David Levy asked for opinions

[Rolf]

In a new statement on chessvibes from Febr 21st, David Levy wrote (in extract):

The ICGA will be strongly guided by this tribunal in its decisions as to the truth or otherwise of such allegations, and in its decisions as to what sanctions if any should be imposed on those found by the tribunal to have cloned the programs of others. This tribunal will thus be a kind of court, in which anyone accused of cloning will be judged by their peers. If any of you can find anything wrong in this approach please say so.

Finally, I would like to comment on the suggestion that my mind is already made up in the case of the Rybka-Fruit issue.

What I have said is that I believe the evidence presented thus far against Vaskik Rajlich is rather compelling in its volume and nature. This is quite a natural reaction when the vast majority of evidence presented in this discussion had been on the “prosecution” side. Although Vasik Rajlich has replied to some of his accusers, he has not yet, I believe, presented a substantive case for his defence. He will, as part of the process and regulations of the tribunal, be invited to present whatever evidence and arguments he wishes. All of the tribunal discussions will be conducted with the real names of those posting on the tribunal’s forum – no anonymity allowed – so no-one will be able to hide behind the cloak of a handle. It is my belief that in this way Vasik will receive a fair hearing from his peers, and that his peers will, in the end, be able to make a fair and balanced judgment on the case.

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IM Levy asked for direct opinions by people who saw something wrong in this tribunal plan. Well, I have two points.

(1) The special moment the whole idea was brought into the debate is a surprise, because I had expected that sooner or later Fabien would seek support in a court case. What is still possible. But therefore I dont expect that Vas will accept to be the defendent in a tribunal. Either the proof is so strong that it will go right to the mark in a court trial then it should be questioned why it isnt been done. If the proof is NOT sufficient a tribunal is just another form of the year long campaign. Because in our legal system we dont believe that a defendant must prove his innocence but exactly the other way round.

(2) The main doubt for me is that as a commercial software programmer you dont have a clear proof of your innocence without reveiling the secrets of your code. For me it's still open for a debate why Vas hasnt been disproven after he had said that the alleged Rybka code others have concluded from the binaries, is just imagination. What else could someone say in his defense? It's the strongest counter-argument. The question remained unanswered if in computer science the compairing of two code snippets would undoubtedly allow to assume identity. How else could a code be hypostated as the true original, that was indirectly received by working on the binaries? This is a basic question and on my questions in real life I got negative responses. Here I got none, but I must agree that I might have missed the relevant debates on CCC.

[Ant_Gugdin]

In a new statement on chessvibes from Febr 21st, David Levy wrote (in extract):

The ICGA will be strongly guided by this tribunal in its decisions as to the truth or otherwise of such allegations, and in its decisions as to what sanctions if any should be imposed on those found by the tribunal to have cloned the programs of others. This tribunal will thus be a kind of court, in which anyone accused of cloning will be judged by their peers. If any of you can find anything wrong in this approach please say so.

A potential problem with this approach is that the tribunal would not be competent to impose any sanction other than withdrawal from rating lists/ tournaments. Vas could continue to sell Rybka and the tribunal would not be able to stop him. More importantly, the Fruit copyright owner would normally look to sue for damages (based either on what Vas should have paid for a licence of Fruit, or on the profits from Rybka sales). The tribunal would not be competent to impose a financial penalty. It would not even have the power to compel him to take part in the proceedings.

Finally, if the claims of Zach, Bob etc are true, Vas may have committed a criminal offence under Polish law: see http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Polish_Co ... _Liability (Chapter 14). Again, the tribunal would not be competent to deal with this issue.

[K I Hyams]

(2) The main doubt for me is that as a commercial software programmer you dont have a clear proof of your innocence without reveiling the secrets of your code.

If that is your "main doubt", it is easily dealt with. The issue is with Rybka 1 code, not Rybka 3 or Rybka 4 code. It is inconceivable that Rybka 1 contains any code which is now of commercial benefit to Rajlich's competitors. Look at the quotes below.

By Vasik Rajlich Date 2008-01-11 12:26
I’ve taken a look this morning at the Strelka 2.0 sources. The picture is quite clear.
Vast sections of these sources started their life as a decompiled Rybka 1.0. The traces of this are everywhere. The board representation is identical, and all sorts of absolutely unique Rybka code methods, bitboard tricks and even exact data tables are used throughout. Significant portions of the search and evaluation logic are not fully disassembled – the author has left in hardcoded constants and used generic names (such as “PawnStruScore0″ & “PawnStruScore1″, “PassedPawnValue0″ through “PassedPawnValue7″, etc) which show that he hasn’t yet fully understood .......................................................................................................In light of the above, I am claiming Strelka 2.0 as my own and will release it in the next few days under my own name

In other words, he was saying, as far back as 2008, that there was little or nothing of Rybka 1 code that remained hidden.

