Rybka 1.0 vs. Strelka

[trojanfoe]

Trouble is that there's a fine line between discussion and character assassination.

Well if you were a moderator here you certainly know more about the charter than me, but you have mentioned above that the charter prohibits allegation and liable. I guess there is allegation in this thread, but I cannot see how liable comes into play. Bob has already covered the aspects of liable more than well enough, several pages back in this thread, but it's not so clear about the allegation. I don't think anyone other than the supporters of Rybka have mentioned the author's name in this thread, but the allegation is still implied as everyone know's who the author of Rybka is.

Therefore if the charter states 'no allegation' then isn't it impossible to discuss issues of cloning in this forum in any form?

Cheers,
Andy

[Graham Banks]

Thanks for your helpful response

I've made the moderation position extremely clear in the announce "discussion is fine, libel is not". We've taken action in a previous clone thread which resulted in a blackmail attempt against moderators and a continuing spamming of moderator private email addresses, continuing to this day. Almost daily moderators are attacked by some of those whose nose was put out of joint at the time, despite our strenuous efforts to be as reasonable and fair as possible at that time.

In this case we have taken action to reduce and eliminate the libellous content of the threads without destroying the essential content of what is being discussed. Getting the balance of this right is extremely difficult, made more so by the 24 hour continuing nature of the threads - there's a lot of material being produced.

As previously stated, I contacted Vas early on. His position is pretty much the same as mine. Discussion on these issues is ok as long as we have ground rules (we do) and the forum operates as a medium for balanced debate (it does). Some posters are probably sliping into libel territory now and again vis a vis clone accusations. Since you bring the topic up as a form of complaint, I'll treat it as a complaint and we'll get more vigorous with the pro-active moderation policy.

Thanks.

Although some won't like me saying it, I think that the CCC mods are doing a good job under the circumstances.
I thought your posted stance on the issue was clear and fair.

Cheers, Graham.

[Graham Banks]

Therefore if the charter states 'no allegation' then isn't it impossible to discuss issues of cloning in this forum in any form?

Cheers,
Andy

Theoretically I guess so, not that I necessarily agree with that.
"Discussion is fine, libel is not" is the stance that the current moderation team has taken, and I think that is fair to everybody.

Cheers, Graham.

[chrisw]

Therefore if the charter states 'no allegation' then isn't it impossible to discuss issues of cloning in this forum in any form?

Cheers,
Andy

Theoretically I guess so, not that I necessarily agree with that.
"Discussion is fine, libel is not" is the stance that the current moderation team has taken, and I think that is fair to everybody.

Cheers, Graham.

Given the weight of material produced, I would encourage readers to report cases of potential libel using the ! icon.

[trojanfoe]

Therefore if the charter states 'no allegation' then isn't it impossible to discuss issues of cloning in this forum in any form?

Cheers,
Andy

Theoretically I guess so, not that I necessarily agree with that.
"Discussion is fine, libel is not" is the stance that the current moderation team has taken, and I think that is fair to everybody.

Cheers, Graham.

It's an important point though; we are discussing the possible violation of a license agreement (the GPL) within a forum environment that prohibits 'accusation'. Seems to me that it's like the pot calling the kettle black in some ways (although I see the violation of the GPL as being 'more important' that the violation of a forum charter).

Don't get me wrong, I am interested in seeing this issue discussed and if it came to it, would support any action taken to resolve the possible GPL violation. This forum also seems to be the best place on the internet to discuss it, given the member's depth of knowledge and experience in the subject; it's just that the forum charter seems to prohibit such discussion, which is a shame given the popularity within chess programming of cloning other's work. The charter doesn't seem the fit in this regard.

Cheers,
Andy

[Rolf]

Trouble is that there's a fine line between discussion and character assassination.

Well if you were a moderator here you certainly know more about the charter than me, but you have mentioned above that the charter prohibits allegation and liable. I guess there is allegation in this thread, but I cannot see how liable comes into play. Bob has already covered the aspects of liable more than well enough, several pages back in this thread, but it's not so clear about the allegation. I don't think anyone other than the supporters of Rybka have mentioned the author's name in this thread, but the allegation is still implied as everyone know's who the author of Rybka is.

