Strelka 2.0 B running for the IPON ...

[Albert Silver]

My letter to Vas

One of them you mean.

Here is another excerpt:

> > Although at summer you didn t limit me in Strelka developing and even
> > having it commercial (the limit was only no more do decode in secret
> > Rybka
> > executables and not to distribute source code) I would like to ask
> > once more clearly for your agree for the right for commercial
> > distribution of Strelka

It would seem to me that by asking multiple times for his permission to commercialize Strelka, that you clearly felt he had this authority. I never heard mention that you asked Fabien permission, or some other author.

[Osipov Jury]

It would seem to me that by asking multiple times for his permission to commercialize Strelka, that you clearly felt he had this authority.

I asked permission of Vasik only once. This was done for two reasons:
1. Vasik promised to make a mobile version of Rybka.
2. Strelka was partly based on Rybka.

I never heard mention that you asked Fabien permission, or some other author.

Yes, earlier I did not know what to use the source code needed to ask permission from the author. I thought that if the original texts are published, it is done in order to use them. My sources I publish without any restrictions. Maybe it's just naive, but I feel so comfortable.

[Albert Silver]

It would seem to me that by asking multiple times for his permission to commercialize Strelka, that you clearly felt he had this authority.

I asked permission of Vasik only once.

Hmm....

"...I would like to ask once more..."

[Ryan Benitez]

It would seem to me that by asking multiple times for his permission to commercialize Strelka, that you clearly felt he had this authority.

I asked permission of Vasik only once.

Hmm....

"...I would like to ask once more..."

In CCC math 1 + 1 = 1;

[Don]

Btw: I wrote it already here, GPL is dead, at least for comp chess, as it is impossible to finaly prove something.

Oh, it's certainly possible to prove something. It's just that almost noone seems to want to go to court over it.

Yes, the only ones that might be motivated to do this is people making income from chess but we are talking about open source programs. If I produced an open source program of some kind and someone cloned it, then why would I want to hire a lawyer to "protect" my interests? I HAVE no financial interests to protect.

I suppose you could argue that you were planning to market the program and try to sue for future income, but this would be dishonest. Someone with the mentality/generosity to release software for free is not likely to be litigation happy as they are not in it for the money anyway.

That leaves suing for the principle of it - to right a wrong. Not many people are going to do that when it requires them to reach into their own pockets to hire lawyers for a case that they may or may not win based on the whims of the court and skill of the lawyers.

The only one who might have been motivated enough to sue was Vas as I see it because it was clearly a threat to his financial interests and he did cried foul. But he didn't sue. It's not right to impute motives to this but the fact that he didn't sure stirred up a lot of controversy. Personally I don't weigh this factor very heavily because I probably would not sue in the same situation even if my conscience was clear. But I don't know the facts either, how much did Vas earn from sales of Rybka, how much did he estimate he lost from the clones, what would be the cost of a lawsuit and what are the odds of winning in court and what would you get if you did win? (answer: hardly anything.) In his position it seems like suing would be a stupid decision financially even if he was in the right, and that appears to be far from clear.

Don

[Osipov Jury]

It would seem to me that by asking multiple times for his permission to commercialize Strelka, that you clearly felt he had this authority.

I asked permission of Vasik only once.

Hmm....

"...I would like to ask once more..."

Vas previously not objected to the commercialization of Strelka:

"Selling your engine is also normal -
you can find a distributor to handle all details and most users will use
it for free anyway"

But I and Victor decided to once again clarify his opinion:

"Although at summer you didn t limit me in Strelka developing and even
having it commercial (the limit was only no more do decode in secret Rybka
executables and not to distribute source code) I would like to ask
once more clearly for your agree for the right for commercial
distribution of Strelka with Convekta GUI. I don t think it can be any
competition with Rybka. Rybka developing goes forward much faster. As
Victor said this even will help to polish Mobile GUIs that will be
used with Rybka then."

[Gian-Carlo Pascutto]

Yes, the only ones that might be motivated to do this is people making income from chess but we are talking about open source programs. If I produced an open source program of some kind and someone cloned it, then why would I want to hire a lawyer to "protect" my interests? I HAVE no financial interests to protect.

You could have tried to commit an obvious GPL violation on something like Qt (before Nokia bought it) or MySQL, and see how quickly the lawyers were knocking on your door. Clearly, some peope do believe, and rightly so, that free software does not exclude financial interests.

Not many people are going to do that when it requires them to reach into their own pockets to hire lawyers for a case that they may or may not win based on the whims of the court and skill of the lawyers.

