could somebody please explain why reverse engineering wrong

[Volker Pittlik]

...
Money is not directly involved in this process...

You missed the point

[slobo]

There is nothing wrong with reverse-engineering, but distributing program which is _heavily_ based on reverse-engineered code is (at least morally) questionable or illegal.

"Illegal"? Are you a lawer or someone linked to laws related to this specific field?

Please note the important word "or". Laws vary from country to country. Here in Finland every work you make is automatically implicitely copyrighted by you. It's illegal to distribute work which is copyrighted by someone else. So if there are too many similarities (in logic, spellings, code flow) between reverse-engineered source and distributed program, I'm quite sure court (at least here in Finland) would decide that copyright is broken. If not, it's only morally questionable.

Luckily I'm not the one who should judge this issue. I'm just started to be very bored of this R***** spamming of Talkchess, and certain people who have _nothing_else_to_say, but to spread their own political agenda.

First, if you are "bored of this R***** spamming of Talkchess", you should not feed the trolls.

Second: if you are "bored of this R***** spamming of Talkchess", you should not borrow codes and ideas from "this R*****" thing.

It was about coherence and personal integrity.

Now something about your:
"It's illegal to distribute work which is copyrighted by someone else. So if there are too many similarities (in logic, spellings, code flow) between reverse-engineered source and distributed program, I'm quite sure court (at least here in Finland) would decide that copyright is broken. If not, it's only morally questionable."

It would be illegal ONLY if a court find out (conclude) that what it is distributed is exactly the same as the original source. Let's not forget that after reverse engineering, no one could be 100% sure of something like this. What the court could possibly find out? In the first place:
- that the logic is the same
- that the code structure is similar
- that the code is not exact, in fact, that the code is very different...

And what the above mentioned mean?
It means that what could have happened was the borrowing of ideas, not of the code itself.

So, as we all here know that borrowing ideas is allowed, you should not feel so much disgust while spelling this "R*****" name.

[djbl]

but the point is not directly taking someone elses code is it, that is the whole point, i didnt say cloning, and for me they are two different issues, lifting code directly and passing it off as ones own is theft, but analysing how something works, when that thing happens to work better than its rivals and to figure out how it is operating, and maybe to even improve it, what is so wrong with that, happens in all other walks of life, no one has the copyright to an umblella. what is so wrong with thast. what exactly is beign stolen here, an idea, a way of playign chess in this case. a set of equations? how can anyone lay claim to a science?

[Albert Silver]

i have been thinking about ths lately, and i am not even sure why reverse engineering an engine (in this case) is so wrong. when something comes along that is such an improvement on its predecessors it seems only natural to me that people would want to figure out how it is working, and to look to make improvements on said engine. is this not the basis of all technological advancements?

i have been thinking about this lately, and i am not even sure why stealing money (in this case) is so wrong. when someone comes along who is so much richer than other people it seems only natural to me that people would want take all his money, and to look to make more out of it. is this not the basis of all respectable entrepreneurship?

vp

And what if the reason he is so rich is because he got my money under false pretences by promising a free update/bugfix which he never delivered?

I think that argument is ridiculous. I have never bought an engine *because* of a possible update. This would imply the engine was starting much worse than I wanted, and I was paying in the hopes it might fulfill my expectations. Rybka 3 came with a HUGE 100 Elo improvement of Rybka 232a, which was still, at that time, the strongest engine around by far, with only Naum4 even competitive. It is sold in 3 formats: CB, Aquarium, and of course the pure UCI engine.

AFAIK, the first two make no claims whatsoever of any updates, and it is essentially a WYSIWYG, so buyers who purchased one of those certainly had no expectations other than the engine being what it claimed to be: the strongest engine in the world by far, which it was.

I have been buying engines and chess programs for a LONG time. My first non-streamline engine (i.e. not Chessmaster and co., and not a standalone like my Excel 68000) was Mchess. It was *very* expensive, but as also king on a 386. Then followed Chess Genius, Fritzs, Hiarcs, and many others. As any enthusiast, I followed the results, and if the engine was at least competitive with the top brass, as per published results (SSDF was king then), it would appear on my To Buy list. With a bit of luck, they would be added to my Owned Engines list.

In all these years, the engine that came with the single largest Elo edge, not attributed to hardware, was Fritz 5. When it appeared on SSDF with a monstrous 70+Elo edge over number 2, it was a bit of a shock. 70 Elo.... wow. On average, a super successful new release would come with 40 Elo over previous versions AT MOST. Many times not even that. Shredder 8 had exactly zero elo over 7.04 despite the ply count showing it was reaching 4-5 plies more than its predecessor. In terms of outdoing its promises, and enormously so, Rybka is the undisputed king. Each version 100 Elo or so over the previous one, and all the while maintaining an enormous lead over the others. It is simply unheard of. Rybka 3 was no different, and fulfilled the Elo edge as well as the complaints that earlier Rybkas were quite weak at king attacks and finding combinations.

