Is EMAN the future number one?

[zullil]

Most of the above programs are open source and you can examine for yourself and decide if you think someone has taken code beyond fair use.
Quite frankly, I do not understand why people think it is OK to break the law. It is just as puzzling to me as the original law breakers.

Hmm... I'm not so sure about the definitive facts.
It's true that anything that can be considered a derivative work of the GPL software is also licensed under the GPL when distributed.
But when exactly a "derivative work" exists, the GPL only explains it in outline and cannot always be clarified beyond doubt.
This is also due to the fact that there are countless conceivable ways in which program components can interact with each other; the regulation in the GPL is thus naturally quite abstract.
Therefore, it is ultimately also a question of valuation in which cases one assumes independent code components and when one describes code components as "derived" from a program.
As far as I know, there are no relevant international court decisions on similar cases.
So to what extent the Eman programmer actually violates applicable law, I personally can't definitively judge.
Until then I as a user and chess player am not unhappy that with Eman 5.6 the probably currently most powerful engine in the world is available (for free!) for my chess analyses and matches
BTW: Maybe the Eman programmer himself will soon come up with the idea to give away his source code together with the engine?
But maybe he doesn't have to do that at all; maybe there is a different jurisdiction in the United Arab Emirates?
There are a few loose ends...
Greetings: Walter.

Without the source of Eman you can not decide about the truth.
But this is the "Trap of the 22th" what was created by the author of Eman.

"Catch-22"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catch-22
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catch-22_(logic)

[syzygy]

Eman is a strong engine (based on Stockfish) but since the engine author has made it extremely difficult to test his "creation" without running over to the Infinitychess forum and begging for a test copy.

Can't confirm that. I wrote a mail to the programmer Khalid Omar, and he sent me the engine for free - period. What's the problem?

Great. He's also obligated to supply you with the source code that created the engine. Please request that.

I can't imagine that the author of Eman is a criminal.

Great. Then request the source code and share it with us. We can then take his improvements, if any, and add them back to Stockfish.

[syzygy]

I am not sure that he is legally bound to do anything. The engine is not publicly available. The author sends Eman by mail, upon request, and does his best to prevent sharing. In his country, it could be well considered as private.

He distributes copies, which infringes the copyright on Stockfish unless he also offers a copy of the source code.

[Ovyron]

Great. Then request the source code and share it with us. We can then take his improvements, if any, and add them back to Stockfish.

As an ex-user of Eman I can say that those "improvements" are already freely available in other open source Stockfish forks, and that Eman is mostly a compilation of them, some sort of "best of ideas that never got to Stockfish dev" project, and I believe THE MAIN REASON the sources remain private is that the author has built a reputation in the InfinityChess community (a lot of people use his engine there, some have been using it to win money in their online torunaments) and it would get ruined if the sources were revealed and original code (unique to Eman) was hard to find.

I've praised Eman in the past, because it does play better than Stockfish dev (mainly due to smarter time management that is only apparent when playing with books that may leave the engine in a position sooner or later and it can be worthwhile to spend more time on the very first position and gradually play faster but this will not be seen with Stockfish's testing), but its move choices match Stockfish >90% of the time (if I'm generous, feel free to add as many 9s as necessary.)

I welcome an Eman user to prove me wrong, post a position where Eman finds a move that no other SF fork does, this will show the original work that the author put into it. Even Houdini 6 has positions where Stockfish can't find the move while its Tactical setting can, but Eman? Calling it a "quasi-independent engine" sounds like a scam.

[corres]

...
I can't imagine that the author of Eman is a criminal.

He braked the low only. (If he is interested in the valuing his act.)

Great. Then request the source code and share it with us. We can then take his improvements, if any, and add them back to Stockfish.

This would be the correct mode in an open source work.

[Dann Corbit]

Most of the above programs are open source and you can examine for yourself and decide if you think someone has taken code beyond fair use.
Quite frankly, I do not understand why people think it is OK to break the law. It is just as puzzling to me as the original law breakers.

