Why Was CCC Created?

[slobo]

As I recall the CCC was created due problems Ed was having with the Pope OR was it the Pope was having with Ed at RGCC?

Any other opinions and factoids are welcome!

Cordially,

Sean Evans

Not just Ed. Rolf basically ran amok in r.g.c.c and ran quite a few off. A group of us decided to start a new place where we could talk. Changing r.g.c.c to a moderated newsgroup is a long and cumbersome process so we gave up on that immediately... So then there was CCC...

and Rolf was in again!
How did it happen? All of you have been trying to escape from Rolf, who ended up being also a CCC member. Is Rolf more intelligent than all of you?

[bob]

[SNIP]

No, he would only be found not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. He's clearly not innocent, based on facts. Whether there are enough facts to prove him guilty in a court of law is the only question.

Hello Dr. Hyatt,

So it's your fault!

How many times are you going to make the point above before it occurs to you that Rolf is not listening or reading one word of what you have written?

He is going to respond exactly as he did before and to think I am blaming him for producing excessive verbiage.



I understand that as someone in education you actually believe that you can reach anyone with logic but I despair....

Later.

For the record:

Bob... I get plenty of the Dr. Hyatt stuff at the office. And since we are working together as moderators, Bob seems better by far.

[bob]

What is the truth in the best legal sense?

I can't sue because I have no legal standing to do so. It isn't because I am afraid I would lose, or I am afraid we do not have enough data. It is because I simply have "no legal standing".

The FSF is the entity with legal standing to sue. They are the "caretakers" of GPL code. Again, not me, them. Whether Fabien will choose to prod them into action or not, I don't know...

As a scientist, I do not claim that I did things that I did not do. I do not fabricate/falsify data. I do not take the work of others and claim it as my own. When someone does this (and Vas is hardly the first, I can name a dozen different occasions where someone has done the same to Crafty) it deserves to be exposed, because of all the other engine authors that expended the effort and time required to produce a functional chess program. For me, it is more about "ethics" than "legality" although the latter could certainly be an issue, even though the legal question is not one most would care to pursue because of time and money required to do so.

I do not keep bringing this issue up.

I certainly believe that an unethical thing has happened. And with the GPL, there is also likely a clear violation. Whether the GPL is a legal issue or a civil issue is not one I can answer.

"innocence" is a condition of fact, not of law. "proven guilty" or "proven not-guilty_ is a statement of law. You can be found guilty, but be completely innocent. You can be found not guilty, while being guilty as sin.

The terms have a distinct meaning. A court of law does not find someone "innocent". Many have a "presumption of innocence" which means simply that they _assume_ you are innocent and the burden is on the state to prove that you are guilty. But after the trial, you don't get a verdict of "innocent". Just "not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt." They are not the same thing. And there is nothing wrong in searching for the truth, whether it is ever prosecuted or not.

(Rolf:)
And if Fabien sues Vas and cant win a court trial, then Vas remains perfectly innocent.

No, he would only be found not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. He's clearly not innocent, based on facts. Whether there are enough facts to prove him guilty in a court of law is the only question.

As a scientist you know like me, Bob, that e.g. a statistical result - no matter how exact - is never the absolute truth but is depending of the (predefined!) limits of the financial and also the time frame. Speaking about normal and usual science. Everybody is being aware of the limits. In theory you could always develop a deeper approach if it wouldnt ruin your allowed time frame. As Howard Hughes you could retire and start your personal research.

Now this same relationship you will see in justice and our legal system. For all because the judges are relying on scientists as experts. I presume that we all agree that court trials must happen in a reasonable time frame which means out of principle scientific practicability defines your limits.

If the result is not enough proof in the given realm of the historical moment you are correct then the defendant is NOT GUILTY even if theretical doubts remained.

But another point is more important. If once not guilty there is (normally) no chance that you could reopen a second trial just because of the remaining doubt in your opinion and your expertise.

So, in practice it makes no difference if we thereafter call the former defendent innocent. Why must we do this? This is for the legal peace. Because otherwise you could process endlessly. And you certainly heard of that psychopathological defect of a barrater, quarreler or in military speech "eight ball". Because these people cannot differentiate why a theoretical possibility should not always be examined in new court trials.