If you wish to claim that you would have preferred to be using Ryba 232a or another even weaker engine all this time, feel free, but I won't believe you.

[IQ]

i have been thinking about this lately, and i am not even sure why stealing money (in this case) is so wrong. when someone comes along who is so much richer than other people it seems only natural to me that people would want take all his money, and to look to make more out of it. is this not the basis of all respectable entrepreneurship?
vp

This analogy is completely wrong, as the theft of money deprives the owner of it's use. This is not the case for intellectual property as the originator can still use his own invention. There is no "Law" in the world where both - copyright infringement and theft - are equivalent. I provided some real insight into why intellectual property rights were devised -- at least trying to go beyond the naivety of most arguments here:

http://talkchess.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=31619

There, I also provided a link to a very interesting (albeit slightly biased) Book dealing exactly with these issues.

[metax]

Second: if you are "bored of this R***** spamming of Talkchess", you should not borrow codes and ideas from "this R*****" thing.

I think borrowing 'ideas' or 'codes' are two different things and I'm quite sure that there is no R* code in Stockfish. Maybe some ideas are used, but no code as far as I know.

[bnemias]

but the point is not directly taking someone elses code is it, that is the whole point, i didnt say cloning, and for me they are two different issues, lifting code directly and passing it off as ones own is theft, but analysing how something works, when that thing happens to work better than its rivals and to figure out how it is operating, and maybe to even improve it

I'm not a lawyer, but I think the main factors governing the legality of what you said so far would mostly be Rybka's license agreement, and your country of residence.

what is so wrong with that, happens in all other walks of life, no one has the copyright to an umblella. what is so wrong with thast. what exactly is beign stolen here, an idea,

Every work produced is born with a copyright. It is not necessary to register with some government body to have it. Laws vary by region though. Some places require explicit wording-- IIRC, the main reason for the phrase "All Rights Reserved" was due to that being a requirement (South Africa I think) to get copyright rights.

In the case of an umbrella, a more appropriate protection would be a patent which does protect ideas.

[John Conway]

i have been thinking about ths lately, and i am not even sure why reverse engineering an engine (in this case) is so wrong. when something comes along that is such an improvement on its predecessors it seems only natural to me that people would want to figure out how it is working, and to look to make improvements on said engine. is this not the basis of all technological advancements?

i have been thinking about this lately, and i am not even sure why stealing money (in this case) is so wrong. when someone comes along who is so much richer than other people it seems only natural to me that people would want take all his money, and to look to make more out of it. is this not the basis of all respectable entrepreneurship?

vp

And what if the reason he is so rich is because he got my money under false pretences by promising a free update/bugfix which he never delivered?

I think that argument is ridiculous. I have never bought an engine *because* of a possible update. This would imply the engine was starting much worse than I wanted, and I was paying in the hopes it might fulfill my expectations. Rybka 3 came with a HUGE 100 Elo improvement of Rybka 232a, which was still, at that time, the strongest engine around by far, with only Naum4 even competitive. It is sold in 3 formats: CB, Aquarium, and of course the pure UCI engine.

AFAIK, the first two make no claims whatsoever of any updates, and it is essentially a WYSIWYG, so buyers who purchased one of those certainly had no expectations other than the engine being what it claimed to be: the strongest engine in the world by far, which it was.

I have been buying engines and chess programs for a LONG time. My first non-streamline engine (i.e. not Chessmaster and co., and not a standalone like my Excel 68000) was Mchess. It was *very* expensive, but as also king on a 386. Then followed Chess Genius, Fritzs, Hiarcs, and many others. As any enthusiast, I followed the results, and if the engine was at least competitive with the top brass, as per published results (SSDF was king then), it would appear on my To Buy list. With a bit of luck, they would be added to my Owned Engines list.

In all these years, the engine that came with the single largest Elo edge, not attributed to hardware, was Fritz 5. When it appeared on SSDF with a monstrous 70+Elo edge over number 2, it was a bit of a shock. 70 Elo.... wow. On average, a super successful new release would come with 40 Elo over previous versions AT MOST. Many times not even that. Shredder 8 had exactly zero elo over 7.04 despite the ply count showing it was reaching 4-5 plies more than its predecessor. In terms of outdoing its promises, and enormously so, Rybka is the undisputed king. Each version 100 Elo or so over the previous one, and all the while maintaining an enormous lead over the others. It is simply unheard of. Rybka 3 was no different, and fulfilled the Elo edge as well as the complaints that earlier Rybkas were quite weak at king attacks and finding combinations.

