ICGA WCCC and WCSC in Santiago de Compostela

[amchess]

[...]
Who is now the lead?

According to CPW, since 2020 Joost VandeVondele:

https://www.chessprogramming.org/Joost_ ... #Stockfish

--
Srdja

Thanks,
Andrea

[Graham Banks]

Andrea - have you heard anything from the SF developers yet?

[amchess]

No answer at all.
Truly incredible.
Andrea

[Graham Banks]

No answer at all.
Truly incredible.
Andrea

If the SF developers don't give you an answer, I wonder what the organizers will decide.

[CRoberson]

I am one of those responsible for ShashChess, a derivative of Stockfish, under GPL.
I have been told that permission from the Stockfish team is required to participate in WCCC.
If I get any prize money, I am willing to donate the entire amount to the community.
Can I participate with ShashChess?

The ICGA rules are extremely fuzzy about this, and judgement of officials feels hard to predict for me.

I'd suggest to get at least a written permission by whoever maintains Stockfish right now as a lead. With this, you should be on the safe side.
I'd add said statement to your application.

I suppose you don't want to discuss this during the tournament, which might make your holidays a most unpleasant experience.

I can see how an organizer would want only one copy of a program in a given event. Otherwise, the event could be swamped with copies of the same program which almost guarantees winning the event. Given that, I'd want the lead developer to pick the person(s) that will enter. Organizers making the pick based on FCFS, might not be the best idea. So, potential entrants of that program could apply to the lead developer and then he/she picks.

[hgm]

But that would only become an issue if more than one derivative of the same program actually tried to enter.

[Peter Berger]

But that would only become an issue if more than one derivative of the same program actually tried to enter.

I disagree.

It is not mandatory to enter some tournament at all. And only because you don't want to enter yourself, doesn't mean you have to be fine with a derivative of your work entering.

This is about good will. Frankly, Shashchess shouldn't have expected a speedy reply in the first place. I had a vision of a friendly answer given enough time, but it is not that "unbelievable" to me, that you don't get one in a few days.

[hgm]

I disagree.

It is not mandatory to enter some tournament at all. And only because you don't want to enter yourself, doesn't mean you have to be fine with a derivative of your work entering.

Yes, it does. Because the GPL very explicitly states that you have no say whatsoever in how others use the code you gave them permission to copy. If you are not fine with others using derivatives in tournaments, you should not have released your code under GPL.

[Peter Berger]

I disagree.

It is not mandatory to enter some tournament at all. And only because you don't want to enter yourself, doesn't mean you have to be fine with a derivative of your work entering.

Yes, it does. Because the GPL very explicitly states that you have no say whatsoever in how others use the code you gave them permission to copy. If you are not fine with others using derivatives in tournaments, you should not have released your code under GPL.

You probably know these guys better than me. My personal guess: if there is a "no" by whomever represents Stockfish, there won't be a "yes" by the ICGA. I may be wrong, and I understand how this question is interesting in principle.

[hgm]

You probably know these guys better than me. My personal guess: if there is a "no" by whomever represents Stockfish, there won't be a "yes" by the ICGA. I may be wrong, and I understand how this question is interesting in principle.

I have no doubt that you are right about that. No matter what the law is, people can always break it. The question is, could you sue the Stockfish representative that said "no" for breach of contract?