Our legal system means

a) only the court and not private instances is allowed to give verdicts

b) only judges are allowed to order so to speak "breaking the law" and "doing something that is normally illegal", but not private persons or experts have that right. So, IMO, private people have no right to enter closed sources to allegedly research something improper.
______________________

Why should the computerchess community remain outside of the rationally best legal practice?

Private people have the right to do whatever they want so long as it is not explicitly illegal. And the examination of Rybka binary was certainly not illegal. Therefore, I do not understand your point. Except that you don't want to see this exposed, for reasons only you know.

[bob]

As I recall the CCC was created due problems Ed was having with the Pope OR was it the Pope was having with Ed at RGCC?

Any other opinions and factoids are welcome!

Cordially,

Sean Evans

Not just Ed. Rolf basically ran amok in r.g.c.c and ran quite a few off. A group of us decided to start a new place where we could talk. Changing r.g.c.c to a moderated newsgroup is a long and cumbersome process so we gave up on that immediately... So then there was CCC...

and Rolf was in again!
How did it happen? All of you have been trying to escape from Rolf, who ended up being also a CCC member. Is Rolf more intelligent than all of you?

More intelligent? Without knowing his IQ I can't answer. But certainly more "persistent"...

[Rolf]

Private people have the right to do whatever they want so long as it is not explicitly illegal. And the examination of Rybka binary was certainly not illegal. Therefore, I do not understand your point. Except that you don't want to see this exposed, for reasons only you know.

What I meant here was what a potential judge might ask the experts.

How long will it take before we get information about court cases? What do the emails say from Fabien et. al.?

[Damir]

Who do you think you are, since you are allowing yourself to ask this question ?

[Sean Evans]

Who do you think you are, since you are allowing yourself to ask this question ?

He is the Pope and you should worship him!

Who do you think you are?

[bob]

Private people have the right to do whatever they want so long as it is not explicitly illegal. And the examination of Rybka binary was certainly not illegal. Therefore, I do not understand your point. Except that you don't want to see this exposed, for reasons only you know.

What I meant here was what a potential judge might ask the experts.

How long will it take before we get information about court cases? What do the emails say from Fabien et. al.?

I'm not relaying emails from Fabien and the group discussing that here, the discussion is calm and rational via email, posting it here would just start useless rants.

[benstoker]

Ed Schroder, who even sued him.

It's beyond reasonable thhinking why sueing someone without evidence is seen as a good idea.

Actually we have the same scenario with the CCC and its actual hate campaign against Vas Rybka. They campaign allegedly having evidence but refuse to sue because they know of the sad outcome of e.g. Ed in the earlier days. Even with sort of evidence the outcome is unclear. The charter of CCC normally forbids such libel. But why respecting it if it's so much fun to chase a scapegoat from anonymity.

So, this is the solution for the question why CCC was founded out of rgcc in usenet. Here it's possible to defamate the resident scapegoat without that this same scapegoat could strike back, which was a very annoying possibility on usenet. So that people who thought they owned extra rights felt deceived through the democratic openess of usenet. Only after this became clear on CCC when the same special people tried to practice their extra rights on CCC, it was thanks to democrats like Sam Hull who reveiled the mechanism of extra righting. They left after losing their status after being caught in the act of such a wrondoing. Being educated by the famous Popper dict that democracy is only possible in open groups and societies and that this means in the USA the truth will always re-appear even if it was hidden beneath stones.

If you are going to post, either post factually or go somewhere else. I can't sue because I have no legal standing to do so. It isn't because I am afraid I would lose, or I am afraid we do not have enough data. It is because I simply have "no legal standing".

It really is that simple. So stop insinuating something else. It is plainly and simply false...

As far as "the truth re-appearing" it would seem you are correct with respect to fruit/rybka, because it does keep coming back. There _is_ truth in the accusations...

Bob, I hope you are not making the same mistake as the others here. I dont argue on the base of a damage you couldnt claim, this is British Law and perhaps even American Law too.

But I argue on a different basis. If your argument with the GPL is correct, then it is a violation under the condition that you could really prove it and it's relevant in a legal sense. Then you wouldnt have to sue because you have a damage but because you claim a legal violation in the field of computerchess.

The FSF is the entity with legal standing to sue. They are the "caretakers" of GPL code. Again, not me, them. Whether Fabien will choose to prod them into action or not, I don't know...

