Houdini is getting some wider press. Congratulations!

[hgm]

Surely you are joking! For something to be illegal, no challenge has to be made by anyone. The _law_ specifies what is legal and illegal. "Legal status" is what the law specifies (and presumably courts would rule) in the hypothetical case that a challenge was made. If I steal something, it remains a stolen object, even if the owner does not even know it is stolen yet because he is on holiday. To a witness who saw me take the thing away, the legal status would be "unclear", because he does not know if I acted with approval of the owner (who might, after all, have sold it to me). So it would be unclear if I have the status of legal owner, or illegal possessor.

[tomgdrums]

"The legal and ethical status of Houdini and especially of Ivanhoe are controversial."

Please note that the legal status of Houdini is not controversial whatsoever. No legal challenge has been put forward by anyone.
Please stop spreading this kind of "legal nonsense", thank you.

Robert

Nice way to sidestep the word ethical.

[tomgdrums]

Surely you are joking! For something to be illegal, no challenge has to be made by anyone. The _law_ specifies what is legal and illegal. "Legal status" is what the law specifies (and presumably courts would rule) in the hypothetical case that a challenge was made. If I steal something, it remains a stolen object, even if the owner does not even know it is stolen yet because he is on holiday. To a witness who saw me take the thing away, the legal status would be "unclear", because he does not know if I acted with approval of the owner (who might, after all, have sold it to me). So it would be unclear if I have the status of legal owner, or illegal possessor.

Very well said!!

[UncombedCoconut]

"The legal and ethical status of Houdini and especially of Ivanhoe are controversial."

Please note that the legal status of Houdini is not controversial whatsoever. No legal challenge has been put forward by anyone.
Please stop spreading this kind of "legal nonsense", thank you.

I'll admit my wording wasn't careful (I agree that Houdini is legal), but the article's second comment already alleged that "both Houdini, and Ivanhoe ... would be considered illegal clones". Although the commenter eventually revised that statement, the whole spectrum of assertions was already represented -- I've spread no misinformation.

[Houdini]

"The legal and ethical status of Houdini and especially of Ivanhoe are controversial."

Please note that the legal status of Houdini is not controversial whatsoever. No legal challenge has been put forward by anyone.
Please stop spreading this kind of "legal nonsense", thank you.

Robert

Nice way to sidestep the word ethical.

As far as I'm concerned Houdini is also perfectly ethical, but I cannot impose this point of view on anyone else. "Ethical" is a subjective adjective, it completely lies in the eye of the beholder.
On the other hand, I can make an objective, factual and undeniable claim about the legal status.

Robert

[gaard]

Surely you are joking! For something to be illegal, no challenge has to be made by anyone. The _law_ specifies what is legal and illegal. "Legal status" is what the law specifies (and presumably courts would rule) in the hypothetical case that a challenge was made. If I steal something, it remains a stolen object, even if the owner does not even know it is stolen yet because he is on holiday. To a witness who saw me take the thing away, the legal status would be "unclear", because he does not know if I acted with approval of the owner (who might, after all, have sold it to me). So it would be unclear if I have the status of legal owner, or illegal possessor.

This is just saying that if a crime has been committed, a crime has been committed, but in the case of Houdini nobody has shown that a crime has been committed, let alone under what statue or law.

On the topic of Ippolit and its legal standing, does this look familiar?

disassembling for purposes of finding information is legal and cannot be prevented.

It would be legal (though incredibly hard) for someone to disassemble one of the commercial programs and publish his findings.

Vas

If Vas does not believe Ippolit's legal standing is questionable - which he could not by his own logic that it is legal - why should we condemn Mr. Houdart who took ideas and possibly code from Ippolit?

[tomgdrums]

"The legal and ethical status of Houdini and especially of Ivanhoe are controversial."

Please note that the legal status of Houdini is not controversial whatsoever. No legal challenge has been put forward by anyone.
Please stop spreading this kind of "legal nonsense", thank you.

Robert

Nice way to sidestep the word ethical.

