Please, that's enough clones and reclones polemics,

[Karmazen & Oliver]

Please, I think that's enough clones and reclones polemics,

I could understand someone complains of a breach of copyright, when someone copies code, distributes it, practically identical, and thus obtain a profit.

But only in those cases, like rybka was based on its origins in Fruit, and others that were also based on free code ...

If after this, through work and research, greatly improved the previous version, then I think that it can not speak of clone, as it will be a clone of a program that takes 200 points ahead of his dad? that's impossible.

What was based on ideas? =, of course, all of which were based on ideas of John Von Neumann ...

I say enough is enough, enough of sterile polemics ...


Again, now I see that, surprisingly, pulls Houdini nearly 200 points to rybka 4 ranking, and what is more surprising, this improvement is slow processor and very low-end computers ...

That is very exciting, the fact that someone thinks a program, supported on the shoulders of giant, improve, modify it, and get a product so different and superior.

I think some are calling the © of the original wheel ...

I'm really surprised that there is now an engine that exceeds +200 points for the best engine in the last few years on my old computer, How I can I deny that such improvement is a new and different ??? ... had never seen him play so any engine on my old computer.

Understand that if someone "is" and makes my old ford focus 1.6, in a vehicle better than a ferrari or porch, and over consume less fuel, can not think they have done a clone of an engine that already exists ... that if any such thing, why do not I have one this since long time?

I can not afford to buy a computer mega tropecientosmilcores, nor pay a monthly fee to receive communication from a megacluster ... €€€-

I sort of being abandoned by the improvements and technology ...


I think it is important that the information and knowledge flow, whether in GNU GLP3.0v ; fine mess / mess programmer rode the fruit, (true pope of all engines, everyone should kiss the ground he walks on fruit Scheduler, mostly for his release free ...

(maybe some of you would have preferred to live in the dark but with an enormous © in your pocket? I do not. thanks fruit... thanks ryka, a lot of thanks houdini !....

but from there, if a product improvement to this enormously and wish to enter the private sector, ok, they are on your right.

It is simply fantastic...

As I am in mine, to congratulate Robert Houdart, (paypal-donate), to design an engine that has rejuvenated my old computer so much as it has revived my old and news neurons, and many, who may have been resting on their laurels , sacrificing ideas for hardware power... and money.

Some of you remind me of the oil lobby, everyone knows that there is technology to consume less oil, battery-powered vehicles, electric, fuel cells, solar, wind, hydrogen, etc ...

some do not seem to mind that we live surrounded by lobbyists who prevent progress of society ...

And the only thing we can rely only on the knowledge and improvements ... only do they push us to tackle head ...

PS: by the way, hopefully with some illusion, the application of new knowledge in programming, because it is clear that new ideas have been implemented, aplicated in devices with low power hardware, such as tablets, dedicated chess computers, etc ... and finally taking a magnificent chess coach.

bye, from spain, Oliver.

[Karmazen & Oliver]

In other words, even if a programmer would change only a few lines of code to an existing chess engine program whose source code is available on the Internet, if the new program increases dramatically in its strength by increasing dramatically its ELO, then this programmer should be entitled to claim full credit for his accomplishment, NO MATTER THE FACT THAT HE CHANGED ONLY A FEW LINES OF CODE TO AN EXISTING CHESS ENGINE PROGRAM!!! That is the difference between making a discovery and being stuck with a not satisfying solution!!

[Dann Corbit]

Please, I think that's enough clones and reclones polemics,

I could understand someone complains of a breach of copyright, when someone copies code, distributes it, practically identical, and thus obtain a profit.

Profit is irrelevant, unless that is the nature of the infraction.
If you write an article for publication (suppose it is a poem) and do not receive payment for it, it is still wrong for someone else to slap their name on it and say that they wrote it.

But only in those cases, like rybka was based on its origins in Fruit, and others that were also based on free code ...

That is possible. It has not been proven.

If after this, through work and research, greatly improved the previous version, then I think that it can not speak of clone, as it will be a clone of a program that takes 200 points ahead of his dad? that's impossible.

It is not at all difficult to imagine that removal of a single bug (perhaps the change of a single character in the code) could easily increase the Elo by 200 points.

What was based on ideas? =, of course, all of which were based on ideas of John Von Neumann ...

So it impossible to steal ideas in computer science then.

I say enough is enough, enough of sterile polemics ...


Again, now I see that, surprisingly, pulls Houdini nearly 200 points to rybka 4 ranking, and what is more surprising, this improvement is slow processor and very low-end computers ...

That is very exciting, the fact that someone thinks a program, supported on the shoulders of giant, improve, modify it, and get a product so different and superior.