I am not sure I understand this assertion that FSF only has standing to enforce Fruit copyright. If Fabien actually assigned or sold his rights to Fruit to FSF, then yes, it's FSF's software. Is that what happened?

On the other hand, the mere adoption of GPL for your software does NOT grant or assign copyright enforcement to FSF. If all Fabien did was merely publish Fruit under the GPL, then it's definitely still his right to enforce the GPL through legal action.

Why else did you always (for 5 years now) tell such negative accusations against Rybka? If it wouldnt matter in a legal sense from your perspective? I repeat, you never had the intention to sue but you are sure there is a violation of legal points and therefore you repeated your attacks or negative talk. Is that correct? Then my question why did you do it?

As a scientist, I do not claim that I did things that I did not do. I do not fabricate/falsify data. I do not take the work of others and claim it as my own. When someone does this (and Vas is hardly the first, I can name a dozen different occasions where someone has done the same to Crafty) it deserves to be exposed, because of all the other engine authors that expended the effort and time required to produce a functional chess program. For me, it is more about "ethics" than "legality" although the latter could certainly be an issue, even though the legal question is not one most would care to pursue because of time and money required to do so.

I do not keep bringing this issue up. In fact, you cause the discussion to live far longer than it normally would, by jumping into these threads and making baseless accusations with no supporting evidence.

Ok, if you can prove me wrong in my description of what happened then please correct me. But to insinuate I wouldnt have the facts straight is not so nice. To the contrary, I still find it a somewhat false attitude to accuse someone of a legal wrong, but you dont give it to the authorities.

I certainly believe that an unethical thing has happened. And with the GPL, there is also likely a clear violation. Whether the GPL is a legal issue or a civil issue is not one I can answer.

I learned in our justice system in Europe, more the Continent not British Isles, that if no sue is being undertaken and for all no judge has given a verdict, then someone is completely innocent even if you always continue to blame the guy. This is a basic of European Law. You cant have it both ways. You dont sue someone but still call him guilty of a wrongdoing. He is and remains innocent.

That is completely false. "innocence" is a condition of fact, not of law. "proven guilty" or "proven not-guilty_ is a statement of law. You can be found guilty, but be completely innocent. You can be found not guilty, while being guilty as sin.

The terms have a distinct meaning. A court of law does not find someone "innocent". Many have a "presumption of innocence" which means simply that they _assume_ you are innocent and the burden is on the state to prove that you are guilty. But after the trial, you don't get a verdict of "innocent". Just "not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt." They are not the same thing. And there is nothing wrong in searching for the truth, whether it is ever prosecuted or not.

And if Fabien sues Vas and cant win a court trial, then Vas remains perfectly innocent.

No, he would only be found not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. He's clearly not innocent, based on facts. Whether there are enough facts to prove him guilty in a court of law is the only question.

[benstoker]

Ed Schroder, who even sued him.

It's beyond reasonable thhinking why sueing someone without evidence is seen as a good idea.

Actually we have the same scenario with the CCC and its actual hate campaign against Vas Rybka. They campaign allegedly having evidence but refuse to sue because they know of the sad outcome of e.g. Ed in the earlier days. Even with sort of evidence the outcome is unclear. The charter of CCC normally forbids such libel. But why respecting it if it's so much fun to chase a scapegoat from anonymity.

So, this is the solution for the question why CCC was founded out of rgcc in usenet. Here it's possible to defamate the resident scapegoat without that this same scapegoat could strike back, which was a very annoying possibility on usenet. So that people who thought they owned extra rights felt deceived through the democratic openess of usenet. Only after this became clear on CCC when the same special people tried to practice their extra rights on CCC, it was thanks to democrats like Sam Hull who reveiled the mechanism of extra righting. They left after losing their status after being caught in the act of such a wrondoing. Being educated by the famous Popper dict that democracy is only possible in open groups and societies and that this means in the USA the truth will always re-appear even if it was hidden beneath stones.

If you are going to post, either post factually or go somewhere else. I can't sue because I have no legal standing to do so. It isn't because I am afraid I would lose, or I am afraid we do not have enough data. It is because I simply have "no legal standing".

It really is that simple. So stop insinuating something else. It is plainly and simply false...

As far as "the truth re-appearing" it would seem you are correct with respect to fruit/rybka, because it does keep coming back. There _is_ truth in the accusations...

