End of the Torch Experiement

[Dann Corbit]

We should not feel like the Torch authors owe us something, such as a cheap or free version of the engine.
Just as Bruce Moreland never gave us Ferret, that was his right, so also nobody owes us a copy of Torch.
Eventually, I just made a game in my mind of "an engine I cannot prove does not exist for me" so the private engines stopped bothering me.

[chrisw]

We should not feel like the Torch authors owe us something, such as a cheap or free version of the engine.
Just as Bruce Moreland never gave us Ferret, that was his right, so also nobody owes us a copy of Torch.
Eventually, I just made a game in my mind of "an engine I cannot prove does not exist for me" so the private engines stopped bothering me.

Fallacious. Torch is not controlled by the Torch authors. Somehow (possibly without holding up in a legal sense, we don't know), a US monopoly capitalist outfit (objective maximise for shareholders) managed to extract source code out of the public domain, extract student programmers (who up to then were publishing in the public domain) for some temporary period, and have now basically removed what was common knowledge out of the common domain, to everybody's detriment. Conceptually, it's highly unlikely that there's anything in Torch that isn't actually in Stockfish, and (guessing) the probable only reason the source code isn't publicly available is that nobody cared or dared to put if back into the commons. Basically you've been robbed. Analogies to Ferret/Bruce are nonsensical. More analogous would be the dispossession of Scottish crofters by aristocratic English landlords.

[Ras]

Somehow (possibly without holding up in a legal sense, we don't know), a US monopoly capitalist outfit (objective maximise for shareholders) managed to extract source code out of the public domain

Unless the Torch authors wrote the code themselves, which is perfectly legal, or used some code portions by people who like their open source projects being turned into closed source products (BSD / MIT / Apache licence).

and (guessing) the probable only reason the source code isn't publicly available is that nobody cared or dared to put if back into the commons.

The reason is most likely business. Unlimited game analysis is behind is subscription paywall on chess.com, and the obvious question is why anyone would pay for something he can do for free at home using Stockfish. Torch was meant to be the answer, as in "because chess.com has the strongest engine that you don't get anywhere else". Didn't quite work out so far, but improving the usefulness of the analysis for human players is still on the table, with a similar argument for the exclusive analysis.

[AndrewGrant]

Conceptually, it's highly unlikely that there's anything in Torch that isn't actually in Stockfish, and (guessing) the probable only reason the source code isn't publicly available

The thinking of a man without his own capacity to invent.

[Koivisto]

We experimented a lot in Koi, so did Andy in eth & Jay in berserk etc. I'm not sure why anyone would expect this to have changed when we worked on Torch. Personally I got a lot more freedom to experiment (more hw etc.) which led to some quite interesting ideas. It is indeed unfortunate that the tricks we found won't be public knowledge untill someone else finds them. It's also possible they wouldn't' work in sf. I am very happy to have had the opportunity to work on Torch, it was an amazing group of people.

I understand there is no way for an outside observer to confirm anything I've just said. Similarly, if we ignore the improvements made to openbench, our work has almost no practical value to the engine developer community.

Personally I feel little responsibility to contribute to the community at this stage. I am content with the tiny contributions I've made in the past. I do wish Torch was open source, but it's because like most engine devs, I'd love to see my work prove useful to other people (I really do think it's an amazing engine). I don't have a problem with the fact we worked on a closed source engine in and of itself.

Not really a response to anyone in particular, but more of a dump of my feelings on the matter. Have a nice day folks

[towforce]

I am grateful for open source software - but that's a choice: companies should be allowed to keep their software private unless there's an overwhelming public interest in taking it off them (e.g. a national emergency).

[CornfedForever]

I am more a fan from the work of programmers where are working alone, because we have Stockfish and Lc0.

I'm more a fan of programmers of GUI's who can make actual use of engines. But to each his own.