I don't understand this forum software well . I want to reply in this thread, but not to a special post, so sorry if I did it wrong.
I want to remind you guys of a chess engine that was highly controversial in its days for a little while. Ruffian by Per-Ola Valfridsson.
Has anyone ever *really* talked to this man *at all* ? Dunno - it preceded Fruit but it arrived in a similar way as Fruit did ( but without source) - one day it had just arrived, extremely strong in its days. The author had no interest to participate in *any* kind of public discussions - his contribution was his engine, and that was it.
Bob Hyatt might not want to remember but as his engine was the strongest open source engine these days, he accused it of being a Crafty clone for a while and was very verbal about it. Vincent Diepeveen thought Ruffian must have been a secret sting done by a well-known engine author as no one could have done such a thing - I remember a post where he hinted the most likely suspect was SMK or the author of Fritz
.
For all I know it turned out to be original work that went on to be well-respected. The author never changed his policy, did never participate in an ICGA tournament or public discussions, and after a short period of time vanished again, once and for all.
Fabien's entrance to the "scene" was similar, as was Vas's. They arrived and started right at the top.
A guy I know personally and that everyone liked is Dieter Buerssner from Yace fame. His engine wasn't even a chessprogram when he started, just a probably rather sophisticated alpha-beta engine dealing with an uncommon African game. Already his first release of its chess entity was about Crafty strength.
Haven't the first appearances of Shredder and Junior been similar? They arrived , and they were at the top right away.
So what is so different about Ippolit? It arrived with some strange suspicious published decompiled code it seems - and the authors behaved in a very strange way. But that is was so strong means nothing. There is nothing new about new programs coming out of nowhere, attracting suspicion.
The public ( not the programmers who might have a clear and meaningful opinion on it, I have no opion on this myself) have deciced that its strength was the main problem ( as most couldn't make an educated guess about its origins any other way). But this isn't new at all, or is it?