Dr. Hyatt,

Is there some place on the web you could point me to for reading about where to draw that demarcation between not-okay-to-copy and okay-to-copy? I'd like to read some learned articles on this so that I can better understand the arguments being made here.

I just don't think I understand the deeper aspects of intellectual property in the context of computer chess programming and how that applies to this fruit/rybka/ippo controversy. Maybe you can give me an assignment, so to speak. I would guess that computer science students at UAB address these issues at some point in their education. What book or article do they read about these IP issues?

For instance, am I free to implement literally every single idea contained in Crafty, nothing more and nothing less, and write my prog in Cobol, and call it Rafty? I hear ideas are not copyrighted, but routines are. Does that mean all I got to do is simply rename variables and break up Crafty functions into separate parts and combine other functions into a single function, or whatever, -- you know the drill, change while loops into for loops, etc.

If I could somehow really rewrite in C, same as Crafty, every single routine in Crafty so that it looks different, but is still identical to Crafty as far as the so-called "Ideas", is that okay? Heck, I would combine all of the code into a large, single .c and .h file pair.

Or, why not just run it through some automatic code obfuscator that is sophisticated enough to map all functions into obscure logical equivalents?

Every single static value and function could easily be rewritten as some trivial logical equivalent. If rooks are 500 in Crafty, in Rafty, could I just do "rook = (250 + 250)" -- ditto for every other static value. As I understand it, PSTs can be expressed in static values (correct term?) or via a formula that computes the values. Therefore, in my Rafty program, could I just take all of Crafty's PSTs and express them in formula routines (or the other way around as the case may be)?

If I study it, parse it, and eventually come to understand the Ippo* spaghetti code, am I perfectly free to implement the "Ideas" in my own prog? Or submit them to Stockfish? I hear it said that I can discover "Ideas" by disassembling a program. That's very confusing to me. May I disassemble Rybka 4, discover the "ideas" and implement them in my Rafty?

Aside from the issue of being mealy-mouthed or outright lying about the issue (a separate offense), if I understand it right, I could literally take every single "idea" in Stockfish and so long as I somehow write different routines to implement them, I'm good to go. Since I haven't "copied code", and instead just "taken ideas", I don't have to contribute my code improvements back per GPL, and I can roll my own binary, give it a name, and start selling it. That is the state of my confusion. What do or did you read to come to understand the do's and don'ts here? Thx.

[Edit: another thought: in theory, a computer algorithm that performs some calculation can be written in a virtually infinite number of ways. I have an "idea" to write an algorithm that computes the orbits of Saturn's moons. It is based on a set of mathematical formulas discovered by a guy named Newton. I can write a program to do the calculations in a number of different ways, but they must always carry out the calculation of the same math formula and get the same result. Now, logically, I know that if-then conditionals can be rewritten as and-or sentences, etc. And conditionals and loops can be written in numerous ways in C to still calculate the same exact thing. I know I could theoretically write a program that merely takes C code and randomly rewrites all of the code to logical equivalents, changes all conditionals to and-or and vise-versa; is sophisticated enough to rewrite the multiple layers of code into logical equivalents. If I have that program, is that my license to kill? I don't have to do a damn thing now; I can't be accused of copying code now because I have code that is completely rewritten in every way, though it is logically equivalent.]

It is a very grey area. The "fair use" doctrine in copyright law is but one example. How many copies can you make of something? How many pages can be in a single copy? The thing you are copying costs money to acquire (just as it costs time and effort to produce) so you could be depriving the original author of income.

In CC, we have generally been pretty flexible on this issue, so long as proper credit/citations are provided. If someone says "I copied zero code, and then lots of copied code is found" that tends to cause this kind of discussion. It has happened _many_ times in the past, prior to the fruit/rybka issue surfacing. So it is not new, and it won't stop with this case, as now we have someone copying rybka supposedly (robo*/ip*), then someone copying the copy (houdini and likely several others). So it isn't over by a long shot...

The primary damage-control I care about is protecting tournaments from "the invasion of the clones / derivatives" so that we adhere to the "one entry per author" principle we have been using for 40+ years in CC events.

Aside from the legal niceties of "fair use", if one just focuses on the "one entry per author" rule, then I don't know that that is any clearer a standard. Is it? On its face, it sounds simple.

Perhaps you can give a concrete example where someone took the code of someone else, modified it enough to claim some kind of improvement, but was disqualified because of the "one entry per author" rule.