It has not been proven that Houdini is the result of any wrongdoing. Since Ippolit and friends are public domain, I think it highly unlikely that any legal wrongdoing has occurred. That does not mean that chess programmers will not get hot under the collar.

I think some are calling the © of the original wheel ...

I'm really surprised that there is now an engine that exceeds +200 points for the best engine in the last few years on my old computer, How I can I deny that such improvement is a new and different ??? ... had never seen him play so any engine on my old computer.

As far as I know, there is nobody sensible who claims that Rybka has nothing new or Houdini has nothing new.
Some people claim that Rybka borrowed from Fruit in an unlawful way. It is possible that their suppositions have merit (but this is not proven).
Some people claim that Houdini is not based on Ippolit/Ivanhoe/Robbolito but is simply a modified version of Ippolit. Even if that is so, it would be totally legal under public domain. But if it is true, then the author will have been disingenusous.

Understand that if someone "is" and makes my old ford focus 1.6, in a vehicle better than a ferrari or porch, and over consume less fuel, can not think they have done a clone of an engine that already exists ... that if any such thing, why do not I have one this since long time?

If someone at Fiat were to steal blueprints from Ferrari and start making cars that were extremely similar to the Ferraris in the blueprint but went 12 MPH faster, I believe that Ferrari folks would not be happy about it.

I can not afford to buy a computer mega tropecientosmilcores, nor pay a monthly fee to receive communication from a megacluster ... €€€-

I sort of being abandoned by the improvements and technology ...


I think it is important that the information and knowledge flow, whether in GNU GLP3.0v ; fine mess / mess programmer rode the fruit, (true pope of all engines, should all kiss the ground Programmer's fruit), mostly for his release free ...

(maybe some of you would have preferred to live in the dark but with an enormous © in your pocket? I do not. thanks fruit... thanks ryka, a lot of thanks houdini !....

but from there, if a product improvement to this enormously and wish to enter the private sector, ok, they are on your right.

As I am in mine, to congratulate Robert Houdart, (paypal-donate), to design an engine that has rejuvenated my old computer so much as it has revived my old and news neurons, and many, who may have been resting on their laurels , sacrificing ideas for hardware power... and money.

It is simply fantastic...

Some of you remind me of the oil lobby, everyone knows that there is technology to consume less oil, battery-powered vehicles, electric, fuel cells, hydrogen, etc ...

some do not seem to mind that we live surrounded by lobbyists who prevent progress of society ...

And the only thing we can rely only on the knowledge and improvements ... only do they push us to tackle head ...

PS: by the way, hopefully with some illusion, the application of new knowledge in programming, because it is clear that new ideas have been implemented, aplicated in devices with low power hardware, such as tablets, dedicated chess computers, etc ... and finally taking a magnificent chess coach.

bye, from spain, Oliver.

I find it strange that someone would not understand why some people feel hot under the collar. Now, as to whether there has been wrongdoing that has taken place, I do not think it is proven. But there are sufficient reasons for suspicions to be raised about the things being hotly debated that it would be astonishing if nobody said anything about it.

[Dann Corbit]

In other words, even if a programmer would change only a few lines of code to an existing chess engine program whose source code is available on the Internet, if the new program increases dramatically in its strength by increasing dramatically its ELO, then this programmer should be entitled to claim full credit for his accomplishment, NO MATTER THE FACT THAT HE CHANGED ONLY A FEW LINES OF CODE TO AN EXISTING CHESS ENGINE PROGRAM!!! That is the difference between making a discovery and being stuck with a not satisfying solution!!

If, in Shakespear's day, suppose that someone had improved the grammar of one of his lines, or made a really funny pun.
Does this author get full credit for "Much Ado About Nothing" by Chester Foobody?

[benstoker]

Tell me if I'm wrong, but I would wager that 10 or 15 years ago there were very significant differences between the top 10 chess engines in both "Ideas" and code. Contrast that with today; I bet the top 5 or 10 engines all use the same ideas. All use bitboards. All use all of the state of the art ideas in computer chess. If you don't use the state of the art ideas, your engine will simply not be in the top. The differences are but shades of gray compared to 10 years ago.

Please, I think that's enough clones and reclones polemics,

I could understand someone complains of a breach of copyright, when someone copies code, distributes it, practically identical, and thus obtain a profit.

Profit is irrelevant, unless that is the nature of the infraction.
If you write an article for publication (suppose it is a poem) and do not receive payment for it, it is still wrong for someone else to slap their name on it and say that they wrote it.

But only in those cases, like rybka was based on its origins in Fruit, and others that were also based on free code ...

