
Tord Romstad wrote:Thomas Mayer wrote:And, of course, the source isn't opened of GridChess which is definitely against the GPL rules in Fruit / Toga.
You make some good points, but your claim above is incorrect: As long as you keep your modified version of a GPL program private, the GPL does not force you to make the source code public. The GPL only says that
if you send the modfied program to somebody else, you also have to give them the full source code, and the right to distribute the program and the source code to their friends, and/or making it available as a free download.
There is nothing in the GPL which stops you from entering a computer chess tournament with a private, modified version of a GPLed chess program. On the other hand, the rules of most tournaments don't allow it, but that's a different question entirely.
I am not that sure about it, Tord. It is a good rule in the GPL that you can do IN PRIVAT whatever you want with the original source - simply because nobody can control that. BUT when you enter a PUBLIC tournament it isn't PRIVAT anymore as far as I understand this. But of course this would be something for a lawyer to decide this and computer chess is really not important enough to annoy the courts with it...
But of course there is more, I may quote some lines of the Crafty source:
* Crafty, copyright 1996-2001 by Robert M. Hyatt, Ph.D., Associate Professor *
* of Computer and Information Sciences, University of Alabama at Birmingham. *
* *
* All rights reserved. No part of this program may be reproduced in any *
* form or by any means, for other than your personal use, without the *
* express written permission of the author. This program may not be used in *
* whole, nor in part, to enter any computer chess competition without *
* written permission from the author. Such permission will include the *
* requirement that the program be entered under the name "Crafty" so that *
* the program's ancestry will be known. *
* *
* Copies of the source must contain the original copyright notice intact. *
* *
* Any changes made to this software must also be made public to comply with *
* the original intent of this software distribution project. These *
* restrictions apply whether the distribution is being done for free or as *
* part or all of a commercial product. The author retains sole ownership *
* and copyright on this program except for 'personal use' explained below. *
IMO this is pretty clear...
Tord Romstad wrote:By the way: When it is opened I may take it then for next WCCC???
I don't know the rules of the WCCC well enough to be sure, but in my opinion, it is no big deal. If you don't like the WCCC rules, just don't participate. There are plenty of other tournaments to choose from, especially here in Europe. It's probably a good thing that different tournaments have different rules about what kind of programs they allow, in order to keep everybody happy.
most tournaments are held according to the ICGA. Well let's take a look into the ICGA rules:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
2. Each program must be the original work of the entering developers. Programming teams whose code is derived from or including game-playing code written by others must name all other authors, or the source of such code, in their submission details. Programs which are discovered to be close derivatives of others (e.g., by playing nearly all moves the same), may be declared invalid by the Tournament Director after seeking expert advice. For this purpose a listing of all game-related code running on the system must be available on demand to the Tournament Director.
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So formal there might be a way that Gridchess plays there. But I wonder what is the spirit of that rule ? I doubt that they had something like GridChess in mind here... Again, if they allow this I wonder why they disqualified this italien engine last year. To me it's pretty clear that just because they didn't get enough entrants (and they might have sold again an eleven rounds tournament) they try to get more participants even with accepting that the spirit of the tournament is killed. There would be definitely an easier way: just offer something to the amateurs like free hotel, free flight or whatever and you mustn't care about number of participants.
Greets, Thomas