Therefore if the charter states 'no allegation' then isn't it impossible to discuss issues of cloning in this forum in any form?

Cheers,
Andy

That's an interesting aspect.

Like usual also here (although only the so called general part of CCC, there is also a strict programmer part) the famous names have a sort of implied advantage with what they say. This however leads to something bad, if these famous names basically had motives to start an odd campaign, flame war to qualify it for what it is.

But in such a case there will hopefully exist opponents who describe the weaknesses in the casmpaign. So that in the end the balance is saved again and the so heavily asttacked is mainly white-washed and with the exclusive PR all the time he stands better than without that evil campaign.

BTW the evil was to be foreseen. Apart fdrom Bob who stands above all here for good reasons, the two main pretenders have a dubious standing themselves which could let expect that the campaign must fail. In the long run of several threads it was for example taken against Vas that he would obfuscate the output to, and that was a clear personal accusation, to veil his own cheating in his code, you can see a rest here on the last pages, now mainly a GPL debate. But one of the attackers stands under rumor that he also obfuscated his output and funny, he doesnt answer on serious questions from his former operator and book author. Doesnt this look fishy? - Then we have another attacker who became famous with a clone himself, but I dont know the details. Also this is looking fishy but at least the guy has experience with violating the rules. So I ask you if that could be expected to be successful with such a team of faked lawyers.

IMO, that is my summary from psychology, the main campaigners except Bob, did themselves a bad service and they couldnt do any sort of harm to the attacked programmer who stayed outside this debate in his usual superior style. Although with such "enemies" Vas had nothing seriously to fear. I for one would wish all my friends in business such a mean campaign like this one in CCC. Where the academic reference of computer sciences&chess concluded that there wouldnt come a court case and a psychologist ripped apart the myst of an empty "substantiated and decent" attack.

[Enir]

You are assuming too much. For example, would you file suit against someone that was making a claim that hurt you, if you_knew_ that the claim was true? Because to file the suit, you have to make a sworn statement that the claim is false in order to seek damages. And if the claim is later proven true, you just committed perjury and are now looking at prison time rather than seeking financial redress from someone else. The sword of justice cuts both ways so caution is required.

I could cut out the other stuff because this here already shows your bias. You simply argue always from the position that Vas has done something wrong. I already wrote a message to write my astonishment how experts could be biased. If you at least would find arguments in favor of Vas, just out of principle. Or also in case you knew how something might have no legal relevance.

Has Vas responded in any way about this? How can one find points in his favor if there is nothing but a deafening silence from his side of the table???

I think he can rely on a purely psychological standpoint for the moment. When did you talk to a commercial programmer collegue during the last 50 years? Now that's going too far. You are looking upon everything like the guy with a hammer. Everything looks to him like a nail while hidden nails frighten him. A commercial programmer cannot discuss what he does, Bob, he lets his program speak. He's in chess what you are on ICC in Bullet. Simply the best!

Sorry, but that boat won't float. When I was accused of cheating several years ago, about something that happened back in 1986. I chose to not sit idly by and let the accusations reverberate around r.g.c.c... I replied factually, quoted a specific letter from David Levy which described the investigation he did and the conclusion that absolutely nothing wrong was done, and so forth. It would be easy enough to simply post "Rybka is my own unique work, I didn't borrow any code form any GPL or open-source programs, so I don't know why this kind of discussion has come up." I can think of only one reason why _I_ would not write that were the discussion about me, I'll leave discovering that reason as an exercise for the reader. I think it is obvious enough that anyone will "get it."

Maybe so. Maybe not. CCC is not ICGA and no one has the obligation, moral or not, to defend from accusations on a forum. It is also possible to look down to them and tell oneself "they bark, so I ride". 2001: been there, done that.