As this code is two years and several hundred Elo old, I am not going to launch any major action.

in other words, in 2008, he no longer cared about the code because it was "two years and several hundred Elo old". It is now 5 years old and so presumably he cares about it even less. The only possible commercially sensitive information that remains in that code may be where it came from.

In the light of points that have recently been presented to you, I hope that you now accept that your criticism of Bob for not taking legal action was unjustified. Either way, the quote below might suggest to you that your criticism should have been directed at Rajlich.

However, ‘Osipov’ has already threatened to repeat the procedure with Rybka 2.3.2a. (He did this after I declined to grant him rights to commercialize Strelka.) If this situation does repeat with a newer Rybka version, I will not just stand and watch any more.

[bob]

In a new statement on chessvibes from Febr 21st, David Levy wrote (in extract):

The ICGA will be strongly guided by this tribunal in its decisions as to the truth or otherwise of such allegations, and in its decisions as to what sanctions if any should be imposed on those found by the tribunal to have cloned the programs of others. This tribunal will thus be a kind of court, in which anyone accused of cloning will be judged by their peers. If any of you can find anything wrong in this approach please say so.

Finally, I would like to comment on the suggestion that my mind is already made up in the case of the Rybka-Fruit issue.

What I have said is that I believe the evidence presented thus far against Vaskik Rajlich is rather compelling in its volume and nature. This is quite a natural reaction when the vast majority of evidence presented in this discussion had been on the “prosecution” side. Although Vasik Rajlich has replied to some of his accusers, he has not yet, I believe, presented a substantive case for his defence. He will, as part of the process and regulations of the tribunal, be invited to present whatever evidence and arguments he wishes. All of the tribunal discussions will be conducted with the real names of those posting on the tribunal’s forum – no anonymity allowed – so no-one will be able to hide behind the cloak of a handle. It is my belief that in this way Vasik will receive a fair hearing from his peers, and that his peers will, in the end, be able to make a fair and balanced judgment on the case.

----------------------------------------------

IM Levy asked for direct opinions by people who saw something wrong in this tribunal plan. Well, I have two points.

(1) The special moment the whole idea was brought into the debate is a surprise, because I had expected that sooner or later Fabien would seek support in a court case. What is still possible. But therefore I dont expect that Vas will accept to be the defendent in a tribunal. Either the proof is so strong that it will go right to the mark in a court trial then it should be questioned why it isnt been done. If the proof is NOT sufficient a tribunal is just another form of the year long campaign. Because in our legal system we dont believe that a defendant must prove his innocence but exactly the other way round.

(2) The main doubt for me is that as a commercial software programmer you dont have a clear proof of your innocence without reveiling the secrets of your code. For me it's still open for a debate why Vas hasnt been disproven after he had said that the alleged Rybka code others have concluded from the binaries, is just imagination. What else could someone say in his defense? It's the strongest counter-argument. The question remained unanswered if in computer science the compairing of two code snippets would undoubtedly allow to assume identity. How else could a code be hypostated as the true original, that was indirectly received by working on the binaries? This is a basic question and on my questions in real life I got negative responses. Here I got none, but I must agree that I might have missed the relevant debates on CCC.

First, this is not the "strongest possible counter-argument." (the imagination comment). It is no argument at all. One can take a binary and work backward to C code. It would be difficult to take Rybka's binary and work backward without ever seeing the source, and take that binary back to identical source, obviously. Why? Because there are an infinite number of ways to express the same algorithm. An infinite variety of variable names. Lots of ways to implement a loop. Etc. Yet they all look the same in assembly language.

One can wave hands all day, but at the end of the day, all one has is tired arms. His comments, to date, have explained _nothing_. And David mentioned that specific lack of a defense.

David contacted me about the issue and about the tribunal idea. The goal is not to provide court cases, but to decide whether a program should be allowed to compete in CC events...

[gerold]

In a new statement on chessvibes from Febr 21st, David Levy wrote (in extract):

The ICGA will be strongly guided by this tribunal in its decisions as to the truth or otherwise of such allegations, and in its decisions as to what sanctions if any should be imposed on those found by the tribunal to have cloned the programs of others. This tribunal will thus be a kind of court, in which anyone accused of cloning will be judged by their peers. If any of you can find anything wrong in this approach please say so.

Finally, I would like to comment on the suggestion that my mind is already made up in the case of the Rybka-Fruit issue.

