New engine "Roc"

[Gusev]

Let me clarify. The site https://sourceforge.net/projects/gullchess/ says,

Description
Chess engine code name "Gull"

GullChess Web Site
Categories
License
Public Domain

I had previously communicated with Vadim Demichev (ThinkingALot) via email regarding the license of Gull, back when Vadim was working on the project, and he replied to me back then and stated plainly that Gull was public domain. My understanding of that is, as far as the engine's author is concerned, what you call a "hint" IS to him a sufficient "anti-copyright" notice. He said it was public domain, what more do you want? The author is from Russia. Russia has public domain, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright ... Federation. Admittedly, the engine's author is not a lawyer, and neither am I.

Gull 3 is public domain.

The only hint is on the Sourceforge website where it is listed under "public domain", but nothing in the actual project documentation or source code says that? Since releasing something into public domain requires an explicit anti-copyright note even under US law, Gull 3 is lacking here.

Besides, "public domain" does not even exist in Continental Europe.

It would be better to use the Creative Commons CC0, which is the same as public domain in jurisdictions that have PD, but falls back to an unconditional licence in jurisdictions without PD.

For Roc, there is not the slightest hint to the licence in place, not even like with Gull the "public domain" category of the hosting platform.

[Ras]

Nothing in Shakespeare's works says that they are public domain, and yet, they are public domain.

Because Shakespeare has been dead for more than 70 years.

Gull's website states it's public domain

It it just sorted into the "public domain" category of Sourceforge, that's all. But I understand that the author regards this as sufficient statement. Still, it should also be noted in the code itself because once Sourceforge goes down, there is no hint to the PD status anymore.

And I'd recommend to use CC0 which is PD where PD exists, otherwise the closest equivalent.

Besides, "public domain" doesn't say anything about the licence of a derivative work. "Public domain" is not copyleft. The changes from Gull to Roc can be copyrighted under any licence the author of the changes would like.

And that doesn't even change the fact that Roc doesn't have a licence.

[Gusev]

Thank you! The copyright/copyleft/public domain status of the changes from Gull to Roc is up to Tom Hyer to take care of, however he sees fit.

Nothing in Shakespeare's works says that they are public domain, and yet, they are public domain.

Because Shakespeare has been dead for more than 70 years.

Gull's website states it's public domain

It it just sorted into the "public domain" category of Sourceforge, that's all. But I understand that the author regards this as sufficient statement. Still, it should also be noted in the code itself because once Sourceforge goes down, there is no hint to the PD status anymore.

And I'd recommend to use CC0 which is PD where PD exists, otherwise the closest equivalent.

Besides, "public domain" doesn't say anything about the licence of a derivative work. "Public domain" is not copyleft. The changes from Gull to Roc can be copyrighted under any licence the author of the changes would like.

And that doesn't even change the fact that Roc doesn't have a licence.

[THyer]

I have no problem with applying Creative Commons or a similar open license to Roc. Attempting to apply a restrictive license would be demented, given that my first step was to copy the entire Gull source...

[THyer]

That's very kind, thank you. If you let me know when you're starting, I'll release the latest code at that time.

[THyer]

Basil's LazyGull and Michael Byrne's Hawkeye both address this problem. I would also welcome such a contribution to Roc, but I don't have the proper skills.

[THyer]

I looked at the CppCheck messages. They are from the tuner code, which is not updated (I have never successfully run the Gull tuner). I will remove the tuner code.

I agree refactoring is needed if Roc is to become an active multi-developer project. That is not a problem I currently have, unfortunately.

[Gusev]

After 1772 games of a 2046-game match of Roc 0.6 v. Nemorino 2.00a, Roc crashed 4 times, and Nemorino crashed 24 times. Roc is way ahead, unsurprisingly, +1543-73=155. But... the crashes.

I looked at the CppCheck messages. They are from the tuner code, which is not updated (I have never successfully run the Gull tuner). I will remove the tuner code.

I agree refactoring is needed if Roc is to become an active multi-developer project. That is not a problem I currently have, unfortunately.

[Graham Banks]

That's very kind, thank you. If you let me know when you're starting, I'll release the latest code at that time.

My next Amateur Series Division 1 starts in a couple of days.

[Ras]

But... the crashes.

Two suggestions here.

1) run the code under Linux and use GCC's sanitiser features (not available under Windows/Cygwin). All of them. The output can point to problematic code parts. That's more of a preventive action for general code cleanup.

2) if that does not help, load the whole stuff into GDB and set a catch on SIGSEGV (IIRC). The result may be surprising.

I once had a buffer overflow that garbled the variable after the buffer, which was a pointer, and the crash happened in a totally different place when the pointer was used. So I added a write-watch on that pointer, and only then I got to the line with the buffer overflow.