That is possible. It has not been proven.

If after this, through work and research, greatly improved the previous version, then I think that it can not speak of clone, as it will be a clone of a program that takes 200 points ahead of his dad? that's impossible.

It is not at all difficult to imagine that removal of a single bug (perhaps the change of a single character in the code) could easily increase the Elo by 200 points.

What was based on ideas? =, of course, all of which were based on ideas of John Von Neumann ...

So it impossible to steal ideas in computer science then.

I say enough is enough, enough of sterile polemics ...


Again, now I see that, surprisingly, pulls Houdini nearly 200 points to rybka 4 ranking, and what is more surprising, this improvement is slow processor and very low-end computers ...

That is very exciting, the fact that someone thinks a program, supported on the shoulders of giant, improve, modify it, and get a product so different and superior.

It has not been proven that Houdini is the result of any wrongdoing. Since Ippolit and friends are public domain, I think it highly unlikely that any legal wrongdoing has occurred. That does not mean that chess programmers will not get hot under the collar.

I think some are calling the © of the original wheel ...

I'm really surprised that there is now an engine that exceeds +200 points for the best engine in the last few years on my old computer, How I can I deny that such improvement is a new and different ??? ... had never seen him play so any engine on my old computer.

As far as I know, there is nobody sensible who claims that Rybka has nothing new or Houdini has nothing new.
Some people claim that Rybka borrowed from Fruit in an unlawful way. It is possible that their suppositions have merit (but this is not proven).
Some people claim that Houdini is not based on Ippolit/Ivanhoe/Robbolito but is simply a modified version of Ippolit. Even if that is so, it would be totally legal under public domain. But if it is true, then the author will have been disingenusous.

Understand that if someone "is" and makes my old ford focus 1.6, in a vehicle better than a ferrari or porch, and over consume less fuel, can not think they have done a clone of an engine that already exists ... that if any such thing, why do not I have one this since long time?

If someone at Fiat were to steal blueprints from Ferrari and start making cars that were extremely similar to the Ferraris in the blueprint but went 12 MPH faster, I believe that Ferrari folks would not be happy about it.

I can not afford to buy a computer mega tropecientosmilcores, nor pay a monthly fee to receive communication from a megacluster ... €€€-

I sort of being abandoned by the improvements and technology ...


I think it is important that the information and knowledge flow, whether in GNU GLP3.0v ; fine mess / mess programmer rode the fruit, (true pope of all engines, should all kiss the ground Programmer's fruit), mostly for his release free ...

(maybe some of you would have preferred to live in the dark but with an enormous © in your pocket? I do not. thanks fruit... thanks ryka, a lot of thanks houdini !....

but from there, if a product improvement to this enormously and wish to enter the private sector, ok, they are on your right.

As I am in mine, to congratulate Robert Houdart, (paypal-donate), to design an engine that has rejuvenated my old computer so much as it has revived my old and news neurons, and many, who may have been resting on their laurels , sacrificing ideas for hardware power... and money.

It is simply fantastic...

Some of you remind me of the oil lobby, everyone knows that there is technology to consume less oil, battery-powered vehicles, electric, fuel cells, hydrogen, etc ...

some do not seem to mind that we live surrounded by lobbyists who prevent progress of society ...

And the only thing we can rely only on the knowledge and improvements ... only do they push us to tackle head ...

PS: by the way, hopefully with some illusion, the application of new knowledge in programming, because it is clear that new ideas have been implemented, aplicated in devices with low power hardware, such as tablets, dedicated chess computers, etc ... and finally taking a magnificent chess coach.

bye, from spain, Oliver.

I find it strange that someone would not understand why some people feel hot under the collar. Now, as to whether there has been wrongdoing that has taken place, I do not think it is proven. But there are sufficient reasons for suspicions to be raised about the things being hotly debated that it would be astonishing if nobody said anything about it.

[Dann Corbit]

Tell me if I'm wrong, but I would wager that 10 or 15 years ago there were very significant differences between the top 10 chess engines in both "Ideas" and code. Contrast that with today; I bet the top 5 or 10 engines all use the same ideas. All use bitboards. All use all of the state of the art ideas in computer chess. If you don't use the state of the art ideas, your engine will simply not be in the top. The differences are but shades of gray compared to 10 years ago.

{snip}

Fruit is quite a strong engine that does not use bitboards.
The switch to bitboards was inevitable once 64 bit CPUs, operating systems, and compilers went mainstream. The 0x88 (and derivatives) approach was competitive when CPUs were 32 bits, but the advantages of bitboards were always clear in the 64 bit area.