If you wish to claim that you would have preferred to be using Ryba 232a or another even weaker engine all this time, feel free, but I won't believe you.

I buy a car. It doesn’t run smoothly (although it has more power than last year’s model). The manufacturer can’t or won’t fix it. So I do some reverse engineering and I improve the fuel injection system. The car now runs much smoother and has more power too. I now publish free of charge information about the modification for the benefit of other owners of this model of car. Is the ethically wrong?

[John Conway]

i have been thinking about ths lately, and i am not even sure why reverse engineering an engine (in this case) is so wrong. when something comes along that is such an improvement on its predecessors it seems only natural to me that people would want to figure out how it is working, and to look to make improvements on said engine. is this not the basis of all technological advancements?

i have been thinking about this lately, and i am not even sure why stealing money (in this case) is so wrong. when someone comes along who is so much richer than other people it seems only natural to me that people would want take all his money, and to look to make more out of it. is this not the basis of all respectable entrepreneurship?

vp

And what if the reason he is so rich is because he got my money under false pretences by promising a free update/bugfix which he never delivered?

This question is very good and is related to the ethical aspects of reverse-engineering.

These two are issues are completely unrelated. If you want to argue that two wrongs make a right, the place to do it is here:

http://www.talkchess.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=3

-Sam

Thanks for the advice but I know where CTF is. I don’t believe two wrongs make a right and I don’t wish to argue about it.

And BTW you are the one that is bringing up completely unrelated issues.

[Albert Silver]

i have been thinking about ths lately, and i am not even sure why reverse engineering an engine (in this case) is so wrong. when something comes along that is such an improvement on its predecessors it seems only natural to me that people would want to figure out how it is working, and to look to make improvements on said engine. is this not the basis of all technological advancements?

i have been thinking about this lately, and i am not even sure why stealing money (in this case) is so wrong. when someone comes along who is so much richer than other people it seems only natural to me that people would want take all his money, and to look to make more out of it. is this not the basis of all respectable entrepreneurship?

vp

And what if the reason he is so rich is because he got my money under false pretences by promising a free update/bugfix which he never delivered?

I think that argument is ridiculous. I have never bought an engine *because* of a possible update. This would imply the engine was starting much worse than I wanted, and I was paying in the hopes it might fulfill my expectations. Rybka 3 came with a HUGE 100 Elo improvement of Rybka 232a, which was still, at that time, the strongest engine around by far, with only Naum4 even competitive. It is sold in 3 formats: CB, Aquarium, and of course the pure UCI engine.

AFAIK, the first two make no claims whatsoever of any updates, and it is essentially a WYSIWYG, so buyers who purchased one of those certainly had no expectations other than the engine being what it claimed to be: the strongest engine in the world by far, which it was.

I have been buying engines and chess programs for a LONG time. My first non-streamline engine (i.e. not Chessmaster and co., and not a standalone like my Excel 68000) was Mchess. It was *very* expensive, but as also king on a 386. Then followed Chess Genius, Fritzs, Hiarcs, and many others. As any enthusiast, I followed the results, and if the engine was at least competitive with the top brass, as per published results (SSDF was king then), it would appear on my To Buy list. With a bit of luck, they would be added to my Owned Engines list.

In all these years, the engine that came with the single largest Elo edge, not attributed to hardware, was Fritz 5. When it appeared on SSDF with a monstrous 70+Elo edge over number 2, it was a bit of a shock. 70 Elo.... wow. On average, a super successful new release would come with 40 Elo over previous versions AT MOST. Many times not even that. Shredder 8 had exactly zero elo over 7.04 despite the ply count showing it was reaching 4-5 plies more than its predecessor. In terms of outdoing its promises, and enormously so, Rybka is the undisputed king. Each version 100 Elo or so over the previous one, and all the while maintaining an enormous lead over the others. It is simply unheard of. Rybka 3 was no different, and fulfilled the Elo edge as well as the complaints that earlier Rybkas were quite weak at king attacks and finding combinations.

If you wish to claim that you would have preferred to be using Ryba 232a or another even weaker engine all this time, feel free, but I won't believe you.

I buy a car. It doesn’t run smoothly (although it has more power than last year’s model). The manufacturer can’t or won’t fix it. So I do some reverse engineering and I improve the fuel injection system. The car now runs much smoother and has more power too. I now publish free of charge information about the modification for the benefit of other owners of this model of car. Is the ethically wrong?

I have no idea what this has to do with your claim that you only bought the engine because of a promised bugfix.