What I have said is that I believe the evidence presented thus far against Vaskik Rajlich is rather compelling in its volume and nature. This is quite a natural reaction when the vast majority of evidence presented in this discussion had been on the “prosecution” side. Although Vasik Rajlich has replied to some of his accusers, he has not yet, I believe, presented a substantive case for his defence. He will, as part of the process and regulations of the tribunal, be invited to present whatever evidence and arguments he wishes. All of the tribunal discussions will be conducted with the real names of those posting on the tribunal’s forum – no anonymity allowed – so no-one will be able to hide behind the cloak of a handle. It is my belief that in this way Vasik will receive a fair hearing from his peers, and that his peers will, in the end, be able to make a fair and balanced judgment on the case.

----------------------------------------------

IM Levy asked for direct opinions by people who saw something wrong in this tribunal plan. Well, I have two points.

(1) The special moment the whole idea was brought into the debate is a surprise, because I had expected that sooner or later Fabien would seek support in a court case. What is still possible. But therefore I dont expect that Vas will accept to be the defendent in a tribunal. Either the proof is so strong that it will go right to the mark in a court trial then it should be questioned why it isnt been done. If the proof is NOT sufficient a tribunal is just another form of the year long campaign. Because in our legal system we dont believe that a defendant must prove his innocence but exactly the other way round.

(2) The main doubt for me is that as a commercial software programmer you dont have a clear proof of your innocence without reveiling the secrets of your code. For me it's still open for a debate why Vas hasnt been disproven after he had said that the alleged Rybka code others have concluded from the binaries, is just imagination. What else could someone say in his defense? It's the strongest counter-argument. The question remained unanswered if in computer science the compairing of two code snippets would undoubtedly allow to assume identity. How else could a code be hypostated as the true original, that was indirectly received by working on the binaries? This is a basic question and on my questions in real life I got negative responses. Here I got none, but I must agree that I might have missed the relevant debates on CCC.

First, this is not the "strongest possible counter-argument." (the imagination comment). It is no argument at all. One can take a binary and work backward to C code. It would be difficult to take Rybka's binary and work backward without ever seeing the source, and take that binary back to identical source, obviously. Why? Because there are an infinite number of ways to express the same algorithm. An infinite variety of variable names. Lots of ways to implement a loop. Etc. Yet they all look the same in assembly language.

One can wave hands all day, but at the end of the day, all one has is tired arms. His comments, to date, have explained _nothing_. And David mentioned that specific lack of a defense.

David contacted me about the issue and about the tribunal idea. The goal is not to provide court cases, but to decide whether a program should be allowed to compete in CC events...

If it is decided that Rybka cannot compete in CC events that will have
a very big impact on Rybks's sells.

[bob]

In a new statement on chessvibes from Febr 21st, David Levy wrote (in extract):

The ICGA will be strongly guided by this tribunal in its decisions as to the truth or otherwise of such allegations, and in its decisions as to what sanctions if any should be imposed on those found by the tribunal to have cloned the programs of others. This tribunal will thus be a kind of court, in which anyone accused of cloning will be judged by their peers. If any of you can find anything wrong in this approach please say so.

Finally, I would like to comment on the suggestion that my mind is already made up in the case of the Rybka-Fruit issue.

What I have said is that I believe the evidence presented thus far against Vaskik Rajlich is rather compelling in its volume and nature. This is quite a natural reaction when the vast majority of evidence presented in this discussion had been on the “prosecution” side. Although Vasik Rajlich has replied to some of his accusers, he has not yet, I believe, presented a substantive case for his defence. He will, as part of the process and regulations of the tribunal, be invited to present whatever evidence and arguments he wishes. All of the tribunal discussions will be conducted with the real names of those posting on the tribunal’s forum – no anonymity allowed – so no-one will be able to hide behind the cloak of a handle. It is my belief that in this way Vasik will receive a fair hearing from his peers, and that his peers will, in the end, be able to make a fair and balanced judgment on the case.

----------------------------------------------

IM Levy asked for direct opinions by people who saw something wrong in this tribunal plan. Well, I have two points.

(1) The special moment the whole idea was brought into the debate is a surprise, because I had expected that sooner or later Fabien would seek support in a court case. What is still possible. But therefore I dont expect that Vas will accept to be the defendent in a tribunal. Either the proof is so strong that it will go right to the mark in a court trial then it should be questioned why it isnt been done. If the proof is NOT sufficient a tribunal is just another form of the year long campaign. Because in our legal system we dont believe that a defendant must prove his innocence but exactly the other way round.

