Fabien's open letter to the community

[Robert Flesher]

Some may find this interesting, I quote "

Vasik G. Rajlich,
a Czech-American (born 1971 in Cleveland, Ohio) [1] computer scientist and MIT graduate [2], where his thesis advisor was McAllester in 1993 [3]. Vasik is International Master in chess and primary author of Rybka [4], the world strongest chess program, which arose that strong end of 2005 [5][6]. With the release of Rybka 3.0 [7], Vasik and co-author Larry Kaufman must have found some unique techniques and testing methodology, to improve the already incredible strong former versions of Rybka that much [8]. Vasik is married with Iweta Rajlich, a Polish chess International Master and Woman Grandmaster [9] and main Rybka tester [10].

Vasik Rajlich's interpretation of nodes and depth [11] and the Strelka controversy [12][13][14][15] raised suspicions about the initial origin of Rybka 1.0 [16][17], but Vasik Rajlich categorically denied Rybka 1.0 was based on Fruit [18][19], as already confirmed by Chrilly Donninger in 2005 [20] after early rumors [21] and questions [22] occurred. However, other chess programmers seem torn by Vasik's great achievements. But Rybka's strength proves there is no stagnation in computer chess.

Also,


Interview
Quotes from an uciengines.de Interview with Vasik Rajlich, December 20, 2005 [25], a new age in Computerchess? Two questions by Alexander Schmidt:

20. Alexander Schmidt:
The increase in playing strength of the latest chess engines is unbelieveable. We have since some time with Fruit 2.1 by Fabien Letouzey a very strong open source engine. Do you see a relation between the published sources of such a strong engine and the increase of strength in computer chess in general? How much influence do the ideas of Fruit have on the future of computerchess?

Vasik Rajlich:
Yes, the publication of Fruit 2.1 was huge. Look at how many engines took a massive jump in its wake: Rybka, Hiarcs, Fritz, Zappa, Spike, List, and so on. I went through the Fruit 2.1 source code forwards and backwards and took many things.

It is a bit of a pity that Rybka won't make the same contribution to the computer chess community, but at the moment I must also think about protecting my secrets. It's the eternal struggle for a computer chess programmer.

21. Alexander Schmidt:
We had our first contact when I had questions about a similarity to Fruit in the search, others found similarities in the evaluation. Some people where a little bit suspicious that Rybka could be a clone of the open source engine. In the meantime it is clear that Rybka is no clone but you used ideas of Fruit (I guess all other serious engine programmers had a look at Fruit too). How strong would Rybka actually be if the Fruit code would have never been published?

Vasik Rajlich:
It's a good question. I don't want to get too specific about which ideas from Fruit I think are really useful, but they fall into two categories:

1) Very specific tricks, mostly related to search.
2) Philosophy of the engine (and in particular of the search).

Fruit could really hardly be more useful along both of these dimensions. Fabien is a very good engineer, and also has a very clear and simple conception of how his search should behave.

Anyway, if I really had to give a number - my wild guess is that Rybka would be 20 rating points weaker had Fruit not appeared.




Source :
http://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Vasik+Rajlich

[gaard]

IMHO, it is likely then that Fabien would consider Rybka wholly legal at the code level although early versions of Rybka may rightly be classified as derivatives far failing the originality test at the design and implementation level. YMMV.

[Xann]

And one more thing....Fabien didn't ask me to show where Vasik said so,so stop twisting the facts....

I asked for a link, but testimony by others would be useful for me.

Are we talking about the same thing: "Vasik said he contacted Fabien about xxx and Fabien answered it was OK for him"?
Who else remembers this? What was "xxx"?

Fabien.

[Dr.Wael Deeb]

And one more thing....Fabien didn't ask me to show where Vasik said so,so stop twisting the facts....

I asked for a link, but testimony by others would be useful for me.

Are we talking about the same thing: "Vasik said he contacted Fabien about xxx and Fabien answered it was OK for him"?
Who else remembers this? What was "xxx"?

Fabien.

I'll try my best to find at least one link to confirm this....

Unfortunately,I don't have the habbit to keep records of statements posted through the computer chess fora and now I regret it....

But I am sure that Vasik said this,I read it with my own eyes....I hope other people can help....

As a physician I am used to remember my patients verbal statements and keep them for the evaluation of their condition....so I'm pretty sure Vasik did say so and that's why he's keeping radio silence....one of the reasons at least....
Dr.D

[Uri Blass]

And one more thing....Fabien didn't ask me to show where Vasik said so,so stop twisting the facts....

I asked for a link, but testimony by others would be useful for me.

Are we talking about the same thing: "Vasik said he contacted Fabien about xxx and Fabien answered it was OK for him"?
Who else remembers this? What was "xxx"?

Fabien.

I do not remember that Vas said that he contacted you.

[Xann]

You could say I "Fruited" the computer go people in 2008

Noooooo, what have you done?
This was way too early.

