Surprise...

[geots]

I bought Houdini 2 on the basis that he's an honest man with an honest program. So IF it comes out I was wrong- I don't give a shit. It will still play the same game it did when I bought it. Same for all the Rybka versions from 1.0 beta thru 4.1 that I enjoyed, still enjoy, and was lucky enough not to have to spend a dime on.

Then I went straight to the sight, and downloaded Ivanhoe, Robbolito and the Fire versions. And I am running them all for myself only, along with the Rybkas and Houdinis. And I have never had as much fun as I am having right now. Free or not, clone or not, copied and pasted or not, clean of this and that, or not> I am having fun and enjoying them.

Yup thats the way it is these days
if the rating is high enough who cares if its an illegal clone or derivative or whatever
you are having fun

same is true for professional sports nowadays
there are folks who could care less if athletes are jazzed up on steroids ..just as long as they can watch Bobby Bonds smack those homerun balls over the fence

the problem is some athletes and programmers try very hard to do it the old fashion way...
on their own..without cheating..and this is a slap in the face to them
sorry to say this is just another breakdown of morality..IMHO

enjoy your new ..strongest program

BTW..George...you made alot of noise about trying to get Rajlich to finally speak out and defend himself..to participate in his own defense
im guessing he wasn't interested since you haven't mentioned it again

Not Surprised Regards
Steve

Just what I said. Look at your interpretation. Tho true, a lot of what I said above was tongue-in-cheek. and don't tell me you are not smart enough to know that. Believe me, if you could put a program under some sort of light- green it's ok, red it's a clone with too much of someone else's work, I would be the happiest person in the world. No more of the: 2 experts say it is bad- 2 other experts say it is ok- and 1 in the middle says there are just too many gray areas.

And this is not the norm- not the way it always has been. There was always a problem or 2- but nothing like this. And I would love for you to tell me how I hurt any freeware authors by downloading some from the "Ippo" family. What exactly did I deprive them of.

Go ahead and make your argument about me buying Houdini 2 in good faith. I said, if you took the time to read it, that I bought it with the trust that it was an honest program. If later it isn't- what you want me to do- delete it from my system? I will still enjoy it.

And you haven't a clue how much I care whether we have clones or not, so don't talk as if you do, please. It bothered me bad enough to the point I almost walked away from computer chess entirely. Not because of clones so much as the way a lot of programmers are treated and I imagine Dailey and Kaufman will get their fill of it. The fact their program may very well be ok won't mean a thing to these people.

I suppose some programmers say yes it's ok and some say it is obvious it is not ok, then I am supposed to sit around for a couple years until they tell me it is ok to use. What about all the ones they haven't looked at- the other 500 or so? The standard now to check a program is the elo strength. And I don't need to hear it is not the strength, but how quick it got there. Because most programmers who are not there fairly quick- will never be there. That is a proven fact. So tell all programmers they are welcome, just don't have a powerhouse. If you do- dumb it down before you release it.

And before it is over, agendas and biases will choke the life out of what is left. Sell "there aren't any agendas and biases" to someone who's in the market for bullshit. Assuming you believe that. I can "assume" as easy as you can.

Steroids. You picked the worst example- the ones they help the least. Mostly it is wrestlers, weightlifters, pro football players and baseball PITCHERS. It may help a batter, but it won't help a damn bit one who can't hit the high hard one or the wicked slider. You got to make contact first- and exactly which steroids improve that ability? Then you got a lot of balls that will clear the fence because of steroids, but a hell of a lot of them that instead of clearing it by 40 ft.- now it's only 20 feet. Still a home run. But no doubt it has helped some home-run hitters. You should have mentioned the fact that puts them in the same boat as some of the programmers like Vas. Almost all who admitted taking them in this last incident, as well as those who said they did not, and might have lied- people should mention taking them broke no rules as far as the law goes, and most of the rest were before MLB instituted rules ag. usage. If they lied in that case, it was only that they were scared it would keep them out of the Hall of Fame. You would be shocked at the number of baseball players who took them and did not get much, if any, good results. Like some programmers can take "A" and "B" from another program and shoot to the top- where 50 others who tried after taking "A" and "B" couldn't make it work.