The strongest engines that are not commercial have always shared the best ideas. That's why programmers come to places like CCC and discuss how their chess engines work. Alpha Beta was not independently invented by all of the programmers and yet they all have been using it since ages and ages ago. The idea to quiesce a search has been shared for decades. Hash tables, move ordering, null move, double null move, all of these ideas have been shared for a very long time.

I don't think that there has ever been too big of a beef about sharing of and using ideas. The problems arise when ideas are taken in a way that is not approved of. This is an old story too. BIONIC (which I coined as "Belive It Or Not, It's Crafty") is one example of unauthorized use of code, as was Voyager. There were many others besides. And so what is being churned over and over here is not new waters that we have never seen. It is the same old scum, stirring up from the bottom.

[benstoker]

Tell me if I'm wrong, but I would wager that 10 or 15 years ago there were very significant differences between the top 10 chess engines in both "Ideas" and code. Contrast that with today; I bet the top 5 or 10 engines all use the same ideas. All use bitboards. All use all of the state of the art ideas in computer chess. If you don't use the state of the art ideas, your engine will simply not be in the top. The differences are but shades of gray compared to 10 years ago.

{snip}

Fruit is quite a strong engine that does not use bitboards.
The switch to bitboards was inevitable once 64 bit CPUs, operating systems, and compilers went mainstream. The 0x88 (and derivatives) approach was competitive when CPUs were 32 bits, but the advantages of bitboards were always clear in the 64 bit area.

The strongest engines that are not commercial have always shared the best ideas. That's why programmers come to places like CCC and discuss how their chess engines work. Alpha Beta was not independently invented by all of the programmers and yet they all have been using it since ages and ages ago. The idea to quiesce a search has been shared for decades. Hash tables, move ordering, null move, double null move, all of these ideas have been shared for a very long time.

I don't think that there has ever been too big of a beef about sharing of and using ideas. The problems arise when ideas are taken in a way that is not approved of. This is an old story too. BIONIC (which I coined as "Belive It Or Not, It's Crafty") is one example of unauthorized use of code, as was Voyager. There were many others besides. And so what is being churned over and over here is not new waters that we have never seen. It is the same old scum, stirring up from the bottom.

My point is that the State of the Art in computer chess is today widely known and documented; not so much 10 or 15 years ago. Changes and new inventions in the evolution of computer chess is today slowing down significantly, compared to 10 years ago.

Everything that rises must converge.

I bet you can make a list of absolutely essential Ideas that simply must be included in a top performing chess engine today, without which, the engine is just not a top tier program. And I bet 10 or 15 years ago there could be a whole lot more variance in what was essential for a top tier program. Since that time the natural progression is to slowly bring together in one engine the best ideas in the science.

I suppose another way to say it, is that originality in chess engines today is just a lot harder to come by than it was 10 years ago.

It's like squeezing blood out of a turnip. Or, how many different ways can you cook a pancake in 2011?

[Dann Corbit]

Tell me if I'm wrong, but I would wager that 10 or 15 years ago there were very significant differences between the top 10 chess engines in both "Ideas" and code. Contrast that with today; I bet the top 5 or 10 engines all use the same ideas. All use bitboards. All use all of the state of the art ideas in computer chess. If you don't use the state of the art ideas, your engine will simply not be in the top. The differences are but shades of gray compared to 10 years ago.

{snip}

Fruit is quite a strong engine that does not use bitboards.
The switch to bitboards was inevitable once 64 bit CPUs, operating systems, and compilers went mainstream. The 0x88 (and derivatives) approach was competitive when CPUs were 32 bits, but the advantages of bitboards were always clear in the 64 bit area.

The strongest engines that are not commercial have always shared the best ideas. That's why programmers come to places like CCC and discuss how their chess engines work. Alpha Beta was not independently invented by all of the programmers and yet they all have been using it since ages and ages ago. The idea to quiesce a search has been shared for decades. Hash tables, move ordering, null move, double null move, all of these ideas have been shared for a very long time.

I don't think that there has ever been too big of a beef about sharing of and using ideas. The problems arise when ideas are taken in a way that is not approved of. This is an old story too. BIONIC (which I coined as "Belive It Or Not, It's Crafty") is one example of unauthorized use of code, as was Voyager. There were many others besides. And so what is being churned over and over here is not new waters that we have never seen. It is the same old scum, stirring up from the bottom.

My point is that the State of the Art in computer chess is today widely known and documented; not so much 10 or 15 years ago. Changes and new inventions in the evolution of computer chess is today slowing down significantly, compared to 10 years ago.

Everything that rises must converge.