(2) The main doubt for me is that as a commercial software programmer you dont have a clear proof of your innocence without reveiling the secrets of your code. For me it's still open for a debate why Vas hasnt been disproven after he had said that the alleged Rybka code others have concluded from the binaries, is just imagination. What else could someone say in his defense? It's the strongest counter-argument. The question remained unanswered if in computer science the compairing of two code snippets would undoubtedly allow to assume identity. How else could a code be hypostated as the true original, that was indirectly received by working on the binaries? This is a basic question and on my questions in real life I got negative responses. Here I got none, but I must agree that I might have missed the relevant debates on CCC.

First, this is not the "strongest possible counter-argument." (the imagination comment). It is no argument at all. One can take a binary and work backward to C code. It would be difficult to take Rybka's binary and work backward without ever seeing the source, and take that binary back to identical source, obviously. Why? Because there are an infinite number of ways to express the same algorithm. An infinite variety of variable names. Lots of ways to implement a loop. Etc. Yet they all look the same in assembly language.

One can wave hands all day, but at the end of the day, all one has is tired arms. His comments, to date, have explained _nothing_. And David mentioned that specific lack of a defense.

David contacted me about the issue and about the tribunal idea. The goal is not to provide court cases, but to decide whether a program should be allowed to compete in CC events...

If it is decided that Rybka cannot compete in CC events that will have
a very big impact on Rybks's sells.

Isn't that sort of like saying "if you rob a bank and get caught, you are going to go to jail"??? There are consequences for every action we take. Some are good, some are bad.

[K I Hyams]

His comments, to date, have explained _nothing_. And David mentioned that specific lack of a defense.

On the subject of explaining nothing, the email that David Levy published was another example.

“Hi David,

I’m not really sure what to say. The Rybka source code is original. I used lots of ideas from Fruit, as I have mentioned many times. Both Fruit and Rybka also use all sorts of common computer chess ideas.

Aside from that, this document is horribly bogus. All that “Rybka code” isn’t Rybka code, it’s just someone’s imagination.

Best regards,
Vas”

The email is inside speech marks. No responsible writer will present anything other than a direct quote within speech marks and I assume that David Levy is a responsible writer. If it is a direct quote and reproduced with Rajlich's consent, then I think that it is a pointless and cowardly attempt to smear the competence and integrity of another programmer. If it is not and has been doctored to remove all material for which he can be called to account, it is simply another of those comments which "to date, have explained _nothing".

[bob]

His comments, to date, have explained _nothing_. And David mentioned that specific lack of a defense.

On the subject of explaining nothing, the email that David Levy published was another example.

“Hi David,

I’m not really sure what to say. The Rybka source code is original. I used lots of ideas from Fruit, as I have mentioned many times. Both Fruit and Rybka also use all sorts of common computer chess ideas.

Aside from that, this document is horribly bogus. All that “Rybka code” isn’t Rybka code, it’s just someone’s imagination.

Best regards,
Vas”

The email is inside speech marks. No responsible writer will present anything other than a direct quote within speech marks and I assume that David Levy is a responsible writer. If it is a direct quote and reproduced with Rajlich's consent, then I think that it is a pointless and cowardly attempt to smear the competence and integrity of another programmer. If it is not and has been doctored to remove all material for which he can be called to account, it is simply another of those comments which "to date, have explained _nothing".

I agree. Lots of words. No content...

[BubbaTough]

I guess I don't understand the fuss. Don't they already have a system in place? If they suspect things are wrong, they ask for source of the version requesting permission to compete. If they don't get the source, the engine cannot compete. If they do, they send it for expert opinion (in this case people like Bob and Don). Why all this fuss? Procedures are in place, follow the procedures. Are they just trying to decide whether there is sufficient justification to ask for the source code?

-Sam

[mjlef]

One issue is what to do AFTER a tournament. Once everyone has left and the winners announced, how to recitify things if a program is later accused or proven to be a clone/theft/etc.? I think the ICGA members realize detecting these clones is hard work and requires special skills. Skills even some programmers do not have.

I think all events ICGA sponsors should require saving a copy of each program executable, in case accusations arise later.

Forcing programmers to reveal source code is an often difficult task. People do not want their "secrets" revealed to others. And who could be trusted with this, and more importantly, have the skills to analyze the code? As I recall, several porgammers were given access to Strelka code early on, and they all determined it was original. When I finially saw it in later versions, it looked very much like an optimized Fruit. I think the only people who could notice these things are the few select people that have reviewed the source code of many open programs. I certainly would have not noticed Fruit similarities unless I was already very familiar with Fruit.