I don't have a solution for the problems in computer chess today. If I did, I would be using it right now. And it hasn't bothered anyone any worse than it has me. But I can tell you it hurts NO ONE to spend my money on a program I trust to be clean and/or downloading free engines and not worry about them. And hell yea, if I later find out the strong program I bought was illegal, I am not going to delete it from my system. It plays just as well either way.

In a thread where I merely used Rybka/Vas as part of the whole picture, never saying I checked the code myself, you just could not refrain from taking another jab at me about Rybka. Have you ever stood up for a friend, and not let the fact that by doing it you would be the least popular around?

Lastly, if Komodo is ever treated as Rybka was, and I thought it was done in an unfair way, I would be RIGHT THERE DEFENDING Dailey and Larry.

And I don't understand what has happened to you. You can't read code, but you go along with the way the panel was formed and say they are right. I have never once been critical of you for your belief.

But if my opinion, not being able to read code either, is based on "feelings" and what I could gain from 4 or 5 other programmers, I must be an insane fool.

But think what you must.




gts

[Steve B]

OK so you say you were basically joking about not giving a hoot if a program is illegal
fair enough

as to my accepting the decision of the ICGA Panel given that i am not a programmer

we have almost every world champion programmer in the last two decades signing the open letter decrying Rybka's involvement in the ICGA World Championships
we have several recognized experts in the field offering evidence
we have a decision handed down after much deliberation
i accept the findings as any lay person accepts the finding of an expert body
I am not an attorney or an expert in constitutional law but i accept the decisions of the Supreme court

i scoff at the nonsense deployed by friends and fans to discredit the entire process from start to finish
as i posted here before ..protests by friends and fans are similar to the family of an convicted criminal complaining that justice was not served to their loved one...
with everything being done wrong from the arresting officers ..to the jury.. to the judge

Rajlich could come on here tomorrow and freely admit he broke the ICGA rules and some from the Rybka forum would even argue with him that he didnt do it

Time to move on George...
aside from a handful of friends and fans and the Dutch federation and their ridiculous decision to allow Rybka to compete in their events..the rest of the CC community has accepted the decision and has moved on
Rybka..as we once knew her .. is no more

Best Regards
Steve

[Albert Silver]

It's not relevant whether Ippo is itself a clone because that has not been legally established.

Not at the moment, but as soon as someone would take legal action against the ippolit publishers, all redistributers would also be liable. They could get out without criminal conviction in case they can plausibly assure that they where not aware of the copyright violations. But this would be nearly impossible in the ippolit case with all the data in the web

In my opinion now the only one who could go after Ipppolit is Fabien and he would have an uphill struggle to prove it's a derivative. It's a heavily modified copy of a heavily modified copy of Fruit.

Perhaps after the Rybka case he could then make the case that Ippo is derived from Rybka and that would be good enough but in my opinion he would have an uphill battle and by the time it's all over with Houdini will be a long forgotten memory. This has turned into a multi-headed monster.

I think the best defense is to wait for Komodo, Critter, Stockfish and hopefully others to surpass Houdini.

Yes, as much as I favor truth and honor, there are battles that are simply a waste. Even supposing Fabien was so inclined, he could expect to spend a ton of time (years) and money pursuing Rybka, with no guarantees of the outcome (trials, appeals, etc.), and then, presuming he feels he can make a compelling case, he would go after Houdini for even more years and money? There is no multi-million dollar settlement in the end, so ultimately he might find it far more productive to just build his own new engine or superduper Fruit v666. If that is of any interest to him of course.

[vijayendran]

Houdini is not a clone of any other engine. In my opinion, People are jealous seeing it's impressive strength that no other engine could ever reach.
Mr. Houdart should not waste his precious time in replying to these unwanted threads.
We all should thank Mr. Houdart for giving Houdini 1.5a free of charge that would have fetched him a lot of money if he had sold in that period when it was released.
It's very generous of him.
We all should never forget that without the work of Mr. Houdart, we would have never got an experience to play with a chess engine rated over 3350 Elo .
Kudos to Mr. Houdart.
Keep up the good work and don't care about these jealous people.

Vijayendran

[perejaslav]

You can ignore the evaluations, since they are obfuscated in Houdini.

