Official Policy (Playchess)

[AdminX]

What is the Official Playchess Engine Room policy and where is it posted? The only thing I could locate was this link:

http://www.schach-server.de/gameserverm ... rchess.htm

Now I draw your attention to the section posted below;

Compulsory rules:

2. Here, like everywhere else, it is forbidden to trade commercial programs or engines or to use traded or bootlegged software or engines. Contraventions will be punished, at least by a complete permanent banning of all access accounts and other legal action may be taken against the offender as deemed appropriate. Excluded are, of course, freeware or shareware programs as well as the Nalimov Tablebases which are not subject to any copyright.

Based on this, I ask how can it be determined by Playchess which are legal engines? They think it's a clone and therefore it is? They think it's illegal and therefore it is? What if your engine is private and is still in it's developmental stage, is testing it on Playchess allowed? I can see how Onno and Rybka could have been banned in their early days, based on the fact that today any new strong engine is immediately considered a clone by most.

[Dayffd]

What is the Official Playchess Engine Room policy and where is it posted? The only thing I could locate was this link:

http://www.schach-server.de/gameserverm ... rchess.htm

Now I draw your attention to the section posted below;

Compulsory rules:

2. Here, like everywhere else, it is forbidden to trade commercial programs or engines or to use traded or bootlegged software or engines. Contraventions will be punished, at least by a complete permanent banning of all access accounts and other legal action may be taken against the offender as deemed appropriate. Excluded are, of course, freeware or shareware programs as well as the Nalimov Tablebases which are not subject to any copyright.

Based on this, I ask how can it be determined by Playchess which are legal engines? (snipped)

I think, were it me developing a new engine that seems very strong, I would ask maybe 2 - 5 people here such as Dr. Hyatt, Mr. Banks, and a couple of others if they would be willing to run some tests with it in private and perhaps offer any advice or opinion they may have prior to publishing it. Something of a "peer review" prior to publication. This should effectively prevent any controversy such as is going on now.

Written in programming ignorance,

David

[Gian-Carlo Pascutto]

Based on this, I ask how can it be determined by Playchess which are legal engines?

There is no need to. Playchess is a private organization and they can do whatever they want.

A perfectly reasonable policy would be that any engine not sold by ChessBase doesn't exist. (They don't do this, but they could).

[AdminX]

Based on this, I ask how can it be determined by Playchess which are legal engines?

A perfectly reasonable policy would be that any engine not sold by ChessBase doesn't exist. (They don't do this, but they could).

That would seem to be a fair choice/ policy!?

[John Conway]

So strong engines named Fritz are always allowed, even if they are 50 Elo stronger than Rybka 3?

[AdminX]

So strong engines named Fritz are always allowed, even if they are 50 Elo stronger than Rybka 3?

It is their server ...

I prefer that to punishing honest engine authors who happen to create a strong engine but are as yet still unknown.

[M ANSARI]

I think their policy is pretty lenient. I have on many occasions tried obscure engines with no problems. But if the engine is an obvious clone or is highly suspicious such as the engine recently that has come out of the blue with a R3 rating and no author, then I don't blame them. They could get sued and easily go bankrupt if they allow such things to happen.

Another thing is that many are using commercial engines that they have downloaded from pirated sites. While that might be the guy's problem, on many occasions people are offering "X" engine if the other guy would send them "Y" engine or some other form wheeling and dealing. While again that might not be Playchess's problem, they should not do it openly on chat, as that would put Chessbase again in a liability circumstance.

You cannot really blame Playchess for being conservative as it might cost them. Maybe if they were located in a 3rd world country like Russia or even here in Kuwait, they wouldn't have to worry about liabilities. I think that site has been a great help and lot of fun for many, and has probably secretly contributed to chess opening theory more than anyone can imagine. It still sucks big time in the area of "stable" software and the continuous updates with even buggier gui versions is a real pain in the ass, but it is the best we have at the moment.

[Gian-Carlo Pascutto]

While again that might not be Playchess's problem, they should not do it openly on chat, as that would put Chessbase again in a liability circumstance.

Given that Playchess is from ChessBase, and ChessBase is a main seller of chess engines, it's not only liability. The piracy directly hurts them.