I bet you can make a list of absolutely essential Ideas that simply must be included in a top performing chess engine today, without which, the engine is just not a top tier program. And I bet 10 or 15 years ago there could be a whole lot more variance in what was essential for a top tier program. Since that time the natural progression is to slowly bring together in one engine the best ideas in the science.

I suppose another way to say it, is that originality in chess engines today is just a lot harder to come by than it was 10 years ago.

It's like squeezing blood out of a turnip. Or, how many different ways can you cook a pancake in 2011?

You lose your bets.

There is no difference between 15 years ago and today except that there are some new things like LMR that were simply not available 15 years ago.

Originality in computer chess today is identical to originality in computer chess 15 years ago.

What do you think there is that has changed in the last 10-15 years aside from a few new techniques? Lots of good ideas were widely known 10-15 years ago. They were implemented across all the engines.

15 years is a bit of a long reach, because we would only have 3 engines:
GnuChess, Crafty, and Arasan
but 10 years ago, we would have had this list:
31337 (aka Celes)
Aldebaran
Amy
Amyan
Anmon
Ant
ArasanX
Averno
Awesome
BabyChess
Bace
Baron (The)
Beowulf
Bestia
Betsy
Blikskottel
Bringer (Der)
Butcher (aka Rzeznik)
Capture
ChadsChess
ChessRikus
ChessterfieldCL
Chezzz
Cilian
Colchess
Comet
CPP1
Crafty
Crux
Damas
Dchess
DeepTrouble
Delfi
Dragon
Embracer
EnginMax
Esc
Exchess
Faile
Fortress
Francesca
Freyr
Gandalf
Gargamella
Gaviota
Gerbil
Ghost
Gnuchess
Gnuchess5
Golem
GreenLightChess
Grizzly
Gromit
Gullydeckel
Holmes
Horizon
InmiChess
Kace
KingOfKings
KnightCap
KnightX (TechnoChess)
LaDameBlanche
Lambchop
LarsenVB
Leila
Lightning (The)
LittleGoliath
LordKing
MFChess
Mint
Monik
Morphy
MrChess (fka DrChess)
MSCP
Mustang
Nejmet
Nero
NewRival
Nimzo (WB)
Noonian
Olithink
Ozwald
Pentagon
Pepito
Phalanx
Pharaon (fka Zchess)
Pierre
PolarEngine
Pyotr
Quark
Queen
Raffaela
Requiem
SdBC
Shredder
Simple
Sjeng (Deep)
Skaki
SmarThink
SnailChess
SOS
SSEchessII
StAndersen
Storm
Tamerlane
Tao
Terra
TheCrazyBishop
TheKing (aka Chessmaster)
Tikov
Tristram
Trynyty
Tscp
Ufim
WildCat
Yace
Zephyr

Almost all of those engines would have had:
alpha-beta
quiescent search
SEE
Hash tables
null move heuristic
move ordering
killer moves
lazy eval
check extensions
recapture extensions
king safety/mobility/passed pawns & pawn structure/bishop pair/bad bishop/center control

That's because those are the techniques that were known in that day.
Now, a few of those engines would not have some of those techniques. Those would be the weaker engines that were just beginning to be programmed, just like today.

Today, the list is longer, but the end result is the same. The strongest engines use the strongest techniques. I think that this is one of the things that Anthony Cozzie did not like about computer chess (everyone does the same stuff, for the most part).

You might imagine it is bad for so many chess engines to be doing stuff the same for all this time. And yet we see computer chess rapidly moving forwards anyway. Why is that? Because there will always be innovators like Dr. Hyatt and Fabian and Tord, etc. who are willing to share what they learn.

IMO-YMMV

[Tom Barrister]

If, in Shakespear's day, suppose that someone had improved the grammar of one of his lines, or made a really funny pun.
Does this author get full credit for "Much Ado About Nothing" by Chester Foobody?

Then there was the Christopher Marlowe situation, which has been academically debunked for all intents and purposes, but which lives on in legend.

[Milos]

If, in Shakespear's day, suppose that someone had improved the grammar of one of his lines, or made a really funny pun.
Does this author get full credit for "Much Ado About Nothing" by Chester Foobody?

Your analogy is wrong.
There are two extremes, one is writing or lets call it plaintext. There changing few letters or sentences doesn't practically change anything. The other is complex mechanisms lets call it ciphertext where changing one byte transforms something nice and well written into meaningless rumblings.
Then there are numerous shades of colors between those two extremes.
Chess programming is somewhere in-between but closer to ciphertext. You can change many things and still have the very same result, but you can also change few things and get something much stronger. The line that separates these is also the line between smart/successful and jealous/unsuccessful. We have both of those on this forum these days...