You probably don't realize how time-consuming the obfuscating of people is. As a (rather successful) software architect and consultant, the time I spend on Obfuscation actually costs me money - in a real, not virtual way.
Without going commercial, Obfuscini 2 would certainly have been the last version (and maybe I wouldn't even have released it...).

It's what software pirates fail to understand, by denying the engine authors revenues they actually kill off the very thing they are enjoying.

(c)

[bob]

Since when was Ippolit GPL ?? I thought it was released as Public Domain code with absolutely zero restrictions.

GPL requires any derivative work to be released FREE of charge with Source code too. However you are allowed to SELL it or value added services with it, but you still must make the free version available.

Red Hat Linux is a good example. It's open source but it's a commercial distribution which means you can buy it. If you buy it you get "support" and I nice printed handbook or manual or something. However, you can also go right the red hat site and download the distribution and burn your own CD if you want to. If you purchase they will send you the CD with documentation.

What this means for example is that you can sell Robbolitto if you want - however you must acknowledge that it's a derivative work and provide the source code and you must make a free version available too.

Wasn't the original version of Robbolito public domain?

Miguel

I thought ippolit was public domain, and the rest were just derived works, some kept private, some released as GPL, etc...

Exactly what I thought too. But can you take public domain code and modify it a little and then stick a GPL license to it? I think Robbolito is just a small modification of Ippolit, so if Robbolito is useful to Houdini then Robert could just as easily go back to the code base of Ippolit. Since Vas has not taken legal action against Ippolit, that code base is and will stay as public domain. Since it is public domain, everyone and anyone can use it without worry of breaking any license.

Sometimes I think we need an IT law firm to wade through this forum .

Actually, you can do that. To make something truly "public domain" you have to disclaim the copyright, explicitly. And at that point, copyright law no longer applies, and anyone can copy and do whatever they want with the code. Including closing their source, or distributing it under GPL or with normal copyright law...

Messy...

[Mincho Georgiev]

Houdini is not a clone of any other engine. In my opinion, People are jealous seeing it's impressive strength that no other engine could ever reach.
Mr. Houdart should not waste his precious time in replying to these unwanted threads.
We all should thank Mr. Houdart for giving Houdini 1.5a free of charge that would have fetched him a lot of money if he had sold in that period when it was released.
It's very generous of him.
We all should never forget that without the work of Mr. Houdart, we would have never got an experience to play with a chess engine rated over 3350 Elo .
Kudos to Mr. Houdart.
Keep up the good work and don't care about these jealous people.

Vijayendran

Is this a sect?

[michiguel]

It's not relevant whether Ippo is itself a clone because that has not been legally established.

Not at the moment, but as soon as someone would take legal action against the ippolit publishers, all redistributers would also be liable. They could get out without criminal conviction in case they can plausibly assure that they where not aware of the copyright violations. But this would be nearly impossible in the ippolit case with all the data in the web

In my opinion now the only one who could go after Ipppolit is Fabien and he would have an uphill struggle to prove it's a derivative. It's a heavily modified copy of a heavily modified copy of Fruit.

Aren't you stretching this a little bit?

Miguel

Perhaps after the Rybka case he could then make the case that Ippo is derived from Rybka and that would be good enough but in my opinion he would have an uphill battle and by the time it's all over with Houdini will be a long forgotten memory. This has turned into a multi-headed monster.

I think the best defense is to wait for Komodo, Critter, Stockfish and hopefully others to surpass Houdini.

[Pablo Vazquez]

You can ignore the evaluations, since they are obfuscated in Houdini.

You probably don't realize how time-consuming the obfuscating of people is. As a (rather successful) software architect and consultant, the time I spend on Obfuscation actually costs me money - in a real, not virtual way.
Without going commercial, Obfuscini 2 would certainly have been the last version (and maybe I wouldn't even have released it...).

It's what software pirates fail to understand, by denying the engine authors revenues they actually kill off the very thing they are enjoying.

(c)

[marcelk]

only the copyright holder of a GPL license can complain, this is stated clearly.

I think you are misinformed. Can you point out where that is stated clearly?

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-violation.html

The copyright holder is the one who is legally authorized to take action to enforce the license.

Thanks a lot, I wasn't aware of this link.