As far as I'm concerned Houdini is also perfectly ethical, but I cannot impose this point of view on anyone else. "Ethical" is a subjective adjective, it completely lies in the eye of the beholder.
On the other hand, I can make an objective, factual and undeniable claim about the legal status.

Robert

I found this (among others) on the web:

"The difference between ethics and morals can seem somewhat arbitrary to many, but there is a basic, albeit subtle, difference. Morals define personal character, while ethics stress a social system in which those morals are applied. In other words, ethics point to standards or codes of behavior expected by the group to which the individual belongs."

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-the-dif ... morals.htm

So ethics aren't an individual choice. They affect the group. In essence without ethics there are no boundaries no thought of the consequences that a behavior will have on the group as a whole. In essence when ethics become individualistic we basically end up like the children in that famous novel, "The Lord of the Flies".

Which if you look at the discourse on the computer chess forums you could say we have arrived a place that is eerily similar to the 'Lord of the Flies."

[tomgdrums]

Surely you are joking! For something to be illegal, no challenge has to be made by anyone. The _law_ specifies what is legal and illegal. "Legal status" is what the law specifies (and presumably courts would rule) in the hypothetical case that a challenge was made. If I steal something, it remains a stolen object, even if the owner does not even know it is stolen yet because he is on holiday. To a witness who saw me take the thing away, the legal status would be "unclear", because he does not know if I acted with approval of the owner (who might, after all, have sold it to me). So it would be unclear if I have the status of legal owner, or illegal possessor.

This is just saying that if a crime has been committed, a crime has been committed, but in the case of Houdini nobody has shown that a crime has been committed, let alone under what statue or law.

On the topic of Ippolit and its legal standing, does this look familiar?

disassembling for purposes of finding information is legal and cannot be prevented.

It would be legal (though incredibly hard) for someone to disassemble one of the commercial programs and publish his findings.

Vas

If Vas does not believe Ippolit's legal standing is questionable - which he could not by his own logic that it is legal - why should we condemn Mr. Houdart who took ideas and possibly code from Ippolit?

Publishing findings would seem to infer publication in a scholarly periodical for information's sake. It would not infer using that information to release it under a different name, as an anonymous author authors.

[gaard]

Surely you are joking! For something to be illegal, no challenge has to be made by anyone. The _law_ specifies what is legal and illegal. "Legal status" is what the law specifies (and presumably courts would rule) in the hypothetical case that a challenge was made. If I steal something, it remains a stolen object, even if the owner does not even know it is stolen yet because he is on holiday. To a witness who saw me take the thing away, the legal status would be "unclear", because he does not know if I acted with approval of the owner (who might, after all, have sold it to me). So it would be unclear if I have the status of legal owner, or illegal possessor.

This is just saying that if a crime has been committed, a crime has been committed, but in the case of Houdini nobody has shown that a crime has been committed, let alone under what statue or law.

On the topic of Ippolit and its legal standing, does this look familiar?

disassembling for purposes of finding information is legal and cannot be prevented.

It would be legal (though incredibly hard) for someone to disassemble one of the commercial programs and publish his findings.

Vas

If Vas does not believe Ippolit's legal standing is questionable - which he could not by his own logic that it is legal - why should we condemn Mr. Houdart who took ideas and possibly code from Ippolit?

Publishing findings would seem to infer publication in a scholarly periodical for information's sake. It would not infer using that information to release it under a different name, as an anonymous author authors.

To publish only means to make something public. Any inferences about scholarly journals or anonymous authors are entirely yours. I doubt there would be less fuss if Ippolit had been released under Vasik's name, although it is clearly not a 100% reproduction of Rybka.

If you want we can continue this in "Engine Origins", but I don't want to derail this thread any more.



Congratulations to Martin and Robert.

[Don]

Houdini wiped out Rybka 4 today, totally outplaying it.

Houdini is so much stronger than Rybka 4 that it is downright scary. Scary if you're a Rybka fanboy, that is.

The Rybka 4 fish is "BESMIRCHED"

You were not involved in programing either program, so why should this matter to you?

I just don't understand why people attach so much of their own self-worth to an achievement they had nothing to do with. Don't you have something of your own to take pride in?