For Free Software alternative routes are available. There are many for-profit companies that build their business on Free Software, and some of them are, together with non-profits, funding resources that make it possible to enforce Free Software licenses for people without deep pockets. This is necessary, because if Free Software licenses are toothless, there will be little reason to use them, and the for-profit business dies too.

The only one who might have been motivated enough to sue was Vas[...]In his position it seems like suing would be a stupid decision financially even if he was in the right, and that appears to be far from clear.

I agree that attempting legal action against Ippolit itself was essentially hopeless and that from the lack thereof one couldn't infer anything about the legal status of Rybka or the derivatives.

[Dr.Wael Deeb]

Are you claiming that you did not suggest Strelka be packaged with Rybka as a variant/flavor of it? That was the reason I was even brought in. As a variant of his program, his permission was required, and frankly, the idea wasn't a happy one since it wasn't just a variant, it was a variant in which the source code was widespread. This was actually the Pandora's Box you really opened. Clones and derivatives had existed before, but this was the first time someone decided to spam the source code everywhere ALSO.

Convekta, i.e. Viktor Zakharov, made me an offer to release the Strelka for mobile systems. Convekta created a graphical interface, but the engine was missing. Vas has promised to make a mobile version of the Rybka, but did not. Convekta turned to me and several other programmers to use their engines. Not together with Rybka or as a variant of Rybka, but instead of it.
I accepted this offer and sent the source code for porting.
But then Vas inexplicably vetoed the project. And that surprised not only me, but Viktor too.

And then people get mad when I say that Vasik is a manipulater & crook.....
Dr.D

[Don]

Yes, the only ones that might be motivated to do this is people making income from chess but we are talking about open source programs. If I produced an open source program of some kind and someone cloned it, then why would I want to hire a lawyer to "protect" my interests? I HAVE no financial interests to protect.

You could have tried to commit an obvious GPL violation on something like Qt (before Nokia bought it) or MySQL, and see how quickly the lawyers were knocking on your door. Clearly, some peope do believe, and rightly so, that free software does not exclude financial interests.

Not many people are going to do that when it requires them to reach into their own pockets to hire lawyers for a case that they may or may not win based on the whims of the court and skill of the lawyers.

For Free Software alternative routes are available. There are many for-profit companies that build their business on Free Software, and some of them are, together with non-profits, funding resources that make it possible to enforce Free Software licenses for people without deep pockets. This is necessary, because if Free Software licenses are toothless, there will be little reason to use them, and the for-profit business dies too.

The only one who might have been motivated enough to sue was Vas[...]In his position it seems like suing would be a stupid decision financially even if he was in the right, and that appears to be far from clear.

I agree that attempting legal action against Ippolit itself was essentially hopeless and that from the lack thereof one couldn't infer anything about the legal status of Rybka or the derivatives.

I'm not so sure action against Ippolit is hopeless, because there is no question it is a "derivative" Even BB has clearly shown this. The question might be whether it's illegal to produce a close derivative of a commercial program which itself is illegal. So in my opinion it's easy to make the case that it's a derivate of Rybka 3, but I don't know if that is enough.

Here is an interesting question: Robbo is GPL licensed, which means it's illegal to create a derivative work without also carrying the same licence. So is anything that is not open source but based on Robbo illegal? This is almost like dominoes.

[Gian-Carlo Pascutto]

I'm not so sure action against Ippolit is hopeless, because there is no question it is a "derivative" Even BB has clearly shown this. The question might be whether it's illegal to produce a close derivative of a commercial program which itself is illegal. So in my opinion it's easy to make the case that it's a derivate of Rybka 3, but I don't know if that is enough.

Two wrongs don't make a right!

I think action is hopeless because there is noone to sue, not because its impossible to show that it is a derived work. By the way, I am sure Ippolit is based on reverse engineering Rybka, and has much things in common, but I am not sure it is derivative work for copyright law, and hence, a copyright violation. (I had problems finding enough code that is a straight copy for it to be an easy case, which is why I stopped stating that) It's also possible Ippolit is illegal because it was reverse engineered in a country where that is illegal. Could be one reason why the author doesn't want to be known.

Here is an interesting question: Robbo is GPL licensed, which means it's illegal to create a derivative work without also carrying the same licence. So is anything that is not open source but based on Robbo illegal? This is almost like dominoes.

Clones derived from Robbo that are not GPL are illegal. No question about that. I was reporting every post about them here to the moderators for a while, but it's rowing against the flow without a paddle...and somehow I don't think Robbo's author is going to file suit, eh.