Several people in the last days implicitly accused Vas of copyright breaching. Implicitly. I still have to see an open, unambiguous accusation like "Vas copied Fruit, is a plagiarist and breached Fabien's copyright." Maybe Vas is waiting for this?

Enrique

[Steve B]

Don't get me wrong, I am interested in seeing this issue discussed and if it came to it, would support any action taken to resolve the possible GPL violation. This forum also seems to be the best place on the internet to discuss it, given the member's depth of knowledge and experience in the subject; it's just that the forum charter seems to prohibit such discussion, which is a shame given the popularity within chess programming of cloning other's work. The charter doesn't seem the fit in this regard.

Cheers,
Andy

actually this type of discussion is tailored made for the CCC and always has been
Today we are seeing forums created by specific engines...
the Rybka forum as an example
we see nothing about this there..not one word..even after days of discussion and literally 100's of posts
and this is to be expected
however the CCC is not aligned to any one engine and historically has acted as independent entity in discussing all engines for the benefit of the consumer and for programmers
a "Watchdog for the industry " so to speak
indeed the charter prohibits commercial exhortations of any particular engine
the sudden wave of posts calling for censorship of this topic i think is an indication that the evidence presented is starting to hit very close to home

i am a Rybka customer having purchased Two Rybka Engines at 75 Euro per license which are used in my Revelation and Resurrection II dedicated chess computers
i am interested to know if i bought a derived version of Fruit
who is going to inform me and other users of this if not here?

to say that the presentation and discussion of evidence by well known and respected members of the Chess Computer community regarding a specific engine.. is nothing more then a personal attack against the author ..is to decry the scientific method itself

if this topic is now ..suddenly.. considered as against the Charter.. then one of the main purposes for the boards existence has now been eliminated ...

Regards
Steve

[Rolf]

Don't get me wrong, I am interested in seeing this issue discussed and if it came to it, would support any action taken to resolve the possible GPL violation. This forum also seems to be the best place on the internet to discuss it, given the member's depth of knowledge and experience in the subject; it's just that the forum charter seems to prohibit such discussion, which is a shame given the popularity within chess programming of cloning other's work. The charter doesn't seem the fit in this regard.

Cheers,
Andy

actually this type of discussion is tailored made for the CCC and always has been
Today we are seeing forums created by specific engines...
the Rybka forum as an example
we see nothing about this there..not one word..even after days of discussion and literally 100's of posts
and this is to be expected
however the CCC is not aligned to any one engine and historically has acted as independent entity in discussing all engines for the benefit of the consumer and for programmers
a "Watchdog for the industry " so to speak
indeed the charter prohibits commercial exhortations of any particular engine
the sudden wave of posts calling for censorship of this topic i think is an indication that the evidence presented is starting to hit very close to home

i am a Rybka customer having purchased Two Rybka Engines at 75 Euro per license which are used in my Revelation and Resurrection II dedicated chess computers
i am interested to know if i bought a derived version of Fruit
who is going to inform me and other users of this if not here?

to say that the presentation and discussion of evidence by well known and respected members of the Chess Computer community regarding a specific engine.. is nothing more then a personal attack against the author ..is to decry the scientific method itself

if this topic is now ..suddenly.. considered as against the Charter.. then one of the main purposes for the boards existence has now been eliminated ...

Regards
Steve

Steve, it's plain wrong that in Rybka forum that topic isnt discussed. It's to be seen with the membership entry similar to what you do in Hiarcs forum. You find the thread in the so called Flip area. Some 160 messages.

[Rolf]

Maybe so. Maybe not. CCC is not ICGA and no one has the obligation, moral or not, to defend from accusations on a forum. It is also possible to look down to them and tell oneself "they bark, so I ride". 2001: been there, done that.

Several people in the last days implicitly accused Vas of copyright breaching. Implicitly. I still have to see an open, unambiguous accusation like "Vas copied Fruit, is a plagiarist and breached Fabien's copyright." Maybe Vas is waiting for this?

Enrique

In your eyes is there a chance that in China Olympiad 2008 the ICGA will reproach Vas with such allegations? How would you evaluate the actual situation?