The Whistleblowers

[kranium]

Whistleblower's actions are often based a sincere and deep belief that what they are doing is right.
For members of the establishment (or corporation) the typical reaction seems to be to severely criticize and punish the whistleblowers, and attack their 'credibility'. The process is often long and painful for the ones that spoke out, often leading to job loss, ostracization from society, ruined career, personal attacks, threats, and more.

Why are several of the 'establishment', and the many Rybka devotees coming down so hard on people simply speaking out?

I suggest it's because of the fact that Rybka is revered by the chess community, and has been placed on such a high pedestal that any reproach, or even suggestion of criticism is akin to blasphemy.

In addition, the 'establishment' (in this case the chess engine community) has a lot of credibility to lose...if in fact the accusations are true.
What an injustice and embarrassment that would be! The resulting black eye for the chess community would be severe, and likely need medical attention.

It is therefore expected that some members, whose interest is in the status quo, and avoidance of controversy at any cost...would react in a vindictive and unfair manner, and retaliate against the 'whistleblowers'. Libel, slander!! they yell.

it has been posted that:

the whistleblowers are motivated by jealousy and envy
one is only 20 years old, must grow up, i.e. is immature
these people are simply spewing bullshit
it's just a 'smear' campaign
shut up
multiple warning of possible legal issues, damaged reputations, libel suits, etc.
devious
a climate of lynch justice
the motive is that the whistleblowers simply want rybka source code released...
the point of the thread is to publicly vilify Vas as an example to all
the whistleblowers think that 'He is so much better than us, lets get him and make him reveal his secrets'
are you seriously inferring that with Bob, Christophe, Zach, etc. there are ulterior motives involved, other that truth and fairness? I did wonder - yes.
you gentlemen, and I use the word loosely
poor saps
it certainly gives the appearance that because Vas released Rybka 2.2 as a free engine, this is payback from a lot of pissed off programmers
your names would likely be tarnished in the computer chess scene forever. It would be difficult for anybody to take any of you seriously ever again.
is is making an art form out of bullshit
what they really want ? To lynch Vas?

May I ask - why?
Why are people (like Zach, Bob, Christophe), and others being severely criticized for their beliefs, and attacked like this for simply expressing their opinions and speaking out?

[chrisw]

Whistleblower's actions are often based a sincere and deep belief that what they are doing is right.

Cute!

Such a touching alternative to actual, real evidence.

Am I quite alone in imagining the evidence should have been prepared BEFORE opening all these threads?

Where's the evidence?

[gerold]

Anyone who doesn't buy Rybka after all this free advertising
in CCC. Will surly be missing the boat. This forum would be
lonely without all the posts on Rybka.

Thank you Whistleblowers.

Very best to all.

Gerold.

[kranium]

Whistleblower's actions are often based a sincere and deep belief that what they are doing is right.

Cute!

Such a touching alternative to actual, real evidence.

Am I quite alone in imagining the evidence should have been prepared BEFORE opening all these threads?

Where's the evidence?

There has been an enormous amount of material presented. the info was indeed prepared before the the creation of any thread, and was presented as the 1st post of the thread.

Apparently you, with your expert legal staff, have decided it's not 'evidence'. it is you and you alone that is making this determination...and repeatedly proclaiming it as fact.

[chrisw]

Whistleblower's actions are often based a sincere and deep belief that what they are doing is right.

Cute!

Such a touching alternative to actual, real evidence.

Am I quite alone in imagining the evidence should have been prepared BEFORE opening all these threads?

Where's the evidence?

There has been an enormous amount of material presented. the info was indeed prepared before the the creation of any thread, and was presented as the 1st post of the thread.

Apparently you, with your expert legal staff, have decided it's not 'evidence'. it is you and you alone that is making this determination...and repeatedly proclaiming it as fact.

What a load of tosh.

The first post contains a Rybka code chunk disassembly with nothing to compare it to. Because it was all hieroglyphics to you and several others, you just accepted it on face value as "evidence" that Rybka more of less equals Fruit. It is actually nothing of the sort - where's the Fruit code for comparison? Not there is it? Doh!

The high priest programmers spoke incomprehensively and the followers gazed in awe. They must be right, innit? The non-evidence post one then is bumped to the head of the thread continually by someone else who also doesn't understand it.

When the so-called jury doesn't understand the 'evidence', when the 'evidence' isn't evidence and says nothing, when you act on belief, blind faith, zero facts and dubious motive - what have we got? A witchhunt, no more and no less.

Where's the evidence?

[Mike S.]

The first post contains a Rybka code chunk disassembly with nothing to compare it to. (...) where's the Fruit code for comparison? Not there is it? Doh!

Thanks for mentioning that!

I was almost questioning my sanity because I didn't find evidence neither, in that thread. A "side by side" code comparison really seems to be the minimum requirement for such claims. At least that's what I think being no programmer, but I guess even programmers won't have memorized Fruit's assembler code (maybe the sources ).

Nevertheless, a thread with 500+ replies emerged after the non-evidence posting, not bringing the smallest progress in this matter. That's CCC.

[irvstein1]

dude i advise you to find another topic or you will be sliced im sure, your post wont last long. better talk about how good crafty is or how great chessbase can annalyze a position , do not talk about rybka trust me .

[Tony]

The first post contains a Rybka code chunk disassembly with nothing to compare it to. (...) where's the Fruit code for comparison? Not there is it? Doh!

Thanks for mentioning that!

I was almost questioning my sanity because I didn't find evidence neither, in that thread. A "side by side" code comparison really seems to be the minimum requirement for such claims. At least that's what I think being no programmer, but I guess even programmers won't have memorized Fruit's assembler code (maybe the sources ).

Nevertheless, a thread with 500+ replies emerged after the non-evidence posting, not bringing the smallest progress in this matter. That's CCC.

And how many of them were from non programmers giving thier opinion: "I don't understand it, therefor it is not evidence" ?

Tony

[Mike S.]

And how many of them were from non programmers giving thier opinion: "I don't understand it, therefor it is not evidence" ?

None.

Chris is a programmer and doesn't see evidence either.

[bnemias]

Here's how this whole situation looks to me. Keep in mind, I'm new to the argument-- I wasn't present for earlier ones. I write software for a living. I have done minor modifications to various chess engines to make them work in other environments, but I haven't studied any chess programming theory.

Rybka is a lot stronger than its contemporaries, I wonder why. Let's examine what it's doing.

Discover it's similar in output to Fruit. Examine Fruit.

Fruit does X Y Z, but has a much different results in node information. What's Rybka doing different?

Strelka appears, all hell breaks loose. But it answers the above question clearly. Rybka is misrepresenting some UCI information about speeds.

So why would Rybka do that? It was similar to Fruit, let's more closely compare Fruit and Strelka, since we can easily do so.

Some disturbing similarities are found, implying Strelka is a derivative of Fruit.

Vas has claimed Strelka as his code already. So the issue of similarity between Rybka and Strelka isn't heavily explored, and people sometimes use the terms interchangeably.

Most people are convinced that Strelka is a derivative of Fruit. It's hard to deny. So now we are focusing on Rybka instead of Strelka.

That's where we are now. The whole process was logical and natural. It wasn't started as a conspiracy or envy, just curiosity. I can't find anything in the above scenario that is immoral, or deserving of character assassination. That's just the way we find things out. That we've progressed to this point in light of the Signal to Noise ratio here, is impressive. However it turns out, there's been a lot of unnecessary namecalling, serving only to inflame emotions and interfere with the process.