Commercialisation of Open Source Chess Programs

[terminator]

First and foremost I don't condone the Strelka thieves and so on who do what they do (no unsavory details). Isn't there a way for an honest programmer to develop something from Fruit/Toga (GPL permitting) and then get a product that is sellable? How then do companies make money off of open source?

[Matthias Gemuh]

First and foremost I don't condone the Strelka thieves and so on who do what they do (no unsavory details). Isn't there a way for an honest programmer to develop something from Fruit/Toga (GPL permitting) and then get a product that is sellable? How then do companies make money off of open source?

OpenSource is not for making money directly.
It is to enhance learning.
The aquired knowledge can then be applied for making money (without copy and paste).

Matthias.


.

[Uri Blass]

First and foremost I don't condone the Strelka thieves and so on who do what they do (no unsavory details). Isn't there a way for an honest programmer to develop something from Fruit/Toga (GPL permitting) and then get a product that is sellable? How then do companies make money off of open source?

The only honest way that I see to try to make some money(but not a lot og money) is to simply tell the public that you made an improvement of 100 elo to toga and post games without the source or the exe and tell the public that you are going to release the source and the exe only for 1000$(if you do not get 1000$ you keep the code private when you do not care if you get the money from 50 people who pay 20$ or from 100 people who pay 10$)

I do not know if 1000$ is too little and you can earn more than it or maybe it is too much and you need to decide about lower price.

I am surprised that nobody tried this idea.

Edit:In second thought maybe somebody tried this idea and did a deal with the author of rybka by telling him the improvement that he found in toga and got some money from him for not releasing his source.

Everything is legal because you do not have to share the code with people except people that you sent it to them.

Uri

[swami]

First and foremost I don't condone the Strelka thieves and so on who do what they do (no unsavory details). Isn't there a way for an honest programmer to develop something from Fruit/Toga (GPL permitting) and then get a product that is sellable? How then do companies make money off of open source?

The only honest way that I see to try to make some money(but not a lot og money) is to simply tell the public that you made an improvement of 100 elo to toga and post games without the source or the exe and tell the public that you are going to release the source and the exe only for 1000$(if you do not get 1000$ you keep the code private when you do not care if you get the money from 50 people who pay 20$ or from 100 people who pay 10$)

I do not know if 1000$ is too little and you can earn more than it or maybe it is too much and you need to decide about lower price.

I am surprised that nobody tried this idea.

Uri

Would many people believe this claim? What if he doesn't get 50 customers? would he refund the money?

I suspect many people would wait for any test results to appear before deciding to buy the engine.. because it is an engine based on Toga...

[swami]

Edit:In second thought maybe somebody tried this idea and did a deal with the author of rybka by telling him the improvement that he found in toga and got some money from him for not releasing his source.

Nah, That's unlikely, because computer chess is such a small community... not many people are yet unaware of Toga/Fruit except few programmers,

they would have to make better Toga...then they would have to make deals with Vas...Vas has to see whether the idea is useful, very very unlikely

[gerold]

Edit:In second thought maybe somebody tried this idea and did a deal with the author of rybka by telling him the improvement that he found in toga and got some money from him for not releasing his source.

Nah, That's unlikely, because computer chess is such a small community... not many people are yet unaware of Toga/Fruit except few programmers,

they would have to make better Toga...then they would have to make deals with Vas...Vas has to see whether the idea is useful, very very unlikely

What has Vas got to do with Toga/Fruit

[gerold]

First and foremost I don't condone the Strelka thieves and so on who do what they do (no unsavory details). Isn't there a way for an honest programmer to develop something from Fruit/Toga (GPL permitting) and then get a product that is sellable? How then do companies make money off of open source?

OpenSource is not for making money directly.
It is to enhance learning.
The aquired knowledge can then be applied for making money (without copy and paste).

Matthias.



.

So could Thomas improve a little more on Toga and sell it.
He has improved it so it is a lot stronger than Fruit.

Best to you,
Gerold.

[Uri Blass]

Edit:In second thought maybe somebody tried this idea and did a deal with the author of rybka by telling him the improvement that he found in toga and got some money from him for not releasing his source.

Nah, That's unlikely, because computer chess is such a small community... not many people are yet unaware of Toga/Fruit except few programmers,

they would have to make better Toga...then they would have to make deals with Vas...Vas has to see whether the idea is useful, very very unlikely

What has Vas got to do with Toga/Fruit

Vas perfers rybka to be stronger than the opponents and releasing source of stronger toga may help the opponents.

It is better for Vas if better toga is not released and it is better for Vas to know some secrets how to improve toga when other programmers do not know them so maybe Vas is going to pay for not having new toga that may cause delay in the improvement of toga and delay in the improvement of the opponents.

Uri

[swami]

Edit:In second thought maybe somebody tried this idea and did a deal with the author of rybka by telling him the improvement that he found in toga and got some money from him for not releasing his source.

Nah, That's unlikely, because computer chess is such a small community... not many people are yet unaware of Toga/Fruit except few programmers,

they would have to make better Toga...then they would have to make deals with Vas...Vas has to see whether the idea is useful, very very unlikely

What has Vas got to do with Toga/Fruit

Hi Gerold,

I don't think you understood my response to Uri. Uri was talking about ideas in hypothetical improved commercial Toga based engine that Vas may find it useful to implement it in his own engine's code. I said it is unlikely that someone would approach Vas with the idea.

[Uri Blass]

First and foremost I don't condone the Strelka thieves and so on who do what they do (no unsavory details). Isn't there a way for an honest programmer to develop something from Fruit/Toga (GPL permitting) and then get a product that is sellable? How then do companies make money off of open source?

OpenSource is not for making money directly.
It is to enhance learning.
The aquired knowledge can then be applied for making money (without copy and paste).

Matthias.



.

So could Thomas improve a little more on Toga and sell it.
He has improved it so it is a lot stronger than Fruit.

Best to you,
Gerold.

If this is a version that he did not release maybe he can do it and it is also dependent on how much he improved it.
There are 2 ideas
1)selling it to Vas in order not to release it.
2)selling it to customers(and release it only if customers pay at least X$)
I guess that for some X people are going to buy it because even I am going to buy significantly better toga for 1$ in case that I am convinced that it is significantly better.

Uri