Previous World Champion Engine Authors Speak Out...

[Tom Barrister]

In other words, it's not a stretch to believe that Rybka 2 stole ideas from some engines, Rybka 3 stole ideas from some more engines, or that Rybka 4 stole even more ideas from other engines.

It's quite possible that the mighty Rybka could be a mosaic of the best features of the various engines out there. It could be any or all of various things taken from:

1) The open source engines.

2) Closed source engines to which he somehow got the code, via others.

3) Closed source engines that were decompiled/reverse-engineered (or whatever the correct term is).

4) Ideas gleaned from reading various discussions or from talks with others.

Be careful here. This is all legal, except perhaps decompiling of closed source programs (which depends on the jurisdiction and the license it is offered under; and I've seen no evidence of Vas doing this anyhow).

My understanding is that if Mr. Rajlich took code from open source engines, it's illegal, since his engine isn't open-source. Whether it can be proven is another matter.

Also, if Mr. Rajlich took code from closed-source engines that fall under copyright, without the permission of the copyright owner, that's also illegal.

I don't argue that taking ideas from discussion forums is legal. It was included merely to cover all bases and support my claim that it's possible that very little of Rybka's actual "nuts and bolts" was thought up by Mr. Rajlich.

My post on the Rybka forum was answered by the usual nonsense, and of course I was warned that my statement was libelous.

I helped them out by making a clearer statement. We'll see if I receive a court summons.

[AdminX]

Looks like another one at Rybka forum, Jeroen really has his back up

http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforu ... ?tid=21082

I suspect the Rybka Forum will be going out of business in the next year or two.

[Sean Evans]

Looks like another one at Rybka forum, Jeroen really has his back up

http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforu ... ?tid=21082

I suspect the Rybka Forum will be going out of business in the next year or two.

Hi, why do you think that?

As long as nobody sues and Rybka is still number 1 or 2 in strength, the demand for the program should remain. I presume Rybka will include all of the updates that Houdini has created in its next upgrade. Considering Houdini is a derivative of Rybka it will not be hard for Vas to incorporate the changes putting Rybka back on top.

Please feel free to correct me if you think I am wrong.

Cordially,

Sean

[Tom Barrister]

Rybka will probably be going out of business or at least being reduced to limited business, because there won't be much of a market for it anymore.

Rybka faces several problems. The first is that it's no longer king of the hill. There isn't the 100+ ELO gap there anymore, unless one only visits a rating list influenced by Mr. Rajlich. Houdini, Stockfish and Critter are all in the same ballpark, and all are free. Very few people who are aware of all of the engine choices are going to shell out even €30 (about $42) for an engine, when they can get better or almost as good for free.

Because of the strong free engines, the future for commercial chess engines will be in added functionality or as bundled to multi-feature software (i.e. Shredder, Chessbase). I doubt Mr. Rajlich can program multi-featured software on his own (unless he can get his hands on the source to such as Chessbase), which means that he'd need to bundle Rybka to something in existence. If the allegations currently floating around come to fruition, and it's proven that Mr. Rajlich plagiarized various engines to create and/or maintain Rybka, no legitimate company is going to want anything to do with him, and it's likely that the companies which currently have contracts with him will not be renewing them in the future.

So the future of Rybka would either have to be by:

1) Vastly improving the engine again, which isn't likely in my opinion, unless Mr. Rajlich can manage to decompile Houdini 2.0.

2) Bundling it to something else, also not likely, since the legitimate companies aren't going to be enthusiastic about partnering.

3) Adding features to it that don't exist in the free engines, which would require the ability to actually program those in; barring that, the ability to find some handy code to use.

4) Some gimmickry that makes it stronger (i.e. Rybka Cluster).

[bob]

I understood your points just fine. This concept of being above emotional sway is perfectly utopic, but not very realistic. There is a reason jury members are often rejected for beliefs, and a case can have a judgment annulled if there is evidence the judge was known to have a pronounced slant one way or the other. Working in an academic institution does not make one magically neutral and objective.

It is a pity you chose to write that neverending personal attack, since I will never reply to any of your posts again, but no doubt that is what you hoped to achieve anyhow.

My only question is why the continual reference to "jury". The ICGA will provide the jury to look at our report after all the evidence and rebuttal is presented. And they will provide the judge to impose any punishment they feel is justified. Our function is to simply maintain the data, Vas will get to provide his own rebuttal if he chooses, and it will be in his words and not modified by anybody. It is our responsibility to simply push this thru the process so that everything that should be said gets said, so that the ICGA has enough data to form a conclusion.

The problem is that it is not uncommon for a defense attorney to not allow his client to "take the stand". It is risky. But it can be more risky to expose the client to cross-examination where he has to answer questions truthfully or face further sanctions for making false statements under oath. No idea whether Vas will enter the discussion or not.

Entire mess should have been avoided. But it wasn't...

The post wasn't intended to compare the panel to a jury, but to point out that in legal proceedings, where impartiality and objectivity are paramount, even a judge is not above having his neutrality questioned.

The problem with that analogy is that we are not the judge. We are the group of people that produce a report, and take it to the police department or the district attorney, demanding action. The DA's office will then do with it as they will, and perhaps it eventually ends up in a courtroom if the evidence is found to be viable...

We can only hope that Vas will respond to the investigation and provide some sort of insight into his decisions. But in a court of law, no one can be forced to incriminate themselves, so he doesn't have to say a thing, but does have to accept the ICGA's final disposition of the matter...

I'd rather be working on my program, or on something else, rather than spending the time this is requiring...

[Tom Barrister]

We can only hope that Vas will respond to the investigation and provide some sort of insight into his decisions. But in a court of law, no one can be forced to incriminate themselves, so he doesn't have to say a thing, but does have to accept the ICGA's final disposition of the matter...

It's unlikely that Mr. Rajlich will reply to anything with more than "Rybka is original" nonsense. His current approach is to have his minions spout nonsense and contradict whatever is said, no matter how idiotic such sounds.

Particularly ridiculous is this bit from BannedForLife in this topic: http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforu ... ?tid=21104 :

Cloning has no legal meaning with respect to US copyright law.

Yes, that's a real quote, and it shows how desperate the Rybka folks have gotten.

[Dr.Wael Deeb]

We can only hope that Vas will respond to the investigation and provide some sort of insight into his decisions. But in a court of law, no one can be forced to incriminate themselves, so he doesn't have to say a thing, but does have to accept the ICGA's final disposition of the matter...

It's unlikely that Mr. Rajlich will reply to anything with more than "Rybka is original" nonsense. His current approach is to have his minions spout nonsense and contradict whatever is said, no matter how idiotic such sounds.

Particularly ridiculous is this bit from BannedForLife in this topic: http://rybkaforum.net/cgi-bin/rybkaforu ... ?tid=21104 :

Cloning has no legal meaning with respect to US copyright law.

Yes, that's a real quote, and it shows how desperate the Rybka folks have gotten.

The Rybka fanboys are being disarmed regarding logic and rational thinking every single day and their false propaganda is fading like a flower in the middle of a desert....

I wonder what will they do when Rybka nad it's pathetic author sink the recycle bin of computer chess history
Dr.D

[Harvey Williamson]

Rybka nad it's pathetic author sink the recycle bin of computer chess history
Dr.D

At least they would be kind to the environment by recycling.

[Dr.Wael Deeb]

Rybka nad it's pathetic author sink the recycle bin of computer chess history
Dr.D

At least they would be kind to the environment by recycling.

[AdminX]

From CCT 6

http://www.vrichey.de/cct6/



Here were it's games

http://www.open-chess.org/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1210