Here's the right way.
You wait some 15 years to see who's well established at the top.
Say Zen 42 vs. Erica 38
Then you go to world champs with a couple of mates and let the two champions fight for 3rd place.
Make sure they write down your name correctly too, because they've never heard of you.

BTW I sometimes chat with ajahuang on KGS.
Remi Coulom lives in the same city as me, too.

Fabien.

[Robert Flesher]

And one more thing....Fabien didn't ask me to show where Vasik said so,so stop twisting the facts....

I asked for a link, but testimony by others would be useful for me.

Are we talking about the same thing: "Vasik said he contacted Fabien about xxx and Fabien answered it was OK for him"?
Who else remembers this? What was "xxx"?

Fabien.

This is not what you directly asked for Fabien, but after 5 years gone maybe there is some useful info here.

Fruit GPL chess engine controversy
Rybka has been accused of being based on Fruit, but Rajlich has denied this categorically.[40] Further allegations of violating the GPL have been brought forward by chess programmer Zach Wegner based on a new decompilation effort and a one year study of the Rybka 1.0 executable.[41] Vas has since declined to respond to these allegations.[42]

[edit] Strelka controversyIn May 2007, a new chess engine called Strelka appeared on the scene, claimed to be written by Yuri Osipov. Soon, there were allegations that Strelka was a clone of Rybka 1.0 beta, in the sense that it was a reverse-engineered and slightly modified version of Rybka.[43] Several players found Strelka to yield identical analysis to Rybka in a variety of different situations, even having the same bugs and weaknesses in some cases. Osipov, however, stated repeatedly on discussion boards that Strelka was based on Fruit, not Rybka, and that any similarities was either because Rybka also was based on Fruit, or because he had tuned the evaluation function to be as close to Rybka as possible.[44][45]

With the release of Strelka 2.0 beta, source code was included. Rajlich stated that the source made it "obvious" that Strelka 2.0 beta was indeed a Rybka 1.0 beta clone, although not without some improvements in certain areas. On basis of this, he claimed the source as his own and intended to re-release it under his own name,[46] although he later decided not to do so. He also made allegations that "Yuri Osipov" was a pen name.

However, according to Victor Zakharov (Convekta company) in his review for Arena chess website, he said "I consider that Yuri Osipov (Ivanovich) is real name. He didn't hide it. However I can't state this with 100% assurance." And he also has some contact with Yuri Osipov for development of mobile platforms chess program.[47]

[edit] IPPOLIT controversyIPPOLIT, RobboLito, Igorrit, IvanHoe, FireBird and Fire are a series of strong open source chess programs, originally developed by a team of anonymous programmers who call themselves the Decembrists, after the Decembrist revolt.[48][49]

The chess engine IPPOLIT was released in October 2009 with its source code. Vasik Rajlich has stated[50] that IPPOLIT is a decompiled version of Rybka, and that the people involved kept him informed of their progress via email.[51] Currently there is only circumstantial evidence for this claim. No legal charges have been filed against any of the engines in the IPPOLIT series.[citation needed] Circumstantial evidence for the claim by Vasik Rajlich is provided by the fact that the source of IPPOLIT[52] resembles the output of a decompiler and furthermore the playing style of IPPOLIT and its derivatives is close to that of Rybka 3.[53] Finally some people have expressed doubts that a super strong chess engine like IPPOLIT could simply appear out of nowhere.[54]


source :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rybka

[Xann]

That is really funny, because it would mean WinBoard will be distributed with GNU Chess after all. Because now I am distributing it with Fruit 2.1!

I hope for sure that they will distribute it with a Polyglot version that is compatible with the new XBoard protocol, and not one that would break all the functions for setting the engine options from the XBoard menus.

Who do I contact about this?

Not so fast.
I have some questions to ask first.

Could you create a thread in the programming forum?

Thanks,

Fabien.

[bob]

Of course, this is nothing new to those of us that looked and listened in the first place...

Bob,

We never really met, so, nice to meet you!
I am sorry that many people apparently did not listen to you.

Fabien.

Me too. But if someone believes something strong enough, _nothing_ will alter their opinion. Basic human nature. We have now reached a totally insane point in computer chess where we have dozens of strong programs, claiming to not be derivative works.

[bob]

Somehow I feel I understand the post differently than others. It seems like Fabien is "asking" about several allegations and wants to be up to date on what the allegations are ... nothing I read says anything about confirming anything..........

This is also how I see it at this stage.
Fabien is asking for further information and will then need time to study what is required before he can make some definitive statements on the issue.
I think it's great that Fabien has chosen to get involved and I sincerely hope that Vas will have his say too (if required).

Vasik will remain silent like a butt as he always do....
The good thing is that the whole chess community will finally recognize him as a fat liar....
Dr.D

I would not be so sure. I am certain that some will now claim that Fabien is "in on the conspiracy" as well... This is an unwinable argument for some.