Hmm... I'm not so sure about the definitive facts.

His own web site says it is derived from Stockfish.
https://eman.zohosites.com/
Whenever he makes a release, mentions that he has back-patched the stockfish updates into Eman.

It's true that anything that can be considered a derivative work of the GPL software is also licensed under the GPL when distributed.
But when exactly a "derivative work" exists, the GPL only explains it in outline and cannot always be clarified beyond doubt.

Except when the author clones something and then he says, "I cloned this"
In such a case, I do not think a lot of clarification is needed.

This is also due to the fact that there are countless conceivable ways in which program components can interact with each other; the regulation in the GPL is thus naturally quite abstract.

Except when you say, "Yes, I derived my program from this GPL program."
In that case, it is not abstract at all.

Therefore, it is ultimately also a question of valuation in which cases one assumes independent code components and when one describes code components as "derived" from a program.

Unless, of course, you describe it as derived yourself.

As far as I know, there are no relevant international court decisions on similar cases.
So to what extent the Eman programmer actually violates applicable law, I personally can't definitively judge.
Until then I as a user and chess player am not unhappy that with Eman 5.6 the probably currently most powerful engine in the world is available (for free!) for my chess analyses and matches

There are many GPL lawsuits. I invite you to try a google search for "GPL lawsuit"
Samples:
https://wiki.fsfe.org/Migrated/GPL%20En ... nt%20Cases

BTW: Maybe the Eman programmer himself will soon come up with the idea to give away his source code together with the engine?
But maybe he doesn't have to do that at all; maybe there is a different jurisdiction in the United Arab Emirates?

Copyright law is international.

There are a few loose ends...

Not really, but maybe a few loose screws.

Greetings: Walter

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[MikeB]

...If someone is tweaking SF and releasing binaries , like me and the authors of Sting, SuGar, Crystal, and Corchess , the right thing to do is for the author to publish his code...

ShashChess is also released with source code.

Yes it is! I had a bit of brain fart when posting that , probably missed some others as well. Old age ...sigh...

[Glarean]

I believe THE MAIN REASON the sources remain private is that the author has built a reputation in the InfinityChess community (a lot of people use his engine there, some have been using it to win money in their online torunaments) and it would get ruined if the sources were revealed and original code (unique to Eman) was hard to find.

I can't comment on this massive suspicion...

[...]I've praised Eman in the past, because it does play better than Stockfish [...]

Yeah, that was here:

[...]It is a Stockfish derivative, and I have to say it's the most impressive derivative I've evers seen. Perhaps, it is the strongest engine that has been installed on my hardware, ever, and by a lot.[...]

http://talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=70784

And here we find another interesting statement from you about Eman

http://talkchess.com/forum3/viewtopic.p ... 10#p799550

I welcome an Eman user to prove me wrong, post a position where Eman finds a move that no other SF fork does [...]

No problem, I will search my harddisk for it, there should be some examples lying around.

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[Ovyron]

Yeah, back then Eman was something else when compared to other derivatives. I was beating people that were using Stockfish Dev in much faster hardware than mine and I didn't even think it was possible. Eman was ahead of the curve.

Nowadays I can get such a performance with Brainfish without Cerebellum (whatever that is) and it's people on much faster hardware WITH Eman that can't touch me. People with access to Eman that have chosen to ditch it in favor of other Stockfish clones, or went the Leela way (specially with Eman Chimera, which is an adapter used to play NN+A/B.)

I'm looking forward to that position that shows Eman's author's job.

[Glarean]

Nowadays I can get such a performance with Brainfish without Cerebellum (whatever that is) and it's people on much faster hardware WITH Eman that can't touch me.

Hm... Brainfish without Cerebellum is a quite "normal" Stockfish (or -Derivative). Cerebellum is the most important component of Brainfish...
https://zipproth.de/Brainfish/

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